Dear Lily:

You will be able to focus more on the present when you resolve the issues from the past.

I agree with you that a parent should not inflict physical or other violence on a child, doesn’t matter that it doesn’t draw blood if he hits you not that hard… it is wrong nonetheless. Verbal insults is also wrong, and so is disrespect of any kind.

Reads to me that what happened was that you were mistreated by your father/ others as a child. You naturally felt hurt and naturally, you felt angry. Problem is, the people who mistreated you (ex. your father slapping your face, insulting you,  taking your sister’s side when she was wrong to you), he didn’t correct himself: he didn’t approach you after any of his mistreatments of you, telling you he was wrong and that he will correct his behavior in the future.

Instead, he acted like nothing had happened.

So your anger, still there, naturally and understandably, confused you: made you think that you are the bad person. As in: why am I feeling angry at a person who didn’t do me any wrong?

But he did do you wrong. He just didn’t acknowledge that he did.

Children feel guilty when they feel angry at a parent. Unless the parent tells the child something like: I understand that you feel angry at me. I understand because I hit you, and I shouldn’t have. I am so sorry. I hurt you and I don’t want to hurt you again. I will do everything to not hurt you again.

But he didn’t say that. The man in the other dormitory situation, he mistreated you too, but he acted as if nothing happened. So, you figured nothing happened, no harm done.

Only that harm was done.

I hope that over time, sooner than later, you will be able to determine when wrong is done to you, when harm is done or about to  be done to you even when the person acts like there was no wrong on his or her part. A time when you will not need the other person to agree that he is mistreating you before you believe it is happening.

“how to help myself?”- I hope you do find ways and please, do post anytime.

anita

Hi Lily,

I’m with Anita on this one – she has a really good explanation of how children feel guilty for their anger towards a parent, even when that parent is mistreating them.

I would not characterize slapping a child in the face as “light” punishment like you did, using a term to minimize the abusive treatment. There’s never any reason to slap a child in the face. It is not at all surprising you hit your sister. Children copy what they see their parents do. You’re carrying a lot of guilt that belongs to other people. By all means, acknowledge hitting her was wrong, but then feel free to let it go. You were a kid. It’s over.

As far as your therapist disappearing on you, sometimes it helps me to take things out of the personal context and put them into a different context so I can see them clearer. For example, what if we were discussing your mechanic, not your therapist?

The mechanic says you probably need a different mechanic for your car’s problem, then he is unavailable to you because he has a health problem, then he never sets up another time to look at your car again for months.

Would you be worried about the mechanic rejecting your car? Would you think, “I guess my car is too broken to be fixed”? Or would you think: “Well, this isn’t really working out with this mechanic, he seems to be too busy or preoccupied to help me with my problem. I’m going to need a different mechanic.”

As an outsider, based on what you’ve said, I’d guess the abuse you suffered in your home and school has given you a lot of hesitancy to judge other people’s treatment of you (not knowing how to handle a small interaction with a flatmate, ie). I have had trouble with this, too.

So I do this mental exercise when I feel too close to a problem: either put the issue into an impersonal setting, like the mechanic. Or I try to think about what I would tell a friend who is in my position, because for some reason it’s a lot easier to think about how to help other people.

I hope you can find a new therapist that actually helps you, if that is what you want. The shame cycle of being unmotivated/wasting time is a pretty hard one to break out of, but it’s definitely attainable and it does get easier. I still go through cycles but they are shorter and shorter these days.

It comes from adjusting my goals. If your “two hours of work at a time” system was not working, did your therapist help you set a smaller goal? That is the key to making progress.

If I can’t do two hours, maybe I can do fifteen minutes.

When I commit to fifteen minutes of something, I often end up doing the whole two hours. But if I keep trying to do two hours and failing, I just feel bad and procrastinate all the time. I will even sometimes set a timer for fifteen minutes. If I know I am “free” at the end of fifteen minutes, then I am not so averse to sitting down and trying.

Dear Lily:

You are welcome.

You wrote that too often you go online to distract yourself, “to not have to face reality”- including here, on this thread?

anita

Dear Lily:

I will be away from the computer for about fifteen hours. If you would like to post about what changes you would like to make specifically, what would be progress look like for you, what it means specifically, please do and I will reply when I am back.

Take care and I hope you feel better soon.

anita

Hi Lily

Its sounds like you have a good idea of what you need to work on and what you need to do.

With regards with working on understanding your past and how its impacting your present finding a new therapist with that specific goal in mind might be helpful.  I found David Richo books a helpful guide – ‘When the Past Is Present’ and ‘The Five Things We Cannot Change’

For the issue of what you can do now I like what you said, “I think I need to set small tasks for myself and not do too much at once.”

From the list I would start with – exercising more while practicing non-judgment. “Just do it” no thinking required

I challenge you to go for a walk at lunch or after supper everyday for the next two weeks. Doesn’t have to be far.

While your walking,  notice your thoughts. Notice what happens if you label yourself based on the thoughts you have. There is no right or wrong way to take a step,  no right or wrong thoughts.  Each step is only a step each thought only a thought. Feel the wind and the sun or the rain… notice that the thoughts quite and change if you set your attention on the light in the trees…  notice that thoughts flow, they can be observed without attaching ‘yourself’ to them…. Without having to follow them down the rabbit hole…

Lily,

I would not beat myself up for not being able to change ingrained habits.  Our evolutionary biology keeps us from easily doing so.

Gretchen Rubin identifies 4 different personality types which helps to know how best approach in ending or starting a new habit.

Four Personality Types: Which One Are You?

Take care,

Mark