Dear Katrine,

I’ve first heard of Dr. Lepera here on tinybuddha, and recently I’ve come across her youtube videos – and I am loving them! Lots of material on healing the inner child, responding to triggers, healing trauma etc. Very simple and easy to understand. I highly recommend it!

Dear Katrine,

As much as a relief it was to finally receive the right diagnosis last year, I was also devastating since after 20 years of hard work now I had to start all over again.

I know what you mean. Although I started working on myself years ago, I felt pretty stuck for quite a long time and couldn’t stop some of my negative habits. Then I switched therapists, and when I needed to explain my problems all over again to my new therapist, I felt so defeated. Like, why am I still here, why haven’t I made more progress?? I felt so defeated that I gave up therapy altogether and picked up only later, perhaps 5-6 years down the line. And then things started moving, finally…

I was only treated for anxiety and told I just needed to get out of my comfort zone and challenge myself, which didn’t make my anxiety less but actually worse.

That was bad therapy – to treat anxiety with “exposure therapy”, without addressing the underlying issues. In my case, I don’t think that my therapist was inadequate, it’s just that I had so much resistance. Perhaps if I had known the concept of the inner child then, it would have made a difference. But I didn’t, and I had so much trouble talking to myself with compassion. My inner critic was so strong and it just kept me paralyzed. The only true shift started when I was able to get in touch with that innocent child within me and see her/myself with compassion… only then did I manage to silence the voice of the inner critic.

At least since getting the right diagnosis things are moving forward.

That’s great! Be patient with yourself though… because you can’t change in one year what has been accumulating for more than 20 years of your life. Small steps, baby steps, and a lot of patience and self-compassion. At least that’s the only way I know.

Of course, besides having a lot of patience and self-compassion, you can also add some practical steps, such as a daily self-care routine, journaling (specially when you are triggered) and things like that. Dr. Lepera suggests a practice called Future Self journaling, where you envision your future self. I find it quite useful too.

I’m also going to look at the situation with the cute guy and cherish the good moments. The fact that of all the women working there I was the one that stood out to him. I have learn a lot and I still have changes to grow since we still work together so there are many chances to challange myself.

That’s a good attitude. Cherish the good moments, and yes, see it as a challenge: how to stay relatively calm and not too activated in his presence. And if you do get activated, notice your triggers, journal about it, etc… In fact, maybe if instead of a challenge you see it more like a game (something like “let’s see how I’ll react to him today”) and take it less seriously, maybe it would make things easier? Because that would take off some pressure of yourself to behave “perfectly”…

Dear Katrine,

I was forced from a young age to do things that was way too overwhelming for me, and I wasn’t ready for it. That’s the thing when it is mental, people expect you to go from 0-100 and if you can’t they say it’s because you don’t have the will.

You mean mental as opposed to a physical problem? I am guessing that it was different with your sister, who had a physical/neurological disease. She probably wasn’t expected to simply “heal” with the power of her will. And she wasn’t criticized that she was weak when she didn’t succeed, was she?

Am I sensing this correctly that there is wound there related to a different treatment that you and your sister received? Your problems were minimized and you were told to “just get over it”. While your sister got your parents’ full attention. And they never minimized her problems, but took them seriously, right?

People didn’t (and still to this day) respect my boundaries. Which is one of the reasons why i am so hard on myself. I was always told just to push myself harder and that it was not okay to say no because that way your anxiety wins.

I understand. Your boundaries, or rather, your limitations weren’t respected. For example, you were pushed to do a presentation at school, even if you felt horribly anxious. While your sister’s limitations were respected, I guess. Nobody pushed her to do things she wasn’t able to do.

Maybe I am reading too much into this, but perhaps there is another layer of pain – namely not receiving the same kind of care and attention as your sister, even though you too had significant issues and challenges, only of a different type?

So listening to my body and giving it rest when it needs is super important. Be my own gatekeeper and if my body is giving me the red light, people should’t try and convince me that it’s a green light.

That’s true! For example, you shouldn’t be pushing yourself to work overtime. Recently you said: I am working 11 days in a row to help pay for this treatment so not a lot of rest. That’s an example of pushing yourself too hard and not paying attention to your physical limitations. I mean, assuming that it wasn’t your supervisor who forced you to work 11 days in a row, but that it who you who chose to, to pay off your debt sooner?

