Making Myself Miserable

In therapy, I've been working on a tough issue that has had me frazzled in the past several weeks.  It is the concept that I make myself miserable.  This does not mean that it is conscious or that I can do something about it now...so stop feeling like your "bad" if you do this.

It has to do with my thinking, self-judgement or evaluation of a situation which is usually not based in reality, but in the reality in my head.  I'm learning that others action is generally not about me, but says more about them.

For example, the situation with my aunt choosing not to have any contact with me is not about my self-worth, my being invisible, being unlovable, being defective, etc...  These are things that I tell myself when evaluating and judging myself in this situation.  This is how I am responsible for my own misery.  However, I am generally not yet able to get myself out of this loop which has effected me in all areas of life for way too long.

In working with this in therapy, I painfully had to acknowledge and feel how painful this is and start to see how I am responsible.  At first, I thought that I was a bad person because I was responsible for my own thinking.  But with help, I learned that I takes a long time after 45 years of feeling and thinking this way.

It also is painful, in that, I am beginning to see and feel how my aunt's reaction to me is really not about me and is about her.  I am beginning to accept how sick she is and losing the fantasy of what I thought about our relationship being close.

These are tough issues that I am still working on.  Therapy sometimes really hurts, but at the same time I feel relieved that it isn't about me.

Now, after reading this, don't beat yourself up about it if you relate!!!!  I'm still struggling not to though :-) lol.

"Let's suppose somebody abused you sexually. You still had a choice, though not a good one, about what to tell yourself about the abuse." ~ Albert Ellis, psychologist