I am so glad this T has so much experience with you

I am not thrilled with the word either. It causes me at times to feel it means I was very evil or bad prior to therapy. Now, I try to see it as less of my symptoms, still me but without the limits of PTSD or anxiety or self-hating and empty worthlessness. I've not been any other way, so it is scary but I see the progress many times and now I am much more... Free-ish. I was worried medication would change me fundamentally as a person (it didn't) or therapy would (it hasn't yet). It has allowed me to accept who I am. I really am someone who likes to sing, I really am someone who is great at xyz, I can communicate about me rather than others, I am allowed things like being listened to, etc. Those I don't find to be personality changes. Anyway - this is what I tell myself to ease the monster feelings I'm still dealing with.

On the eating disorder end... I take it much differently. Recovery means less reliance on the collection of my self harm "addiction" (it is brain chemicals after all). I know I will be in a constant state of those urges. I've had my eating disorder 18 years - it's not just something that will stop and it has been a part of my identity (so I do understand again that feeling of "holy crap, who will I BE after this). I think I will always be aware of food when I'm upset, tempted to harm myself if things feel "too much" so that is why I'm more okay with the word there.

Have you asked T what it means to her to say?

((Cat))

Thanks for your input..

I don't have a problem with the word if I were to use it talking about recovering from my ED either. I guess what gets me about it in general terms is the thought that, in using that word, new T sees some sort of fundamental "bad-ness" that needs to be fixed. Yeah, that hurts to think of it that way. It makes me think that she's not really here to help me but to fix what is wrong with me.

There's a fine line there, though...because there are things wrong with me - or else I wouldn't be there in the first place. But I guess, at least with me, it's easy for a T, namely new T, to unintentionally step across that invisible line into the territory where she doesn't come across as accepting of who I am now but just focused on getting me to someplace new.

I have no idea if that made sense. I have not talked to her about it yet.. I didn't even realize until after the session how much of a problem I had with the word. I just remember feeling a jolt every time she said it. It's going to be about a week and a half until my next session (maybe, I don't know...I'm having knee surgery next week and have no clue at this point if I'll be able to go to the session). I'm hoping I'll be able to bring it up, unless something more pressing comes up.

Thanks again, Cat.

(((kash)))

I'm glad things are going overall well with your new T. I can totally relate to your sense of feeling there is nothing to recover to...no point in time to go back to and you could have back everything you lost...because it was more like you never had it to begin with.

It also gives me this feeling of...well, there are areas of my life in which I feel "ill" and I'm OK with it being used for those. But, in areas of my life that feel more like I'm almost functionally disabled in some way, it feels like, "Hey, I'm not sick, this is just who I am, and I'm learning to live with/through who I am instead of around it all the time. To me, that isn't the same thing as recovering from an actual illness. I guess I don't like it, because I don't like to think of myself as "ill," and because I like to be realistic that there are some ways my upbringing impacted me that can never be made as if I had "good enough" care at the time. It doesn't mean I can't have a great life, but physiological, psychologically/emotionally, etc., my body and brain will respond differently in some ways because of those experiences. It's just...recovery is not the right word for that.

I can't put my finger on it well enough to explain. :/

My discomfort with the word is one reason I've cringed every time anyone tells me about that Christian group, "Celebrate Recovery," which I guess is kind of a variant of AA?

Hi Kash

Maybe a way to think about it is recovering your "true self" (both Winnicott and Masterson write about this) and being able to live freely and peacefully rather than in the constraints of your "false self" that adapted to allow you to survive your childhood but is an outdated and unhelpful way of perceiving and relating to the world in adulthood. You won't ever know what life would be like if you hadnt had to create a false self but you can heal and be able to live in a more authentic and content way from who you really are now as an adult xxx