I noticed that I am often confused about what can I expect of other people, how close to other people you can get and how much of yourself it is alright to reveal.
I remember that as a child I always wanted to have a close friend with whom I could trust my secrets. I didn't really have any big secrets but I dreamt of a great intimate frienship. I guess children don't really form this kind of relationships between themselves. I suppose that it should be a mother with whom a child should really trust and have this really close intimate relationship. I'm not sure if I'm correct here.
However as I grew up I had a few friends with whom I was really close, friends who also had some family issues and we were almost each others confessors. This was the kind of frienship that I was longing for as a child. Later on, I thought that only this kind of relationship is true and meaningfull and in order to bond you need to be able to spill out your guts to the other person. I'm a bit confused how much you can actually expect from people, because apparently not all people expect to be trusted my problems and all. Basicly I don't know how much of yourself you can share, how far do you go to have a meaningful bond with a person, how do you develop it and maintain. I guess that's why I am in therapy.

I think with some people I tend to share too much and risk getting misunderstood and hurt, and with others I keep to much distance because I don't know how much I can tell them about myself, how much do they want to know me, how close is alright with them. I am afraid of keeping too much distance and appear as cold and reserved or be too needy, too clingy, too much, too burdening with my own stuff. I think sometimes I may expect some people to became my therapist or my parent and sometimes I pretend I don't have that need, because I am afraid of loosing them. Sometimes I would like to talk about myself a lot, and sometimes I feel I should be really quiet because it is not appropriate to give intimate details about yourself.

I got really upset today with my friends (with whom I probably shared too much and expected too much, only my therapist actually has that kind of empathy for me). A friend of mine just finished reading a book about a few women meeting for a group therapy. The therapist was very challenging with them, was disputing issues with them, suggested different approach and attitudes to situations they were dealing with. Since I told my friends that my therapist doesn't give me advise, doesn't tell me what to do what or to think, doesn't try to comfort me and cheer me up when I'm crying and feeling sorry for myself, doesn't suggest to find different attitude to me being single and alone, and allows me to be in love with him, then basicly he must be a dodgy therapist, some unexperienced individual trying out his own approach on me. I got really pissed off, but I knew I can't show my feelings to them the way I would show them to him. Basicly we were at canteen and that was not the place to start a major fight, especially that some were already getting agitated and I was getting angry. I swallowed it up and feeling pissed off now. I feel that I crossed certain boundary with them and gave them information that is beyond their comprehension (none of them were in therapy and they don't have a bloody clue). Beating myself up for this and feeling really pised off about how dared they suggest that my therapist is in any way bad, unexperienced, does something wrong or doesn't have a clue what he actually does.
really pissed off here...

What do you think....