Journey To Be Me

ORDERS	SOURCES OF HELP		CONTACT US	ITINERARY

Question & Answer Section Questions addressed on this site are to me submitted via email at jtbm@gmail.com or via snail mail to Karingal Centre LPO, P O Box 7143, Karingal Centre Vic. 3199. This would more accurately be called a “Question and Response Section”, as there is often a multitude of ways to answer any question. Please accept my responses as my opinion only, and keep in mind that I am not a mental health professional. I am hoping that you will find my opinions helpful. If you would like to provide feedback on anything I say, please email jtbm05@gmail.com Please include the question number. I invite any mental health professionals to email me with any research information that they are aware of that shed light on any of the areas of discussion. Q4. Is it normal to worry rather endlessly about saying the wrong thing to other people and think they are offended with you? I get that quite a lot and it is a pain. Could it be connected with emotional abuse or just lack of confidence? It is worse with people I care about eg. people I want to be friends with. I try and avoid as much conflict as possible but sometimes it is just impossible. R4. I think it is more widespread than we think, so in that way it's normal. It all depends on your definition of 'normal'. It is certainly exhausting. I think it definitely comes from a lack of self-confidence - not being confident that your opinion is valid, even if people disagree with it. And lack of self-confidence can come from emotional abuse. It can be difficult to overcome the training we received as children - training that told you, for instance, that if something goes wrong it's your fault, or that if what you say is not understood (or agreed with) then you're stupid, an idiot etc. All these things are accentuated with those we care about, because their opinion is so much more important to us. When possible, dealing with the underlying issues is helpful, but also learning about conflict resolution etc. I am not great in this area, so am definitely not an expert. Something I've found helped is realising that conflict and misunderstandings are a part of life. They will happen. That makes it easier to approach it differently. Rather than going straight to, "I'm an idiot, this always happens to me, I'll never be able to get along with anybody," talking to the person and saying things like, "I think you misunderstood me. What do you think I said?" can bring mutual understanding. Or, "When you said that, I thought you were saying '...'" if something they said hurt you. To encourage you, I have come across very well balanced people who can hear something that isn't being said (or meant). This is one of the main causes of misunderstandings, not that anyone is wanting to hurt anyone, but that we all have "hooks" that react to certain things. I hope this helps and that conflict will become easier for you to deal with. You've already discovered it's impossible to avoid. Change will most likely be slow, but as you think of other ways to respond to conflict I hope you'll find it becomes safer and safer to form and maintain friendships. Q3. Is there anything to say to people who tell me that counselling is the only way to move forward? Due to previous bad experiences, I don't trust counsellors very much and prefer to read about things and do stuff to keep my mind off the bad thoughts. R3. Start by saying you don't agree, and realise you have a right to that opinion. A lot of our forward momentum comes from living, learning and maturing in our everyday lives, and I don't think this ought to minimised. Also, talking to a trusted friend if you have one is invaluable. Counselling is unlikely to benefit you to any significant degree unless you feel safe and have a level of trust in the person you're seeing. Have a look at the introduction to the SOURCES OF HELP section of this website for information about safety in counselling. I'm planning to research this more, because I consider it very important. Counselling can be crucial at those stages in our lives when we hit a brick wall and can't find our own way through, and good counselling can accelerate our growth at any stage. I'd encourage you to continue finding your own way, but if it becomes necessary I hope you will be able to find a professional you feel you can trust. I want to commend you on your coping strategy of doing "stuff to keep my mind off the bad thoughts". A social worker friend told me this is called 'thought stopping' - just refusing to go down the negative tangents. This is very functional unless you're in a counselling context where the goal is to explore and deal with the 'bad thoughts.' Then we're back to where we started - that counselling won't happen until you feel ready, and you have a support person you can trust. In the meantime, what I've found helpful is to challenge the bad thoughts when you're able, eg. if when you make a mistake, "you're useless" pops into your head, you can challenge it with "No, I'm not useless, I'm just human like everyone else." F3.1. Counsellors get impatient at my lack of progress and even going backwards at times. At the least hint of impatience, I close in on myself and will often find a reason not to go back next time (working full time, this is easy - I can just say I couldn't get the time off work.) The only way I could tell them I felt uncomfortable and that I thought they were being judgmental would be to write them a letter. If I get upset with somebody, then quite often I am unable to speak. F3.2. Things that would influence me feeling safe with a counsellor would be: (a) hearing good things about them from other people (b) knowing that they have plenty of experience in dealing with similar kinds of cases (c) knowing they have a genuine liking for other people and a true wish to help them find the best in life that they can. This last factor I think is the most important. Q2. Is there a way to get religious faith back if it is mostly lost? I believe in God but can't picture him as my friend. This isn't because I don't want to and maybe one day I can (I hope so anyway.) R2. I assume this question is being asked in the context of a Christian faith. See the bottom of p.144 of Tell No Secrets, where I began thawing towards God after a period of disenchantment, and realised my feeling distant from God, and in my case active rebellion against him, had more to do with my distorted concepts of God than with God himself. The simple answer is to ask God to reveal himself to you. When you've had an encounter with him you'll have something more solid to hold onto. Then you'll be able to move from him being distant, to being a friend, to being even more. A translation of the Bible that I love is The Message Bible. Start by reading Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, which are the accounts of Jesus' life on earth. Jesus said that if they'd seen him they'd seen God the Father, because they are both One - read about Jesus and see the heart of God for people, and in particular, for you. Q1. Why can’t you just put it behind you and get on with your life? R1. Some people seem to have some success doing this, while others find it virtually impossible. Some of the reasons for this are: The number of lies that were believed as a result of the abuse. The extent to which positive experiences that teach life skills were interrupted or absent. Differences in temperament – it seems that some people take more on board than others. While it’s true that we can’t go back and change what happened, we can work on the belief systems that resulted from what happened.
Karingal Centre LPO, P O Box 7143, Karingal Centre Vic. 3199	ABN: 55 651 493 203	jtbm05@gmail.com

