Speaker 1: I'm Laurie Gottlieb. I'm the author of Maybe You Should
Speaker 1: Talk to Someone, and I write the Dear Therapist advice
Speaker 1: column for the Atlantic.
Speaker 2: And I'm Guy Wench. I'm the author of Emotional First Aid,
Speaker 2: and I write the Dear Guy advice column for Ted.
Speaker 2: And this is Deo Therapists.
Speaker 1: Each week we invite you into a real session where
Speaker 1: we help people confront their biggest problems and then give
Speaker 1: them actionable advice and hear about the changes they've made
Speaker 1: in their lives.
Speaker 2: So sit back and welcome to today's session.
Speaker 1: This week, a young woman who's now with a healthy
Speaker 1: partner still carries scars from an abusive relationship she had
Speaker 1: years ago.
Speaker 3: Like I'm just ashamed of the whole situation.
Speaker 4: I don't want to talk about how I had an
Speaker 4: abusive partner for three years of my life. I want
Speaker 4: to forget about it on the outside, but on the inside,
Speaker 4: I can't forget about it.
Speaker 2: First, a quick note, Deo Therapists is for informational purposes only,
Speaker 2: does not constitute medical or psychological advice, and is not
Speaker 2: a subtitute for professional health care advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
Speaker 2: By submitting a letter, you are agreeing to let iHeart
Speaker 2: Media use it in part or in full, and we
Speaker 2: may edit it for length and clarity. In the sessions
Speaker 2: you'll hear, all names have been changed for the privacy
Speaker 2: of our guests.
Speaker 1: Hi Guy, Hi Laurie. So what do we have in
Speaker 1: our mailbox today?
Speaker 2: Today we have a letter from a woman who is
Speaker 2: still processing the fallout of a relationship she had several
Speaker 2: years ago. And here it is Deotherapists. It has been
Speaker 2: over five years since I ended the toxic and emotionally
Speaker 2: abusive relationship which I was in for approximately three and
Speaker 2: a half years. The reason I'm writing to you both
Speaker 2: is because, at twenty seven years old, I still currently
Speaker 2: experience intrusive thoughts and tend to relive parts of this
Speaker 2: relationship over and over again in my head. There seems
Speaker 2: to be no escape from this man, even after all
Speaker 2: of these years. The effects of this relationship affect me
Speaker 2: in multiple ways. First, I have such anger towards myself
Speaker 2: for participating in this relationship for as long as I did.
Speaker 2: I tried to leave multiple times, but my ex had
Speaker 2: such power over me that he always found a way
Speaker 2: to suck me back in. My ex boyfriend is a
Speaker 2: painful and loud reminder that this is what happens when
Speaker 2: you don't love yourself. Through work in therapy, I learned
Speaker 2: to develop self compassion towards myself for how I ended
Speaker 2: up in this relationship and why I stayed for as
Speaker 2: long as I did. But I still grieve for this
Speaker 2: younger version of myself. Secondly, after this relationship, I continued
Speaker 2: to pursue emotionally unavailable men and to no surprise, got
Speaker 2: my heart broken more than once. It's as if I
Speaker 2: learned nothing from my ex. And Lastly, in the years
Speaker 2: after the relationship ended, I stayed in a toxic job
Speaker 2: that broke my spirits and got me to gain thirty pounds.
Speaker 2: I had zero boundaries. I would spread myself thin to
Speaker 2: accommodate others. Please help me make peace with this situation.
Speaker 2: I'm too embarrassed to speak with friends and family about
Speaker 2: how I'm feeling. Thank you, Kayla.
Speaker 1: What struck me most about Kayla's letter is that she
Speaker 1: said that she's twenty seven years old, and doing the math,
Speaker 1: it sounds like she was about nineteen when she got
Speaker 1: into that relationship that still haunts her. And it's interesting
Speaker 1: because I think when we're younger. Often we don't know
Speaker 1: a lot about boundaries. But she still hasn't forgiven herself
Speaker 1: for this relationship that started when she was basically a teenager.
Speaker 1: And I'll be curious to hear why it's been so
Speaker 1: hard for her to let go of that and to
Speaker 1: have the self compassion that she is trying to work on.
Speaker 2: Sounds like she's done a lot of work on her SELFIEA,
Speaker 2: she's saying that nothing really has changed enough, So that's
Speaker 2: something we have to find out. She does seem to
Speaker 2: have a lot of insight, yet not a lot of
Speaker 2: changes happening. Let's go find out where she's stuck.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do that. You're listening to Dear Therapists for
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio. We'll be back after a short break.
