For some reason I feel comfortable enough with you to put you into the filter where I talk about my shit. This is not an opt-in filter. However, please feel free to opt-out if whatever I’m talking about makes you uncomfortable. I won’t be upset at all.
Some of the main points I want to bring up as the biggest stuff that is on my plate at this point in time:
Anxiety in general. When I get upset about things I shut down and don’t seem to be able to make any progress on my own. How can I better recognize anxiety and not get locked into bad patterns?
Anger management. If something/anything at all sets me off I am completely unreasonable and I can’t calm down. I get violent very easily and I lash out constantly. This isn’t ok. I want to figure out how to stop lashing out and feeling inappropriate anger. It isn’t that I want to stop getting/feeling angry. I just want to do it in a way that isn’t psycho and out-of-line.
Hearing negative when none is intended. This is a major problem in any/all relationships for me. I constantly feel criticized and looked down on even when people are not being anything but positive. A subset of this is my major abandonment fears. I always think that people are formulating an “out” plan for getting out of having to deal with me. How do I stop hearing negative tapes attached to any/every thing that people say?
Inferiority complex. I think that pretty much everyone in my life is better than me intellectually/social class wise/spirituality/whatever. If someone has/does anything better than me I think they are a “better person” than me and then I translate that into feeling totally worthless generally. This is totally the suck because I consciously surround myself with highly talented and brilliant people because those are who I admire and relate to. So I set myself up for feeling bad a lot of the time just in who I like. It’s pretty stupid. Especially considering that these same people almost constantly tell me how much they in turn admire me. It’s part of only hearing negative.
I think these are the basics….
Edit for reframing of goals.
I want to feel secure that people are telling me the truth when they say they love me and are going to stay. (In the sense that they are being honest in their intentions. Life happens.)
I want to feel confident that I am equal to my friends.
I want to hear and believe the positives that people say to me. I want to be able to internalize the affection that people are giving to me.
Others to come….
These seem like excellent starting goals. They seem linked to each other enough to treat them as a coherent whole. They’re goals that you can easily measure progress in (yay for writing them down, by the way – that’s step one).
And yes, you should probably mention the worked-on bad childhood in passing and let the therapist decide how much of that is relevant to these problems. Some of it probably is.
Thank you for trusting me doll… you’re beautiful, smart, and sexy, but most of all, I admire you because you examine your shit. That my friend, is oh so rare. Thank you, for helping ME believe that there are people who do.
Here. Listening. Wishing you the best.