Dear greenshade:

Congratulations for continuing to work with your therapist and for working on sitting with your anxiety/ distress instead of reacting to it by stress eating, smoking, and such.

You noticed a couple of things, described in your last post: how you deal with having company and fixating on people: keep noticing these things. And discuss them with your therapist. I think it is the sitting with your emotions, paying attention to your emotions, that makes it possible for you to notice more and more how you function, what triggers you, how you react.

The more you notice, the more of an opportunity there is for you to heal. It takes time and lots of gentleness and patience with yourself. Once you notice this or that- the drive to repeat an unwanted behavior is still strong. So there is more and more to notice, slowly learn, slowly change.

anita

Dear greenshade:

You are welcome. I understand that once you become aware of something you weren’t aware of before, it seems new.

I also understand the need to feel better- oh, I do! And I understand that something that is bad for you can feel better. The part of you that wants to feel better, is it rebelling against the part of you that thinks you deserve to feel badly and should feel badly?

anita