Speaker 1: I'm Lori Gottlieb.
Speaker 2: And I'm dy Wench and this is Deatherapist.
Speaker 3: Hi Kayla, Hi Laurie, Hey guy, thank you so much
Speaker 3: for having me on the show.
Speaker 2: You are very very welcome.
Speaker 1: We read your letter and we wanted to hear a
Speaker 1: little bit first about what's been going on with your
Speaker 1: dating life more recently.
Speaker 4: So this might come as a bit of a shock
Speaker 4: seeing I wrote the letter. However, I'm actually engaged to
Speaker 4: a wonderful man. And the reason why I say you
Speaker 4: might be shocked is because a letter. You know, I
Speaker 4: feel like when I wrote it, it seems like I have
Speaker 4: a lot of unresolved trauma from the pest. But my
Speaker 4: fiance is a wonderful man. It's just the past that
Speaker 4: I can't seem to reconcile with.
Speaker 1: So I think you wrote to us fairly recently. Tell
Speaker 1: us how long ago you met this man and how
Speaker 1: long you've been engaged.
Speaker 4: Yes, so I recently got engaged about two months ago,
Speaker 4: and we've been dating for about two years.
Speaker 1: So when you wrote to us and you were saying
Speaker 1: that you had this pattern of still choosing unavailable men,
Speaker 1: you were engaged or you were with this man when
Speaker 1: you wrote to.
Speaker 3: Us, yes, not engaged.
Speaker 1: You were saying you have this problem going after unavailable men,
Speaker 1: but you'd been in a relatively long relationship with an
Speaker 1: available man.
Speaker 4: Yes, And it was very weird at first. I wasn't
Speaker 4: even sure I wanted to be with someone like him.
Speaker 4: Maybe he was too available.
Speaker 1: What I mean is it sounded from the letter like
Speaker 1: you had been through this pattern for the last five
Speaker 1: years of continually dating unavailable men. When you were writing
Speaker 1: us that letter, Why do you think you left out
Speaker 1: the fact that you have and to be in a
Speaker 1: relationship with an available man.
Speaker 4: I think I still feel a lot of shame for
Speaker 4: a lot of my past decisions, and I do feel
Speaker 4: like a fraud sometimes in my current relationship. So I think,
Speaker 4: while yes, I am in a happy relationship, I do
Speaker 4: also feel like maybe not deserving of the relationship.
Speaker 2: Does the fact that you left out that detail reflect
Speaker 2: also how you think about yourself? In other words, it's
Speaker 2: been five years, you've done all this work in therapy,
Speaker 2: you're actually engaged to a good, emotionally available man at
Speaker 2: the moment, do you still think of yourself as the
Speaker 2: woman who was in the toxic relationship despite the fact
Speaker 2: that you've been in a good relationship for two years.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's pretty spot on about how I
Speaker 4: view myself.
Speaker 2: So reality has moved on changed, but your self perception
Speaker 2: hasn't updated with it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us how the feelings that you're carrying
Speaker 1: around from the earlier relationship play out in the current relationship.
Speaker 4: Yes, So early on in the relationship, it was very
Speaker 4: weird to me to have a man that was texting
Speaker 4: me every day wanting to spend time with me. So
Speaker 4: those were things that freaked me out in the beginning.
Speaker 4: But I will say like, as we would start dating,
Speaker 4: I noticed that sometimes when you know, he would make
Speaker 4: like a small comment like oh I miss you or
Speaker 4: I haven't seen you in a long time. I would
Speaker 4: have panic attacks and I would start apologizing profusely, like
Speaker 4: I'm so sorry, I feel like such a horrible girlfriend.
Speaker 1: That's how you interpreted him saying I miss you.
Speaker 4: I saw it as something like you never make time
Speaker 4: for me. That's how I viewed it because that's how
Speaker 4: it was with my ex boyfriend Jay.
Speaker 3: But with my current fiance it's very different.
Speaker 4: Another example, so we lived together recently and I tend
Speaker 4: to keep dishes in the sink sometimes, and last week
Speaker 4: he was making a joke, oh look Kayla leaving her
Speaker 4: dishes in the sink again, and I just jerked up
Speaker 4: from the couch and I was like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 4: I'll clean this up right away. I'm so sorry. And
Speaker 4: he even said like, relax, I was just busting your chops.
