Dear Sann:

You wrote that it will be difficult for you to be back to the computer for a while. I hope you are doing well and that you are back. I just read your comment in another person’s thread. I copied it and will paste here changing the pronoun “you” to “I”- it is such a well stated description of how you, Sann, operate:

“I am hiding myself, or parts of myself… to seem more relatable to others. But I don’t become more relatable to others, because I am not fully there in the contact, and I am always focusing at least a part of my attention on how I come across, how they might perceive me, what they might think of me. And I get more distanced from myself over time, because I focus so much on how to come across on others.”

Wow! Excellent description.

As to your latest post on this thread: not surprisingly the same theme regarding the expected visit: “I feel a huge pressure to make a good impression”-

My comment: practice operating otherwise. First: your father did not protect you from your mother and did a lousy job being a father, so let him see the consequences of his own inactions and actions: let him see the dysfunction in your life, the distress, whatever is true. In that I agree with that doctor: do tell the truth. No stories. That will be progress on your part.

It doesn’t matter how he reacts, what difference will it make..? There is no benefit to you, that I can tell, for trying to appear like you are doing better than you are. Let the truth be known as is. You owe it to yourself and you do not owe him to protect him from the consequences of his own inactions, for one.

If he (or his girlfriend) think you should be doing better, well, he should have taken you away from your borderline, violent mother’s custody. He should have done that, if he wanted you to be healthier.

And you are getting better, Sann. I can read it in your writing. Part of getting better is telling the truth just like you did at the beach, by the sea when a woman asked you if you were okay.

anita