Dear Katrine,

For the first 7 years where we were trying to get a diagnose she was told to just get over it and that she was probably faking it for attention.

Oh I see… I do remember that your fraternal grandmother thought your sister was faking it, so after a while you stopped communicating with her. How did your parents treat you sister? Did they too tell her to just get over it, during those first 7 years?

I asked for extra shifts to pay it off, cuz I really just want it out of the way.

I understand… perhaps still, listen to your own advice and pay more attention to your physical limitations (“listening to my body and giving it rest when it needs is super important“)… because 11 days in a row is a lot, and it may even bring about another bout of pain if you push yourself too hard!

Dear Katrine,

My parents did treat me different than my sister, they didn’t have the resources to deal with two sick children and so I had to fight my own battles.

Whenever my sister or family member would hurt me they didn’t really want to deal with it, so they always told me to forget about it. Like when I was ten I got a pet bird and when I told my grandmother she called me an animals abuser. I went home crying but was told to not think about it. That makes you feel worthless. Like it’s okay for other people to hurt you, you are not worth protecting.

I understand. I mean, even if your sister’s symptoms were “bigger” and more severe, and the care of your sister took a lot of their time and energy, it was wrong of your parents to not react in situations like with the pet bird. Because your grandmother behaved horribly, accusing you of being an animal abuser (!), and your parents should have called her out on that. They should have not only spoken with her, but they should have also told you that it wasn’t right from the granny to tell you this, and they should have reassured you that you’re not an animal abuser, and that owning a pet bird doesn’t mean animal abuse.

So they should have reacted because it was clearly child abuse at the hands of your grandmother. It was really mean and harmful to tell such a thing to a child!

I understand how unworthy you must have felt – because as you said, it’s like “we don’t care about you, we don’t care how horribly someone treats you. You’re not important.” The message you got is that you’re not important, and that’s probably one of the key core beliefs that you developed about yourself.

Your parents’ failure to protect you from verbal and emotional abuse by others left you vulnerable and helpless around people, which probably added to your anxiety. Maybe that’s why you were so afraid to ride on a bus, for example. So it could be that their negligence directly contributed to your anxiety. In addition to that is the message “you are not worthy”, or “you are less worthy than others”, which is the conclusion you draw based on their negligence.

Of course, it’s a false conclusion, because you are as worthy as anybody else… I hope you can see it and accept it, slowly but surely.

I am glad this past week was relatively good for you, that you got more sleep and weren’t in pain. And also that you felt more relaxed when going out with your friends from work.

Dear Katrine,

it’s not just that people hurt me but that nobody seem to care that they hurt me.

I remember you talking about your work colleagues, who promised to fix you up with your love interest, but then feeling very cozy around him after they get drunk. Like, when they get drunk, they start being “too friendly” with him, and you feel jealous. You feel like they’ve betrayed you… Do I remember this right?

Dear Katrine,

Yes they were all we have your back, we will help you out!

Have you actually asked them if they have spoken to him about you, and what did he say?

You said one of your work colleagues, who is currently working in another country till December, had been putting pressure on your before the yoga date. What kind of pressure was she putting? Was she encouraging you to talk to him? Did she promise she’d talk to him, but she never did?

A couple of weeks ago, that same girl invited everyone to join her for drinks after work, but she didn’t invite you. And you felt excluded and rejected:

one of the girls (the one adding pressure on me before the date) asking people to join her after work for drinks (last friday and today) but didn’t included me. Do now i feel both heartbroken and like i am slowly being cut off for some reason.

Another problem is that when your female colleagues get drunk, they “start touching him and dancing around him, and talking about him and his birthday party in a place where I can hear them when they know how I feel“.

I am sensing some insincerity on their part, specially from the colleague who is now in another country. If she promised to help you, or was encouraging you to approach him, and then a few days later didn’t invite you to go to drinks with the rest of the group – that’s insincere.

Another problem is their partying habits: it seems these girls regularly get drunk, perhaps not to the point of oblivion, but definitely to the point of not having too many inhibitions. And then they do and say things they wouldn’t when they are sober. You being there in their vicinity only hurts you.

I think you should rethink hanging out with these people (or confiding in them either). First, because they might be insincere. And second, because they make a mess of themselves when they drink, and you don’t really need to witness that…