Speaker 4: So I think I was so scared of my ex
Speaker 4: boyfriend Jay that that fear still controls me in my
Speaker 4: current relationship.
Speaker 2: Does he make the connection in his own head between, oh,
Speaker 2: she's reacting strongly because of her ex.
Speaker 4: We've had a little bit of discussions of my previous
Speaker 4: relationship experience a lot of shame. So I maybe didn't
Speaker 4: tell him a lot of things because I didn't want
Speaker 4: him to look at me differently. I didn't want him
Speaker 4: to say, like, why would Kayla choose a man like that?
Speaker 4: What's wrong with her? Even though I don't believe deep
Speaker 4: down that's what he would think.
Speaker 5: I just.
Speaker 4: Choose just not to say certain things that have happened.
Speaker 4: But he definitely knows that I was in a very
Speaker 4: toxic relationship. I didn't say to him that it was abusive.
Speaker 4: I just said it was toxic.
Speaker 1: I think what's interesting is that you thought he might say,
Speaker 1: what's wrong with her? That she was in that relationship.
Speaker 1: But I think that's what you say to yourself, And
Speaker 1: that's so common with people who have been in abusive relationships.
Speaker 1: They think something is wrong with them. And so I'd
Speaker 1: be curious if you could tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: more about what actually went on in that relationship.
Speaker 4: So the relationship spanned about three years. It was sort
Speaker 4: of in like two phases, if you will. The first
Speaker 4: year and a half was us trying to figure out
Speaker 4: what we were. The second year and a half was
Speaker 4: when we were actually in a relationship.
Speaker 3: We had met in college.
Speaker 4: We would flirt and when we would see each other parties,
Speaker 4: we would sometimes kiss when we saw each other at
Speaker 4: the bar, but nothing ever progressed from there. And right
Speaker 4: before he was about to graduate, I was a few
Speaker 4: years younger than him, he told me that he cared
Speaker 4: about me, and I realized that I had feelings for
Speaker 4: him as well. I realized right after he said those
Speaker 4: words that that's all they were.
Speaker 3: They were just words.
Speaker 4: There was no actions to back him up, because that
Speaker 4: weekend after he told me he cared about me, and
Speaker 4: went to the bar and he was making out with
Speaker 4: another girl right in front of me. But we continue
Speaker 4: to play this game of him pretending he didn't want me,
Speaker 4: pretending I didn't care, when I really did. So we
Speaker 4: hung out that entire summer. He didn't want to do
Speaker 4: long distance when I was going back to school, and
Speaker 4: I would say that year that I went back to
Speaker 4: school without him, I was barely functioning. I was completely heartbroken.
Speaker 4: My grades were falling. I couldn't even get out of bed.
Speaker 4: My drinking was sort of out of control. I think
Speaker 4: I was coping with the loss of this man by
Speaker 4: partying too hard. And then when I came back home
Speaker 4: for the summer, he reached out again and was like,
Speaker 4: let's get back together.
Speaker 3: And I didn't even fight him.
Speaker 4: I was just like, yeah, let's get back together, even
Speaker 4: though he had completely broken my heart.
Speaker 2: So that first section you weren't actually together. Was there
Speaker 2: a period that you were actually together?
Speaker 4: This summer after he had graduated, and this is right
Speaker 4: before my junior year of college. We were hanging out
Speaker 4: all the time and I fell in love with him,
Speaker 4: which now I see it wasn't love. I almost describe
Speaker 4: him like he was a drug. When he wouldn't text me,
Speaker 4: I physically felt sick. And then when he would text me,
Speaker 4: I felt like I was on top of the world.
Speaker 4: But every time I hung out with him, I always
Speaker 4: felt this sense of emptiness and loneliness, and I couldn't
Speaker 4: really pinpoint why I felt that way.
Speaker 1: You said you felt empty after you hung out with him,
Speaker 1: and at the same time you said you fell in
Speaker 1: love with him. What did it mean to be in
Speaker 1: love with him? What did you love about him?
Speaker 4: He was very popular at my college, but he was
Speaker 4: known for being a player. He was one of, in
Speaker 4: my opinion, one of the most attractive men at the school,
Speaker 4: and he always had girls like pining over him. So
Speaker 4: I think when got to the point where he told
Speaker 4: me he cared about me, I almost felt like I
Speaker 4: won something. I won, like this prize of this of
Speaker 4: like the most attractive, most popular man of college.
