Dear Lara:

I am combining your previous thread with this one in regard to this post. This is what I understand, and please correct me where I am wrong: you went to the  doctor, afraid the doctor will blame  you for not seeing a doctor right after the  fall. You were also afraid that he will blame you for asking for an MRI.

You wrote to  me: “I just reread my  last post ‘I am not a shy person who never asks for stuff‘ is maybe not  true, it  can be difficult in many cases, too the point that I  usually wiggle my way around asking. I guess what  I  want to say instead was that I am not an innocent wallflower“.

As if asking  for something makes you guilty, and not asking makes you innocent; as if you are a bad person if you ask, not a bad person if you don’t ask.

I think that  you believe that you are a bad person. When your mother told you that other people have bad intentions, suggesting that people are bad (an example you gave in your other thread, you tell her “there was this lady  and she said ‘x’ where ‘x’ for me was  something strange but funny. My mother would automatically be  angry and say ‘how could she say something like that to you!’ always assuming  the worst of people”), she also assumed the worst about her daughter. I don’t think she made an exception for  you.

“And  then there were the times I would  say something  she disagreed with, I don’t have an example there but I certainly remember the  disgusted look she gave  me”- that disgusted  look communicated: you are a bad person for thinking  that way, for feeling that way.

Back to the doctor, I think you were afraid that he will tell you or  suggest to you that you are a bad person for  not going  to the doctor immediately after falling and for asking for an  MRI.

Of course, a person is  not bad  for these things, but the  reason you feel that you are bad for these things is  that your mother was unreasonable,  seeing bad where there was none, so you got confused, thinking there is badness where there  is none, not being able to detect in advance what would be  bad to say or do, and  ruminating retroactively, thinking a lot about what you did that was  bad (but wasn’t).

anita