Dear midnightkill:

I was touched by your story. I am familiar with dissociation and may had times of depersonalization in my past. I am in my fifth year of healing following my first serious psychotherapy in 2011- a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and Mindfulness. The therapy involved the teaching of skills, interpersonal and intrapersonal, psychoeducation. My therapist was “good enough”- hard working, gave me homework every session; provided me with a document with his diagnoses of me, objectives- all very professional- very unlike experiences I had in the past with psychotherapists. I do hope you look for and find a good enough therapist, a true professional who will greatly help you process your past and the strong emotions involved. No wonder you need help to heal from such traumas. Best wishes to you!
anita

Hi Karla,
I know dealing with past is very difficult, because our mind is not ready to let it go that easily.
But remember that any thought that arise in your mind is temporary, basically life time of any thought is less than fraction of second. If such unwanted thought about your past experience arise in your mind, just think that this thought is not going to live on forever at all, and it came just to displease you for just fraction of second. If we keep on reacting to the unpleasant experience, then we create a cycle of constant action and reaction. i.e. a thought arises,we react to it; when we react , another unpleasant experience arises which will be related to first thought; then we feel uncomfortable and again react to it; thus this sequence of action-reaction keep on going till we become demoralised and feel hopeless. Therefore, simply break the cycle, by not reacting to the thought related to past experience at any cost. Just look at your breath and come to present moment. Because past is past, it’s gone, it was just one nightmare, now you have present moment to cherish.

Few years back you would not have never imagined that your hate for humanity would have turned into love some day. In the same way in next few years you will have changed in such a positive manner that you will be surprised that you used to think about all absurd thing in the past, when you have already wonderful present and future ahead of you.

All the things and events in universe are constantly changing and impermanent. Similarly, all mental phenomenon are also impermanent, they simply arise and vanish, if you don’t react to it. Therefore, just look for today, you will become wonderful doctor, because you have already experienced sufferings in the past, hence you will do your best to alleviate sufferings of others, and for that you have to let go of your past.

Take Care!

PS: If possible take a course on mindfullness meditation or vipassana insight meditation, that will help you certainly in dealing with the psychological block that you’ve created inside your mind. Find out about them on internet, you will find loads of useful information and videos on them.

Dear Bethany:

I like very much what you wrote, how condensed and bare-to-the bone you phrased it all.

I am curious. When I see a post by you- I think: this is bethany doing her marketing, trying to make money. I wonder if this is ethical to do so here? How is it that there are not more people marketing their services on this website? I wonder how regulated or un-regulated this business of online therapy is? What about the life coaching business where the life coacher does not have any psychotherapy certification? I wonder if there are scary stories about damage such have caused online customers… I wonder what a psychotherapist like you think about life coaches? Do they take away from your business?

I wonder how you can provide psychotherapy without seeing the client’s face- how do you keep going on a post to a client without checking the response as you go…? Is there a book of instructions for online psychotherapist? A class? A school of how to provide effective psychotherpay online? A black box of warnings? Pros and cons for the client to consider?

And I wonder as I give my input to people… free of charge of course… I worry sometimes about readers who may not be fully aware that I am not a psychotherapist and consider what I write as more than what it is, my unprofessional input. Of course, just because someone is a professional (being officially certified) does not mean they are effective or responsible or…

I am so curious in so many ways…???

anita

Dear Inky:

So it is against the website rules/ standard ethics- I am not sure about it… Can you educate me about this… tell me more about marketing in a website like this?

anita

Dear Inky:

Thanks for your response to me. If bethany does not answer my note to her, that would be clear indication to me that she is hiding something, like the fact that all she is trying to do here is market her services, give a sample of her online service and wait for a bite. If she answers me, well that will be interesting. Again, if she doesn’t answer me and I see her marketing efforts again, I will respond to her again with my new clear understanding of what she is doing, and understanding she helped solidify by lack of response.

anita