Speaker 2: So I was saying it was like winning a prize,
Speaker 2: because for you to be with this popular, handsome guy
Speaker 2: kind of elevated your status in other people's eyes, but
Speaker 2: probably mostly in your own. Were you aware that you
Speaker 2: were kind of tethering your self esteem a little bit
Speaker 2: to him?
Speaker 4: Definitely, because there were times that summer that I had
Speaker 4: tried to end things with him because I really felt
Speaker 4: like I wasn't getting what I deserved or needed. But
Speaker 4: then he would always come back and say, no, I'll
Speaker 4: fight for you, and I believe those words, but those
Speaker 4: words were always empty with no actions to back them up.
Speaker 4: It kept going on like that for quite a while.
Speaker 2: What internal dialogue did you have about trying to get
Speaker 2: yourself to not capitulate when he came and said, no,
Speaker 2: I'll fight for you. You're the one. And was there
Speaker 2: an internal fight about like no, I shouldn't or was
Speaker 2: it just like, okay, good, let's let's do it.
Speaker 3: I think part of me wanted him to fight for me.
Speaker 4: So when I got those words from him again, I
Speaker 4: felt that high, like I took a drug. So I
Speaker 4: I really didn't push back when he would you fight
Speaker 4: for me, And even like from the point where I
Speaker 4: actually broke up with him, you know, years later, he
Speaker 4: did try to fight for me again, and that time
Speaker 4: I was actually done. But at the time, like I
Speaker 4: knew it was bad, but I almost couldn't help myself,
Speaker 4: and I feel a lot of shame around that currently.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if you're aware, but the science of
Speaker 2: heartbreak is quite clear that what happens in our brain
Speaker 2: when we're heartbroken is very similar to what happens in
Speaker 2: our brain when opioid addicts are withdrawing from heroin. In
Speaker 2: other words, you said drug, and our brain absolutely regards
Speaker 2: it as a drug, and like heroin in the sense
Speaker 2: that you feel desperate to just get a fix, to
Speaker 2: just get him back, to just be in touch, and
Speaker 2: you feel pointless without him, the drug is the answer
Speaker 2: to everything. Nothing else matters when you're highly, highly addicted,
Speaker 2: and everything gets devastated when you are withdrawing from strong opioids.
Speaker 2: And that's exactly what you're describing. There's a big part
Speaker 2: of you that does feel a lot of shame. And
Speaker 2: I'm saying that because this is one of the most
Speaker 2: remarkable findings about this brain in science and heartbreak, that
Speaker 2: we are driven to do things like heroin addicts are
Speaker 2: when they're withdrawing. When heroin addicts are with drawing, that
Speaker 2: makes sense. We don't know that with heartbreak, and so
Speaker 2: it didn't make sense to you. It's the same dynamic,
Speaker 2: and that's why it was so hard to resist.
Speaker 3: That's really good to know.
Speaker 4: I suspected it was like a drug, but I didn't
Speaker 4: know there was actually science to back that up.
Speaker 1: How did you eventually decide that you were going to
Speaker 1: go to rehub let's say, by breaking up with him?
Speaker 4: So I remember this day so very clearly. He refused
Speaker 4: to come to anything that pertained to like family or
Speaker 4: friends events, and when he was around my parents, he
Speaker 4: was just you could just tell he was very uncomfortable.
Speaker 4: So he picked a fight with me a few days
Speaker 4: before Christmas, and I knew he did that because he
Speaker 4: didn't want to come to Christmas.
Speaker 3: He knew I was going to beg him.
Speaker 4: So at Christmas, when everyone was asking me, like, oh, hey,
Speaker 4: where's Jay, I was like, we broke up and at
Speaker 4: that point we actually hadn't, but I was telling everyone
Speaker 4: that because I knew my decision was made. That was
Speaker 4: sort of like the straw that broke the camel's back.
Speaker 4: And the next day I went over to his house
Speaker 4: and I broke up with him. And for all the
Speaker 4: times he watched me cry, he was the one finally crying.
