Hi Anita, thank you so much for your posts and sorry for not responding sooner. It’s much easier to reply when I have a good solid block of quiet time to gather my thoughts and am able to write in complete privacy, which I haven’t had the opportunity to do until now.

You are very welcome! “Would you mind sharing how you incorporated CBT into your day to day life? For instance, would you sit down for an allotted time each day to work through the exercises?“- I don’t sit down with the CBT workbook or CBT forms and do the exercises. I do the exercises mentally. I will give you an example  of my most recent CBT mental exercise. It happened when I read the first sentence of your second recent post: “Hi Tee, thanks very much for your reply”. A thought occurred to me: Sadlyconfused didn’t thank me very much did she?  There was hurt and anger accompanying the thought. Next, I thought to myself: oh, this is just me afraid that I am less valued than others, hurt and angry about being treated as LESS THAN. Next, I went back to the post you addressed to me and was pleased that you thanked me “very much” as well. I am aware of my tendency to feel or believe that I am treated as less-than others, aware of my intense and prolonged anger over it growing up… and onward, and so, I no longer assume without checking: I look for the objective reality. *if you didn’t thank me VERY much as well, it wouldn’t have necessarily meant that you value me less: most people are not that careful with their language.

This type of thought process resonates with me so much, thank you for sharing how you respond healthily to it. Interestingly, I’m self-conscious of coming across to others as ingratiating and potentially insincere in my gratitude, so sometimes when I’m particularly aware of this I try to tone my ‘wordiness’ (if that makes sense!) down a bit! It links back to criticism I’ve received in work environments or at school where I was essentially picked on for being “too nice”. It’s really helpful to see how hyper vigilance attunes us to stuff like this. As you say: “most people are not that careful with their language”.

Another thing about this example: a voice in my head says: someone will take advantage of me sharing this and make fun of me for it, saying to me something like: how petty of you, anita! how stupid.. – which gives me the opportunity to do my next CBT mental exercise: I pause and become aware of the fear, fear of being ridiculed, made fun of, shamed, and how much I suffered from this and for so long.. Next, I feel empathy for myself as I think: there is no shame in being hypervigilant to being treated as less-than, when this was my experience growing up and for so long! If anyone ridicules me for this.. they don’t have much of a heart, do they?  Following this latest thought, I no longer feel (for the moment) fear of being ridiculed. I mean, it may happen that I will be ridiculed, but the shame in such a possibility is gone because… I will not be valuing someone who will ridicule me over this, and perhaps.. over any other thing.

This latest exercise made me aware that the fear was not about being ridiculed but about feeling shame, it is the very painful feeling of shame that I fear.

This is the message that I’ve been receiving recently when working on my anxiety, it’s the fear of the unpleasant sensations of anxiety and shame that I fear more than the actual situation. One thing I’ve struggled with ever since I was a child is the feeling of unworthiness when I fear something innocuous, like a conversation with what I perceive to be an authority figure (for example, a GP), and the panic symptoms start to arise. I’ve only recently started to understand that there are probably little nuances to tone of voice or the setting that my brain links back to previous trauma (probably involving either my father or old school teachers), then when the physical sensations happen (flushed face, trembling voice) it turns into panic and shame over having such an ‘over the top’ reaction. It’s hard because I think people genuinely are confused by it, or take it personally, and I end up feeling ashamed of it.

The kind self talk you’ve given as an example is extremely helpful, thank you. I think this is how I would like to aim to talk to myself when these moments happen. It seems that the goal is to be the kind, assertive, emotionally mature adult for ourselves in the present day, which our caregivers failed to be.

* I was impressed by the similarities between your father and my mother: (1) my mother too hit me “not bad enough to leave a mark and incriminate (her)“. She even told me that one time that I remember, when she hit me: “do you think that I am that stupid as to leave a mark on you?”, (2) my mother too did the following: “recording some perceived slight against (her). and finding a way to punish me via humiliation months down the line“- there were many, many perceived, untrue slights that she accused me of. Each humiliation session was very long and very elaborate, (3) my mother too repeatedly “would play the victim and pretend that I was uncontrollable and rebellious, when the reality was that I was a quiet, well-meaning girl“- she accused me of meaning to hurt her by saying this and doing that, when it was not at all the truth, I was not evil-meaning and of course, I had no intention of inviting her abuse, (4) I too was afraid of my mother “creating a scene“- she created lots of scenes, very dramatic, scary scenes.

I read this with wide eyes and huge empathy for you as it all sounds so familiar and I know how deeply it hurts. I’m so sorry that you had to endure this kind of insidious abuse too. Thank you so much for sharing and relating because in doing so it helps me to have more empathy for what I myself went through. I think ultimately we’ve had very understandable human reactions to very unfortunate circumstances; our brains had to wire themselves in the way they did for survival.

“The first time I had truly felt safe in years was when the pandemic happened and we were forced to stay home for months as it meant that my father couldn’t turn up out of the blue and harass me… I think it was only with feeling safe that I could really reflect on how my life looked in the present moment rather than being in fight or flight constantly“- I’ve been living continents and oceans away from my mother and yet, I am not quite sure that I am safe from her. It is strange.. how the fear never really goes away, not altogether.

Yes, it’s so hard. My father lived only 25 minutes away by car and I think even if I had more physical distance I would have still felt like he could drive round the corner at any minute. Although I wouldn’t wish death on anyone, a big weight did drop from my shoulders a few days after I learned that he had passed away.

I wanted to add to your question (“Would you mind sharing how you incorporated CBT into your day to day life?..)“, that at the time(2008-9) I filled in all of the pages of the CBT workbook I mentioned, and because of that book and workbook,  I specifically looked for a CBT therapist. During therapy (2.5 years, 2011-13), I filled in lots of the CBT forms he handed to me,  during sessions and as homework.

Thank you for sharing this, maybe I’ll look into person to person CBT therapy at some point as it would be good to receive some direction on any sticking points!