Q3. Is there anything to say to people who tell me that counselling is the only way to move forward? Due to previous bad experiences, I don't trust counsellors very much and prefer to read about things and do stuff to keep my mind off the bad thoughts.

R3. Start by saying you don't agree, and realise you have a right to that opinion. A lot of our forward momentum comes from living, learning and maturing in our everyday lives, and I don't think this ought to minimised. Also, talking to a trusted friend if you have one is invaluable. Counselling is unlikely to benefit you to any significant degree unless you feel safe and have a level of trust in the person you're seeing. Have a look at the introduction to the SOURCES OF HELP section of this website for information about safety in counselling. I'm planning to research this more, because I consider it very important. Counselling can be crucial at those stages in our lives when we hit a brick wall and can't find our own way through, and good counselling can accelerate our growth at any stage. I'd encourage you to continue finding your own way, but if it becomes necessary I hope you will be able to find a professional you feel you can trust.
I want to commend you on your coping strategy of doing "stuff to keep my mind off the bad thoughts". A social worker friend told me this is called 'thought stopping' - just refusing to go down the negative tangents. This is very functional unless you're in a counselling context where the goal is to explore and deal with the 'bad thoughts.' Then we're back to where we started - that counselling won't happen until you feel ready, and you have a support person you can trust. In the meantime, what I've found helpful is to challenge the bad thoughts when you're able, eg. if when you make a mistake, "you're useless" pops into your head, you can challenge it with "No, I'm not useless, I'm just human like everyone else."

F3.1. Counsellors get impatient at my lack of progress and even going backwards at times. At the least hint of impatience, I close in on myself and will often find a reason not to go back next time (working full time, this is easy - I can just say I couldn't get the time off work.) The only way I could tell them I felt uncomfortable and that I thought they were being judgmental would be to write them a letter. If I get upset with somebody, then quite often I am unable to speak.

F3.2. Things that would influence me feeling safe with a counsellor would be:
(a) hearing good things about them from other people
(b) knowing that they have plenty of experience in dealing with similar kinds of cases
(c) knowing they have a genuine liking for other people and a true wish to help them find the best in life that they can. This last factor I think is the most important.

Q2. Is there a way to get religious faith back if it is mostly lost? I believe in God but can't picture him as my friend. This isn't because I don't want to and maybe one day I can (I hope so anyway.)

R2. I assume this question is being asked in the context of a Christian faith. See the bottom of p.144 of Tell No Secrets, where I began thawing towards God after a period of disenchantment, and realised my feeling distant from God, and in my case active rebellion against him, had more to do with my distorted concepts of God than with God himself. The simple answer is to ask God to reveal himself to you. When you've had an encounter with him you'll have something more solid to hold onto. Then you'll be able to move from him being distant, to being a friend, to being even more. A translation of the Bible that I love is The Message Bible. Start by reading Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, which are the accounts of Jesus' life on earth. Jesus said that if they'd seen him they'd seen God the Father, because they are both One - read about Jesus and see the heart of God for people, and in particular, for you.