Speaker 4: And I wasn't actively happy to see him cry, but
Speaker 4: I sort of had the mindset like, you know, crime,
Speaker 4: your river, after what you had put me through. He
Speaker 4: was just like watching him on his hands and knees,
Speaker 4: begging for forgiveness, and I just said to him, I
Speaker 4: don't want to be with you anymore. I felt so
Speaker 4: empowered in that moment, and I walked away and he
Speaker 4: still was following me to my car, trying to win
Speaker 4: me back, and I said, get out of my face.
Speaker 3: So it definitely didn't.
Speaker 4: And well, but I was just proud that for once
Speaker 4: I really stood off for myself.
Speaker 1: What was it about that straw that broke the camel's back?
Speaker 1: Because it sounds like he had done things like that
Speaker 1: throughout your time together, sending these very mixed messages of
Speaker 1: come close, no go away, come close, go away, and
Speaker 1: then there's this one incident that sounds not that different
Speaker 1: from the other things that went on. What was it
Speaker 1: about that one?
Speaker 4: I think part of me was scared of him. Again,
Speaker 4: he was never physical with me, but I was scared
Speaker 4: of him in the sense that, you know, he was
Speaker 4: always yelling at me. So I definitely think at that
Speaker 4: point I was walking on eggshells around him, was afraid
Speaker 4: of him. So I think I didn't know I wanted
Speaker 4: to break up with him. I just didn't know how
Speaker 4: because I think I still was afraid of him.
Speaker 1: The relationship. Were you ever able to say to him, Hey,
Speaker 1: I didn't like when you did that.
Speaker 4: I definitely did at first when we were like officially dating. Now,
Speaker 4: I wouldn't stand up for myself. Every time he came
Speaker 4: to visit me at school. We always got into a fight.
Speaker 4: He was always mad about something, and I always just
Speaker 4: apologized to him and begged for his forgiveness. And there
Speaker 4: was actually a specific incident that happened where one of
Speaker 4: my friends was also visiting me that weekend with him.
Speaker 4: I think it was my birthday weekend, and I just
Speaker 4: remember fighting between the two of us and it was
Speaker 4: just awful. And the next day my friend had like
Speaker 4: pulled me aside and she said, you know, Kayla, I'm
Speaker 4: really worried, Like he just started yelling at you out
Speaker 4: of nowhere. She said, I was with you the whole night.
Speaker 4: You did absolutely nothing wrong, and she wasn't like, oh,
Speaker 4: break up with him, but she expressed a lot of
Speaker 4: concern about that kind of behavior. So I think after
Speaker 4: that sort of the dynamics switched where I started to
Speaker 4: challenge him because I think it felt good to have
Speaker 4: a friend tell me I wasn't crazy, because I legitimately
Speaker 4: thought I was the problem in the relationship.
Speaker 2: You know, you mentioned that you felt a lot of
Speaker 2: and still feel a lot of shame about the relationship
Speaker 2: and that you didn't really talk to friends much about it.
Speaker 2: But after that experience, when a friend actually just sees
Speaker 2: something and a good friend she is to come up
Speaker 2: to you and say I'm worried without going too much
Speaker 2: further than I'm worried. I think she handled it really well.
Speaker 2: Why did that not make you feel more comfortable, even
Speaker 2: with this one friend being more open about what was
Speaker 2: going on, or sharing some of the dilemmas or the
Speaker 2: painful moments. Why did you still that to yourself when
Speaker 2: he's one friend who sees there's something going on and
Speaker 2: is clearly supportive.
Speaker 4: I think I didn't share because I knew what everyone
Speaker 4: was going to say. I think I knew people were
Speaker 4: going to tell me to leave him, and I don't
Speaker 4: think I was ready at that point.
Speaker 2: It's interesting, cable because in fact, a friend you pointed
Speaker 2: out very specifically in the first comment was I'm worried
Speaker 2: for you, and you specifically said she didn't tell me
Speaker 2: I should leave or anything. It was your own fear
Speaker 2: that if I tell them, and I am open with them,
Speaker 2: and I hear my own mouth say these things about him,
Speaker 2: I'll think I really have to leave, rather than they'll
Speaker 2: think I really have to leave.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, And that makes me wonder a little bit
Speaker 1: if you have any ideas now in retrospect about what
Speaker 1: do you think it was that made you continue to
Speaker 1: stay in a relationship where that behavior was going on.
Speaker 4: They think my childhood was not that great in the
Speaker 4: sense that in school I was the weird girl. I
Speaker 4: was the girl that didn't have any friends. I struggled
Speaker 4: academically up until I got to high school, and I
Speaker 4: also was an athletic, so I think from a social aspect,
Speaker 4: I didn't have that much confidence because I.
