Dear llyana:

Welcome back. I hope that your various therapists regularly communicate with each other so to coordinate their efforts, and work as a team to  provide you with the best professional help possible. I know that one of your therapists recommended that you visit tiny buddha a few months ago, but I don’t know if your therapists know of your past or current communication in this forum. I believe that they need to know about it and approve of it, if you are to continue here.

I re-read your posts since April 3 to see if I can see something new, or if I can see more of something I saw before, and I did: I saw your anger more clearly. I think that anger is the biggest obstacle to your continuous healing. If healing is a moving vehicle, your anger is The Stop Sign that stops your healing again and again.

If you are feeling distressed now, or at any time as you read, please stop reading. If you think that there is some value in my post, you can bring it to one of your therapists.

You clearly expressed your anger at yourself, using the words: hate, judgment, beating, etc., but you didn’t express your anger at others clearly. Yet, it is still evident:

(1) Anger at yourself: “My whole life I have hated myself… I don’t remember a time when I didn’t hate myself…I hated the way I looked.. I make changes from a place of.. self-judgment, and eventually I get sick of it and give up. ..I have a very critical inner voice, have had for as long as I can remember. I beat myself up for beating myself up. My inner voice is always harsh, always judgmental, never compassionate. ..always finding fault with myself…I feel like a terrible person, a terrible mother, a terrible wife, a terrible sister”.

2) Anger at your father: “My father walked out when I was three, and I didn’t have any contact with him again until I was 10 or 11…He has definitely done a lot to hurt me in the past. He was in and out of my life, and there was child support battle with my mother in which he refused to pay”.

3) Anger at your mother: “She also intercepted letters and gifts that he sent over the years, because she said she thought it would confuse me and that I was better off without him…she all but stopped parenting me, except to discipline me when I did something wrong.. I did not have a loving, attentive mother”.

4) Anger at your husband: “We have very little in common, and I don’t feel like he gets me at all… I don’t know how I can get better without getting emotional support from my partner.. My husband..  is so bad with emotions. But I am a very emotional person, and I cannot be with someone who can’t handle that”.

5) Possibly (I am not sure), anger at your son: “I had a very traumatic birth during which I almost died, and it profoundly affected by ability to bond with my son”- angry at him for almost killing you, I am guessing. Mothers feeling anger is one of the symptoms of postpartum depression which affects roughly 15% of women after childbirth (Wikipedia), and some of the anger felt is at the baby.

6) Anger at Everyone, perhaps: ” Everyone laughed off my fears, and no one talked about my father… I don’t remember ever being reassured that I was good enough, that I was worthy of love”.

If you are still reading, llyana- I wish you well!!!

anita