Izzy

[Stormchild]

I dunno Iz, it sounds to me like your therapist is copping out.

I mean - if it's impossible for an adult to change - um.

Then.

How come nearly all of the people who go to see therapists are....

wait for it...

ADULTS?

I mean - shouldn't the therapist be showing ALL her adult patients the door, then, if she is honest? Why is she merrily cleaning out their wallets, knowing there is nothing she can do to help them?

I don't know that I'd give up on therapy, just yet, Iz. But you may be wise to give up on this particular therapist. Something here does not parse properly. It really sounds to me like she's copping out on you.

[isittoolate]

hiya Stormchild

I think, really, that there is no one in the world who will ever understand me, and that this is me! Like it or not!

I have been in and out of therapy for 49 years and no one has found a way to get to the heart of the matter.

I have had traumas all my life and am now 68. I am like a lump of stone when it comes to feelings. I said that in my first post. I am not equipped to deal with me and I dare ANY therapist to take me on and find a chink in my armour.

I did this for my daughter and knew in advance there would be no change!

I told her Tuesday that I feel as though I am a bottomless pit of anger that has never been addressed. Anger? At whom---everyone I've ever met?????

There has never been an answer!!
xx
Izzy

[Ami]

Izzy.
  I know that you are frustrated beyond belief. You have had enough heart ache for 20 peoples lives.
  You went through  the depths of pain
 However,  I see a "simple' solution for you, although it will not be easy.I see your problem as a hard "nut" of pain. Inside is you. You have so many beautiful qualities. I can tell that by knowing you on the board.However, they are locked up in the nut with the hard shell.
  How to open it? Pain.   Is it worth it to you? I would think."Yes". I can tell you from what I am going through that the pain allows the hard shell to crack a little.
   Yesterday, I "saw" the betrayal of my parents to me. I just kept crying while I was out in stores.However,  it was a relief .Today, I feel more "real"I am really excited about it.
  It makes me wonder how much s### is left in there. Alot, I think.
   However, my point to you is that the T might have been doing you a big favor.
   My  advice would be to start sharing your heart more. On the threads, dig deep inside you and try to put it on paper.Try to trust the feelings  and ideas inside you more.
    IMO Therapy can put you too much in the 'head" It did with me.If you went all these years to T and are still the same, then it is not working. Therapy hurt me. I could say all the words ,but I had no connection to my gut,. This was my original problem. Therapy just exacerbated it.,
This is all just my opinion. Throw away what  does not seem right to you.                   Love Ami

[isittoolate]

Thank you Ami

I know what you are saying, but it doesn't work for me. Why? Because it is so ingrained? Because I didn't say something at the time of whatever pain?

Let's take my accident and one year in hospital, as an example--
--my brother came to see me once, not his wife though.
--my sister came to see me once, not her husband though
--my nurse sister was local to hospital so came in for the for couple of months, then stopped. Her husband came once, alone.
--my N sister and her 1st husband came every week
--my mother didn't come for 2 weeks
--my dad came.

There was no counselliing for me so I thought my own thoughts about the future, disabled.

There was absolutely no one who talked with me to comfort me, to ask how I was feeling to ask anything at appropriate times, like what were my plans when I left the hospital.

No one!

Do I, 38 years later ask my family,  "why only  once"? I 'imagine' no one wanted to get too close--we never were anyway-- in case I took it as a sign that they would take in my daughter and me, and look after us for eternity.

I've done it on my own and likely have buried any pain connected to it.

I can't cry. The tears are in that shell too.

I can only think-
--this is good
--this is bad
--this is happy
--this is sad
--this is funny
--so I'll smile
--this is cruel
--people can be vile

--and go on working and making sure I no longer "take to" bad people and that I stand up for my self now!

Love
Izzy

[Ami]

What I am saying about the accident ,for example is to,start writing down all that you remember about the betrayals associated with the accident. You just start writing and you will probably keep writing
  It is about the feelings associated with the betrayal. They are still there inside you. You could journal about them ,first. Then later share your "feelings' on the board.
   . However, you might decide that you do not want to go inside and find them. If that is so, then that is your decision for today.
  However, feelings will not kill you, even if it appears that they will. They will  hurt like hell,but you can share that with us. People will understand. You can't be any different than any one else on here.
   When El  or Blackbird shared,it opened up many people to share their own stories Maybe, those people were shut down until El opened up.
   We are all tempted to think that we are the only ones or the "worse" ones. I am tempted to think that way ,too. When other's share,it helps  people to know that they are not alone. .
  The Bible says that 'There is no temptation taken man which is not common to man(something l.like that). Anyway, it is saying that all men have the same feelings such as betrayal, insecurity etc.
I know that the Bible is not "your thing",but IOM,it tells me about life. If it says that we all have the same emotions, I  believe that it is true.
   My point is that you are not the only"alien" who is different. You may have had deeper and greater pain but we will all understand the emotion of pain.
   I don;t know if I am making sense. I am just encouraging you to share your truth about what is inside your particular 'nut", so to speak                          Love     Ami

[isittoolate]

Thanks Ami

I have already shared my traumas. There are all in there.

No one seems to know what to do about them!! Seriously!!

Izzy

EDIT: I can think about them. I do NOT feel them. I told all my stories of beatings and betrayal and injury to the therapist and never cried once.

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[Ami]

I am so very sorry Izzy  .                                        Love Ami

[debkor]

Iz,

Are you angry with the people in your past or have you just accepted that is the way they are and life goes on?  Is it buried or is it acceptance to the things you cannot change,choose or control so you did what you had to do without anyone. Geeze Izzy, your pretty much a warrior.  Your probably one of the most real people I have ever come across. 