Speaker 3: Was that weird girl.
Speaker 4: So I think that's why I was even more attracted
Speaker 4: to him at first, because here I was getting attention
Speaker 4: from the popular kid, which was something I think my
Speaker 4: inner child desired.
Speaker 2: What made you weird exactly?
Speaker 4: I was one of the youngest kids in my grade,
Speaker 4: and I just struggled academically. Looking back, I just believe
Speaker 4: that I was physically and emotionally immature. And my parents
Speaker 4: are blue collar workers, so I think, you know, while
Speaker 4: they were very physically present, they didn't really know how
Speaker 4: to help me academically. So I would always like bring
Speaker 4: home like failed tests and they would just yell at
Speaker 4: me to get better grades, but never actually helping me
Speaker 4: to Teachers told my parents I should be in special
Speaker 4: education classes, so that only further made me think low
Speaker 4: of myself. But I just didn't really have the right
Speaker 4: resources available to me. And it was funny. By the
Speaker 4: time I got to high school, I started to get
Speaker 4: straight a's. And I think the reason I'm such an
Speaker 4: overtiever now is because of that feeling like I have
Speaker 4: to prove something that in her child I still think
Speaker 4: hurts or grieves like the life that.
Speaker 3: She thought she should have had. It was definitely rough.
Speaker 1: In your letter, you talked about grieving this time in
Speaker 1: your life that you spent with Jay, But what you're
Speaker 1: talking about now is grieving those years of childhood. Long
Speaker 1: before you met Jay, you were so isolated, so alone,
Speaker 1: weren't really seen in the way that you needed to
Speaker 1: be seen. And I think this grief piece is really
Speaker 1: important because when we're trying to process a loss, sometimes
Speaker 1: what we do is we confuse one loss with another loss.
Speaker 1: And because you had had that experience in childhood, and
Speaker 1: then you had this experience of a not very good
Speaker 1: relationship in your late teens early twenties, you're still you
Speaker 1: say in your letter, grieving this period of your life
Speaker 1: that you wish had gone differently. And I wonder if
Speaker 1: you would feel that same way about the j relationship
Speaker 1: if you hadn't also been grieving the losses that you
Speaker 1: experienced in childhood.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do wonder that sometimes, but.
Speaker 4: It definitely feels lonely because I feel like sometimes I
Speaker 4: can't really talk about it.
Speaker 1: With anyone because what do you imagine would happened?
Speaker 4: I just think, you know, my family and friends have
Speaker 4: been like worried about me, probably up until like a
Speaker 4: few years ago, and I just feel like I need
Speaker 4: to present like this stable person at this point, so
Speaker 4: I sort of suppress a lot of what I'm feeling
Speaker 4: or tell my therapist. But it definitely feels lonely. I
Speaker 4: want to forget about it on the outside, but on
Speaker 4: the inside I can't forget about it.
Speaker 1: Do your parents know you said that your friends would
Speaker 1: notice some of Jay's behavior. Did your parents ever say
Speaker 1: we're worried about this?
Speaker 4: They never said anything. Like recently, with like in the
Speaker 4: last couple of years, they've said, like, you know, we
Speaker 4: didn't know it was this bad. You hid a lot
Speaker 4: from us, But they said we knew the relationship wasn't good,
Speaker 4: they didn't realize it was abusive.
Speaker 1: And how did they find out that it was abusive
Speaker 1: if you weren't talking about it.
Speaker 4: My sister had told them. There was one night I
Speaker 4: had a complete mental breakdown about.
Speaker 1: This after the relationship ended.
Speaker 4: Yeah, after I had pursued one of these emotionally unavailable guys.
Speaker 4: Once that happened, I sort of was like crying over
Speaker 4: that guy as well as Jay. And like my parents
Speaker 4: like sometimes would joke about my ex Jay, and I
Speaker 4: think when they were joking one time, my sister said, like,
Speaker 4: you don't You can't joke about that relationship. You don't
Speaker 4: realize how bad it was. And I think my parents
Speaker 4: were floored. She just was trying to get like my
Speaker 4: parents to realize that they failed me in a sense.
Speaker 4: At least that's my sister told my parents. That's her opinion.
