Therapy is meant to help people take a good hard look at themselves, their lives and relationships, and the motivations of others in their space.
It can be ugly and hard, but if you’re willing to put in the work, most of the time it’s worth it, too.
If you’re wanting a free peek behind the curtain, these women are sharing the truths that were the hardest for them to accept.
All too common.
That I have developed codependency and it has pretty much wrecked how I view my relationships and how I act towards myself.
Oh and also, how trauma has affected the way I view people’s tones of voice and facial expression. This has caused me to be hyper aware of body language.
It can be a good and bad thing depending on how you look at it. I can easily pick up when someone is uncomfortable, not saying everything they mean to, are keeping a secret, lying, etc.
But it also makes me overthink and overanalyze HAHA.
You have to be ok either way.
Sometimes you will never get an answer to questions you have, no matter how insane it drives you, and you just have to move on.
Sometimes you get them much later, when you actually stopped caring already
One of my ex gf wanted to marry me after years of relationship and very suddenly broke up. I went nuts over that and it broke my heart.
She refused to meet in person or explain it further… Thought she was cheating or found someone else.
Much later a mutual friend told me, that she never had someone else after me and she found out, that she has a serious mental illness…. Didn’t want to burden me at that time.
I would have done pretty much everything years ago to know that… But finding out that years later just did nothing to me. Felt a little bit sorry for her, but it was her own fault, that she felt the need to deal with that alone….
Life is just weird.
Safety behaviors.
That I don’t do nice things for others because I’m a “nice” person but that I do it in a self-serving manner to keep myself “safe.”
Growing up I worked tirelessly doing nice things for my alcoholic mother so she wouldn’t hurt me and now as an adult compulsively I do nice things for others so that I won’t be rejected by them.
You’ll learn you don’t need it.
I will never get the approval of my parents.
Knowing is half the battle.
I date men just like my dad
For nearly ten years I’ve been in a relationship with a man who works in computers and is into gaming, has major mommy issues, and even has the same hair pattern as my dad.
Somehow only a few months ago did I realize that I’ve got a thing for men with mommy issues. Luckily, knowing is half the battle!
Alone doesn’t mean lonely.
Even though there will be friends and family around, I am still an individual, and I need to start accepting that being alone is good.
Being alone doesn’t need to feel lonely.
You can’t bill them.
That I have to put in work to heal the trauma caused by someone else.
Tough to admit.
That my parents emotionally neglected me. More and more memories of how what I needed was so lacking keep coming up and it hurts to accept that they either didn’t care or didn’t have the energy for me.
I talked to my mother about this after therapy and it took some years for her to admit it, but through admitting it, she realised she was also emotionally neglected by her parents and went to therapy herself.
From then on she’s become more attentive. It was tough for her to admit it though, took a lot of arguing.
My own worst enemy.
That I water red flags so they can grow into beautiful disasters. I am my own worst enemy.
Definitely not normal.
That my parents (mostly my mother) were/are emotionally immature and abusive. It was so normalised my whole childhood, I knew they weren’t great parents but I didn’t realise the amount of trauma I experienced until it surfaced in therapy.
It’s not enough.
Medication will not make me better, it is just there to help me keep going.
Medication turns the tsunami waves into waves that can be surfed.
Therapy and personal
development/growth/understanding/regulation etc. give you the tools to learn how to surf. The more you surf, the bigger the waves you can handle.
Nobody owes you anything.
No one owes you love, even if they’ve said they loved you before… people change, feelings change, it happens.
It’s a hard truth.
A tough one.
That I was not a “low effort kid”. My parents raised me in such a way that i just, stopped having needs because it was easier than expecting them to meet them.
It’s still hard for me to admit that I have needs sometimes, and to admit that I feel pain because I feel they weren’t met.
I’m still working on the part where I’m ugly and unlikeable and nobody will ever really love me. That one is tough.
You can get there.
I can’t afford therapy but I came to a realization as a parent… everything I do and say has an impact on my kids. How the behaviours that my parents did to me are not good and I was doing them to my kids and I never NEVER wanted them to feel the way I did growing up.
So I had to change and now I can proudly say my daughter has gone from “being scared to talk to me” to “being her best friend and not scared of telling me how she truly feels”
I’m so proud of her and myself too.
It’s not your fault.
The reason my mean friends from 13 still effect me today isn’t just because I struggled to get over it, but because everyone in my support circle (family, other friends, etc) didn’t believe me or made it feel like it was my fault for not telling them until after I left that friendship
There is no white knight.
That no one is coming to save you, gotta put your big girl pants on and save yourself.
I like to compare it to a boxing ring.
It’s always you who have to fight your problem, but the important people in your life will always be cheering for you at distance or very closely. It helps to make it feel less lonely 🙂
It’s left its mark.
That I have PTSD because my life has been full of trauma.
Felt terrible when I first heard it. Surely the “trauma” label must be for people who had it worse than me?
Feels much more realistic and objective now that I’ve been treated by a therapist who specializes in PTSD. Yes, what I went through was trauma. And yes, it left its mark on me.
Things are out of your control.
I’m not in charge of other people’s feelings, even when they feel bad because of my actions. Ie. My dad being disappointed that I’m not pursuing higher education or my mom being sad because I won’t let her track me anymore.
Had a therapy appointment today and cried because of this. I have to do what I want to do and find happiness in that, instead of doing what everyone around me wants me to do, even when me not doing what they want hurts them.
Ouch.
My birth mother doesn’t like me and never will. She only acts like it when she wants something.
Don’t go with the flow.
That I didn’t have good models for a healthy relationship growing up and my tendency to enter long term partnerships with bad men and people I wasn’t compatible with because I was just “going with the flow” was ruining my life.
These are rough days, y’all.
But I promise you’re going to get through it.