Deb

[isittoolate]

Thanks Ami

and Deb
I expect that I am a bottomless pit of anger, but I never show it. I never yell, curse or reem anyone.

I don't like my FOO as this began when I was little and beaten. No one talked about such things. They were part of life. I just have instinctlively known what was bad, obviously knew what was physically painful and buried all these things deeply-- every bad thing I did, the knowledge of them my head but I don't know where that feeling place is!

I made up ways to survive, even at five. I put designs in my head to remember all my numbers, another for months of the  year, another for days of the week.  I must have known I would have to survive on my own!. There was no acceptance of the "bad" things --they went immediately to 'whereever' and I wouldn't have to deal with them. The pain from a beating would go there immediately. I have a very high threshold for pain.

Yes, at a very early age I felt like the odd man out, outside looking in, the black sheep, the scapegoat.

My anger is not at anyone outside my family--- I have no explanation for that--- it is my FOO. They were supposed to love me. protect me, and they didn't. So I am a loner

A warrior?
Real?

I feel like a phony!! an oddball, a robot,  a walking "time bomb"---should that cement shell break and all the feelings came spilling out, I might just go insane!

Love
Izzy

[Ami]

The fear of going insane is what is keeping them in. You won;t go insane ,you will just hurt and cry. If you have not gone insane up to now ,holding them in. You won;t go insane when you let them out (IMO)                                                                Love  Ami

[isittoolate]

HI Ami
I have no fear of going insane because I don't know where my feelings are. I used the term "I might...."

If I did know where, a therapist, many years ago, might have helped me, but maybe they are buried in a lock box buried in the bush on the back 40 of the farm where I grew up.

I have been opened up surgically and they were not there.

Are you understanding me? I know but I don't feel. I don't cry. I don't yell.

I don't get close to people who will notice this. I am business-like and/or amusing!

xxoo
Izzy

EDIT: We don't know what we look like unless we look in a mirror or see a photo of ourselves, but what if the mirror and the camera are wrong? I thought this when I was about 18. I asked my girlfriend to look straight at me and then look at me in the mirror---Did I look the same? I feel as though I look like a human being, but all these weird thing are helping to make my personality and character, that don't match my appearance.

[Hopalong]

I believe you, Izz.

Human beings are very mysterious.

You might be Aspergerish. You might be a math genius.
You might be Groucho Marx reincarnated.

All I know is, you're Izzy and I like you.
You can't "pry" emotion out of yourself that feels inauthentic. I understand.

You could try some meditative or spiritual practice and see what happens over time.
Or you could be just happy and acepting of yourself as you sound now, and let your spirit rest.

All life's a mystery. And you belong in life.

Hops

[isittoolate]

Oh Thank you Hops,
I am glad you believe me.

I love your ideas!!

BUT GET THIS EVERYONE!!!!!

I read an essay written by someone, after my last post, and in it she said, & I am paraphrasing, most people are in the state of having a 'motive' or a reason for thinkng, doing, feeling.

The flip side of that is EMOTIVE and she states that in the emotive state a person can have no feelings at all.

In other words you are all rational and I am irrational.  Have you ever heard of "Rational emotive behavior therapy[/b]"

Quotes
"In other words, human beings on the basis of their belief system actively, though not always consciously, disturb themselves, and even disturb themselves about their disturbances."

" Irrational beliefs prevent goal attainment, lead to inner conflict, lead to more conflict with others and poor mental health. Rational beliefs lead to goal attainment and more inner harmony. In other words rational beliefs reduce conflicts with others and improved mental health.

"REBT claims that irrational and self-defeating thinking, emoting and behaving are correlated with emotional difficulties such as self-blame, jealousy, guilt, Low Frustration Tolerance, depression, and anxiety. This is a view shared with some other well-known therapies, such as Re-evaluation Counselling and Person-centred counselling - as these both arose in the mid-50s, Ellis is thought to have had an influence on them. REBT is an educational and active-directive process in which the therapist teaches the client how to identify irrational and self-defeating tendencies which in nature are unrealistic, illogical and absolutist, and then to forcefully and emotionally dispute them, and replace them with more rational and self-helping ones.

OMG! I learned something---- I must study up on it more!! Those were just a few quotes from ther wikipedia definition.



"I found the essay"... and this is where my search began.

I am not sure of what its other uses might be. They are just logic tables.

They really don't have too much to do with feelings (emotions), all
feelings are created by motives, needs and fears, algedonic signals. It is
possible to have no feelings at all in the emotive sense. However very
difficult if I throw myself off a bridge with a bungy attached to my feet,..."


more from Ellis:

Key to REBT thought is that the evaluation of the event, not the activating event itself, causes the emotional consequence; that by attaining a more rational evaluation of ourselves, others and the world, we are more likely to behave and emote in a more life-serving and adaptive way.

Originator Albert Ellis points out, "People are born and reared with the ability to look at the data of their lives, particularly the negative things that happen to them against their goals and interests, and to make inaccurate inferences and attributions about these data."

Whence do our self-sabotaging irrational beliefs originate? REBT teaches that we learn some of them during our childhood, some from environmental factors, but largely that human beings have strong inborne biological tendencies(Ellis, 2003). REBT differs from psychoanalysis in that it places little emphasis on exploring the past, but instead focuses on changing the current evaluations and philosophical thinking about our lives, others and ourselves.


Love Izzy

[debkor]

Hey Iz,

I understand too.  Your ok with me in my book. I like ya anyoway!! So there!!

Deb

[isittoolate]

Thank you too, Deb

I have a "name for it" Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And now will watch a DVD to celebrate!!!!!!!
Izzy