Throw away account obviously but I’m sitting here, on a Friday night alone. I recently split off with my fiancee of 2 years, we were supposed to be wed in a few months. Shes off partying and living life up, and I’m happy for her. We still live together for the time being before our lease ends. This is exactly how my previous relationship ended. Ironic. She has a social circle to support her.
Well, throughout the course of 5 years, I have slowly burned many bridges of friends and over the course of 10 years, have destroyed many women’s perception of trust. The list goes on. My regret and guilt is an all time high.
On top of this, my family doesn’t really know the real me. I have such a hard time making connections with them and others at this point of my life.
I am seeking to rectify the entire situation by trying some therapeutic techniques. AMA.
Tried therapy or counseling of sone sort? The fact that understood the problem, will make therapy eady to accept IMO. So if you haven’t tried, I highly recommend it.
Yes I have, I’ve had multiple sessions spanning from different providers with different credentials each (psychotherapist, psychologist, psychiatrist, counselor, LMFT) and all these different visits spanned across years of my life. Between 3-5 years now that I recall. I don’t regret most, but I regret some. I’ve told some of them some very traumatizing things and can’t help but feel judged as a human, even though they are literally paid to not judge me. It’s a difficult thing to balance in my brain right now.
Finding a right therapist is actually very difficult. Were you able to do therapy regularly? Or it was more like you saw them only during crisis? If it was irregular due to bad experience with therapists, it should not discourage you to seek help again.
I don’t know anything about you other than what you said in the post. But my gut feeling is that you need some for of intervention, and good guidance on how to work out things. In another comment you mentioned about spirituality. There are counselling services associated with different religious institutions. That can also be an option. But again, as my psychiatrist ones said, it is difficult to find a good psychologist who won’t influence you with their own personal biases.
If you have good savings, and can afford to not work for a few months, then some form of retreat into a less chaotic place can also be a good idea.
I was unsuccessful in finding the right therapist for me. It has been a difficult journey. I learned that it takes two to tango especially when it comes to therapy, and thats most likely why I wasn’t able to get the most out of therapy. I wanted to say that the personality or mask that I presented to the therapists that I met were not me, they weren’t genuine representations of myself and so maybe that’s why I wasn’t able to fully learn from the experience. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against therapy at all, I 100% encourage it in my life, I just want to make sure I find one that I click with, but knowing me, it’s hard because I have trust issues.
I absolutely agree with you, I have been forcing myself to have these moments of learning that are unavoidable - that is to say, that I need to confront whatever it is that I have a problem with, right there and then. I grew up Catholic and then my family transitioned to Christianity. I never grew up with those in my mind. I went through the motions of going to church with my family, attempting to make friends at those institutions that we visited but ultimately, as a young child growing up, it didn’t feel natural to me. I felt that most other kids at sunday school were generally dismissive of me or ignored me due to how real I was. When I say that, I just mean that I remained aloof rather than playing the “social norms” games that they wanted to play. I usually just stuck with whoever I vibed with.
I do agree, that only some of my therapists have been trying to sway me in the direction that they deem correct but thats the thing about life, there is no true way to live. I actually had the last 6 months off and been trying to find work since. I have been living off my savings which is completely bone dry now and she has been financially supporting me which has led her to resent me in a way. I’m still seeking to rectify the situation.