I’ve been seeing a psychologist for the past year, once every 2-4 weeks, depending on my schedule because i use my lunch hour breaks at work for these sessions, and sometimes work gets rough. I spend too much time alone with my thoughts and start focusing on how i should frame or bring up issues to my psych. I don’t study psychology and i try not to touch read about psychology terminologies online to avoid bias/unreliable narratives. We are working on, what she perceives as, the effects of my childhood emotional neglect. It’s been hard though.
I struggle with bringing up issues or having difficult conversations with people when i’m upset. Friends, family, dates. If it’s me ranting about an incident that upsets me (eg. “Friends” borrowing money from me and then ghosting me, and when i continue try to reach out they keep ignoring me), i don’t have a problem. But if it’s confrontation or requires some vulnerability from me to the person involved with the reason why i’m upset, i just disappear from their lives. I’d rather cut these people off than try to talk to them, bc in my mind it’s useless, they don’t care about me so i should just find people who do and save my energy. Also if they have nasty things to say to me id rather not hear it, because i’ve heard the “youre weird/ugly/off putting” comments at various points of my life. Strange enough, i have more courage with talking to romantic interests. Family and friends, not really.
I know i’m already going for therapy but this might take years for me to figure out and heal/fix. Does anyone else have the same mindset with me and did you decide this needs to be changed?
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Going to therapy once a month is not therapy, it’s maintenance.
You’re avoidant. That’s okay, me too. Still, the only person who can figure out when it’s worth changing is you; does being alone cause you pain, and is that pain greater than the pain of being vulnerable? I know that having loving, supportive people around me makes me a lot happier in my life, so it’s something that I have to work on.
The way I do that is by trusting myself. It sounds like you don’t trust your friends, but it also sounds like you don’t give them a chance to show they can handle your emotions. Show them something small, vulnerability wise, and see how they handle it. Then trust yourself to be able to handle whatever their reaction is, and to respond appropriately.
You think they don’t care about you. Your thoughts are not always true. They are just thoughts, nothing more.