The World's Best Therapy Patient by Ryan Howe

Good article. I started on the WBTC track, but somehow jumped it after only a few weeks. T has gotten the good, the bad, the ugly and...what is worse than the ugly? He still won't go away, dang him!

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While I appreciate this article because it says not to be perfect... it also tells you how not to be not perfect which... if you strive for that is a way of being perfect at not being perfect.

Haha- DF, that is so funny. We are on the same page you and me with that one. I loved the article, but as I was reading it I was getting all anxious. Really take this to a whole new level. I try to be as real as I can, and end up doubting every single thing that comes to mind, which I then worry about- and all of it is a reflection of my desire to please my T. Even striving to no longer strive to please my T- is because I know that this will please him.

arrrrrrrg!

Excellent article AG, thanks for posting it!!

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"If I put aside any masks and let myself show the real me, the healthiest parts as well as the most dysfunctional, the therapist and I can make an honest appraisal and get to work."

A hard place to get to and it takes/will take time when we've been so used to hiding ourselves!!

so my question is- what are some concrete ways to be open and honest- in a relaxed kind of way- stop hiding..is it just do it? How to overcome that freeze response? It feels impossible!

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My very first session - my therapist told me - you don't need to apologize!..the 2nd session sort of chuckled-UV, now quit apologizing. (When he'd ask me a question, for example, and i would forget the answer, i'd say I was sorry for forgetting!

UV - That's interesting. My H shames me for apologizing about stuff I shouldn't. He gets angry at me. It makes me apologize more. I outright told T my problem with feeling sorry/responsible for too many things and how H reacts. We talked about how it was probably about preempting attacks in the past, but T also saw it as kind of a way of "connecting" with people and letting them know I'm thinking about and feeling for them. Rather than tell me not to do it, he'll just ask, "Are you apologizing for _________?" or say, "Do you think I feel upset by _________? I'm not!" or point out that things are not within my power to control or my responsibility, that it wasn't his intention to make me sorry. It really has helped me do two things:
1. Think about why I'm sorry, how deeply I feel sorry and how much was just a reflex to let the person know I care that my actions have an impact on them.
2. Identify the difference between my responsibility sorry and my sympathy sorry (I think of it like "lo siento," in Spanish). I actually find that I say the sympathy sorry far more often, but tend to people take it as the responsibility sorry, because I'm such an intense, overly self-depricating person in general.