Self Analysis
Posted on 2003-07-22
I care way too much about what people think of me.
I really want to come across as being likeable, caring, intelligent, sympathetic, honest, reliable, and hundreds of other qualities, but I want it to be me, not just my words that people like.
Most of my life I told myself that I didn't care what other people thought of me because I assumed that nobody would think much of me anyway.
In today's therapy session, Kate helped me realise that this was a kind of defence mechanism that I'd enforced on myself without ever being aware that I was doing so. I'd been rejected by my own father at a young age, and I was subconsciously thinking that others would react in the same way towards me. By assuming that people wouldn't like me I stopped myself forming close bonds with anyone, and therefore if someone were to pack up and leave me I wouldn't feel the same sense of rejection or loss all over again.
I suppose writing it down like this in black and white makes it sound pretty obvious, and maybe it's something that you (if you read my diary regularly) may have already thought of or noticed about me. But I can honestly say I never looked at myself and my situation through someone else's eyes the way Kate made me today. It's like handing out advice..... most people have a good idea what to say to a friend who comes to them for help, but if you were to place yourself in the exact same situation the solution never seems quite as easy.
I think in next week's session we'll be covering some breathing techniques instead of talking about my M.E and depression, and to be honest I think I could do with the breather, (no pun intended). Therapy and self analysis is far too exhausting for me.