Day 25 Apprehension

On the question of what apprehensions I have about the program or life in general. I think the one big fear is that if I really get in touch with myself that I will break apart my relationship with my husband. There's no real reason to expect that. There are tensions in our relationship, and I do withhold some feelings there, but it seems to me that these are not extraordinary or relationship threatening. The fear seems to be supercharged by my life long abandonment issues and my people-pleasing personality.

 

Howdy...I "liked" your comment since I can relate. Obviously, it's not an enviable situation. I felt the same thing for the entire second half of the 40 days in regards to my wife and daughter. A few weeks into the program, I realized my anger and resentment towards them were actually my biggest issues, and not the other stuff I had been thinking/journaling about prior to that. I was TERRIFIED once I started journaling about them as I found a link between problems with them making me feel "not good enough" in life. I grew scared that my anger was going to take over my consciousness and drive me away from them.

To get past it, I worked with my therapist a lot, and kept reminding myself that people need to be forgiven. Part of the treatment is being kinder to ourselves and to stop putting impossible expectations on ourselves. I realized I was doing that to them too, by getting so upset about things they had done to hurt me. Nobody's perfect and everybody makes mistakes. I also made a "Happy List" of general things that make me happy, as well as things I love about each of them. Reviewing it when I felt down was very helpful. Eventually, I just got used to being angry with them on occasion. I had always repressed that before, so feeling it was very scary at first. It just takes time to come understand it's okay.

 

Thanks for sharing your experience with this. I also am figuring out that what is going on with our relationship is a trigger for my symptoms. Working toward being okay with how I feel, and also trying to be okay with setting some limits to care for myself.