Posted by Dinah on August 31, 2004, at 10:16:38
In reply to Re: A question please? For any/every one » Dinah, posted by Larry Hoover on August 26, 2004, at 10:07:30
Lar, I want to thank you for your thoughtful posts. And they did make me think. :)
I really still can't see the energy involved in being the super-rational surface me. It seems like I'm always fighting and struggling to maintain access to my emotions, not trying to box them away. And sometimes it just doesn't seem worth the fight. You're right about the environment. But I had a big part in some of that. I was born into a family with too many emotional issues to want me to be real, to want me to present any additional trouble to the already precariously balanced family structure. It was my job to reduce stress, not increase it.
But I'm the one who chose my husband and the rest of the environmental factors that push against authenticity. I chose my husband while at my most rational, and it was a great choice for the most rational side of me. He's a lot like the most rational side of me, and we have a great time together. But he has enough trouble accepting my son as a little boy rather than a miniature man. He has less than no desire to accept the real me. He's a great guy in so very many ways. But striving to be authentic for him is a bad idea.
So I'm left wondering why on earth I bother. The people in my real life have no desire that I be other than smart and productive and maybe funny and enjoyable to be around. It feels like I'm expending all this effort in therapy so that I can be myself - but only in therapy. Maybe that's the main reason behind the push/pull at reducing therapy right now. If I don't have therapy to be real in, there's no point in being real. If I go from twice to once a week, my ability to access my emotions will be less and less, but I'll also have less and less reason to access my emotions.
I know that at some level I'm supposed to want to have access to my emotions for *myself*, but I just can't seem to summon up the enthusiasm if there's no real place to enjoy it and no others to enjoy it with me.
Plus, I'm a huge chicken. :) That's been the defining quality of my life. I run and hide. And I'm facing some big losses in the coming years. And some difficult situations and choices with my parents. I want to just burrow deep inside myself and hide till it's all over and it's relatively safe to come out.
Yet I suppose to some extent, I do want to keep the emotional integrity that I've fought so hard to achieve. So I waffle back and forth and am more conflicted than I'd like to be. If I weren't conflicted, I'd just go ahead and do it, wouldn't I?
I wish I weren't such a chicken. :(
And I did become much better with emotion names as I gained more and more access to my emotions. Although I frequently get preoccupied with getting *just* the right name, and get really frustrated when I can't access it, refusing to accept a good enough substitute. But I find I'm like that with words in general, not just emotion words.
poster:Dinah
thread:380351
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040828/msgs/384673.html