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It's the impact the supposed rejection has on me that's having way too much of an impact on me, and something I would agree needs to be addressed as rejection comes in many forms so....like another poster said, God help me if (when) someone I truly love/care about does me wrong. Which I have had happen before a few years ago. It was not pretty.
Yep, this is exactly what you need to seek to address and learn how to handle healthily. And, clearly, your current approach is not one that is working well.
Well, deep down I do 'know' that, but that's not the way my mind thinks when this sort of thing happens.
The thought process I go through is:
-I wasn't attractive enough for him to stay/come back to me
-I wasn't attractive enough for him to call back at another time or try to communicate with me to meet again
-I wasn't worthy of enough respect for him to use a condom
-I was a bad judge of character and shouldn't have even been so shocked someone I barely knew pulled something like this
-I was dumb not to be prepared myself just in case this happened
....and on and on and on. I am guessing this is not how others' minds work. This is the thought process I go through. And not just right after it happens...all day...even today. I can't stop thinking about it.
Well, it's not the thought process of someone whose sense of self hasn't been badly damaged by prior abuse and molestation, but it would be pretty amazing if you WEREN'T reacting this way, given the abuse.
Consciously working to rewire these types of thought patterns is really hard work, especially when they are so ingrained, but there are evidence-based therapeutic approaches that can help you do just that, if you're up for putting in the effort.
Counseling, if you go that route, is about 99% what you put into it, though, and approaches like CBT (which focuses in large part on retraining yourself out of cycles of maladaptive thought patterns) don't work well on people who expect them to be a magic pill. Getting emotionally healthy is a lot of effing work, even with help. Some people don't get that about therapy, which is why I mention that. I had an ex for whom CBT "didn't work," and the reason it didn't work was because he didn't actually commit to working on his problem behavior. He thought sitting in a therapist's office for 45 minutes every couple of weeks would just "fix him" on its own and was pissed that it doesn't work like that.
Well, it's not the thought process of someone whose sense of self hasn't been badly damaged by prior abuse and molestation, but it would be pretty amazing if you WEREN'T reacting this way, given the abuse.
Consciously working to rewire these types of thought patterns is really hard work, especially when they are so ingrained, but there are evidence-based therapeutic approaches that can help you do just that, if you're up for putting in the effort.
Counseling, if you go that route, is about 99% what you put into it, though, and approaches like CBT (which focuses in large part on retraining yourself out of cycles of maladaptive thought patterns) don't work well on people who expect them to be a magic pill. Getting emotionally healthy is a lot of effing work, even with help. Some people don't get that about therapy, which is why I mention that. I had an ex for whom CBT "didn't work," and the reason it didn't work was because he didn't actually commit to working on his problem behavior. He thought sitting in a therapist's office for 45 minutes every couple of weeks would just "fix him" on its own and was pissed that it doesn't work like that.
Well I'm just starting to realize that. After not seeing my counselor for months and seeing her yesterday, I realized I need someone new. We always appear to only be 'scratching the surface' when it comes to issues I need to address.
The sessions are more like venting sessions of mine, where she gives me homework at the end which is usually:
-Join this or that website to meet a better quality of men
-Join a church
-Delve back into the hobbies I've been neglecting
-Get back on antidepressants and exercise more
Not saying those things aren't important...but after almost 2 years with this counselor I'm realizing we aren't getting anywhere and my main motivation in seeing her is simply to have someone to talk to outside of my friends. Considering she knows the things I've been through, I'd think we would have employed some kind of identifiable techniques/tools by now in order to get me moving in a better direction.
It might tell us a reason why she hasnt had sex in a year, so there's that...
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