Speaker 1: What does your sister think your parents should have done
Speaker 1: or what do you think they should have done given
Speaker 1: that they didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 4: Like I said, my parents blue collar workers. They we
Speaker 4: didn't have the most money growing up, but they really
Speaker 4: worked very hard to give us a good life. And
Speaker 4: as much as I love them, I think growing up
Speaker 4: their focus was always on what looks good on paper.
Speaker 4: The message me and my sister received when we're going
Speaker 4: to college, like you need to pick a major that
Speaker 4: is going to you're going to make six figures right
Speaker 4: right out of school. You cannot major in education. You're
Speaker 4: not going to get a job as a teacher. The
Speaker 4: keeping me in sports growing up when I wasn't good
Speaker 4: at them, and that sort of like ruined my self
Speaker 4: confidence because when you're, you know, an eleven year old girl,
Speaker 4: you compare yourself to your peers, and you know, me
Speaker 4: and my sister used to cry and beg our parents,
Speaker 4: you know, please let us quit the sport, Please let
Speaker 4: us quit this club, and it was always like, no,
Speaker 4: you have to do everything you can do to make
Speaker 4: your resume look good. So I think my sister, you know,
Speaker 4: felt like my parents failed me in the sense that
Speaker 4: they never cared about my happiness.
Speaker 1: That you didn't have the tools to really listen to
Speaker 1: what you wanted or desired because you didn't have practice
Speaker 1: with that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like everything I would like come to my parents
Speaker 4: with was always dismissed. You know, something as silly as
Speaker 4: wanting to quit softball. I would have so much anxiety
Speaker 4: going to practice. I used to cry in the bathroom
Speaker 4: because I didn't want to play it, and I would
Speaker 4: cry to my parents and it.
Speaker 3: Was just sort of like too bad.
Speaker 4: So I think I just learned to do things that
Speaker 4: I didn't want to do in life, learned to stay
Speaker 4: in jobs too long, stayed in relationships.
Speaker 3: Longer than they wanted to.
Speaker 1: You said that your parents are really concerned about you
Speaker 1: getting a job where you made a lot of money
Speaker 1: right out of college and that things looked a certain way.
Speaker 1: Did you end up choosing a career based on what
Speaker 1: they wanted?
Speaker 3: One hundred percent.
Speaker 4: I was always good at math in high school because
Speaker 4: I had sort of dealt with a lot of depression
Speaker 4: and anxiety. I actually wanted to major in psychology. I
Speaker 4: wanted to become like a therapist because I said I
Speaker 4: wanted to help people like me.
Speaker 3: And.
Speaker 4: I was told like, no, you're going to need to
Speaker 4: go to grad school for that major. It was basically like,
Speaker 4: you're good at math, so just do something in business.
Speaker 4: So I chose finance, and it definitely didn't belong in
Speaker 4: that major.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 4: A lot of the reasons why I even stayed in
Speaker 4: my relationship with Jay's because I was very unhappy in college,
Speaker 4: forcing something that wasn't meant for me, and he was
Speaker 4: my only source of happiness really at the time. I mean,
Speaker 4: he wasn't happiness for me. But that was my only.
Speaker 1: Crutch, let's call it an escape.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and even the message like you have to get
Speaker 4: a job at a big bank, and that job was
Speaker 4: also one of the worst experiences of my life. I
Speaker 4: don't actively blame my parents anymore. I see them for
Speaker 4: who they are with their own issues. I just wished
Speaker 4: they would have listened to me. I wish I would
Speaker 4: have had the insight to, like, you know, go to
Speaker 4: college and choose my own major, or at least I
Speaker 4: wish I could have dual majored in psychology. I wish
Speaker 4: I would have done something for myself. But the message
Speaker 4: was so ingrained in me that life is and you
Speaker 4: just have to accept it for what it is.
Speaker 1: Have you ever told them that you feel this way.
Speaker 3: Yes, they harbor a lot of guilt.
Speaker 4: My parents were actually paying recently for my therapy and
Speaker 4: I didn't ask them to. I think they just feel
Speaker 4: so bad for what had happened, and they've seen me
Speaker 4: have you know, a ton of mental breakdowns over my job.
Speaker 4: So I think knowing that they're sorry helped me forgive
Speaker 4: them a little bit, and not.
Speaker 1: Just being sorry, but knowing that they can actually see you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Taylor, you said your sister the one that told
Speaker 2: your parents about what was going on with Jay, and
Speaker 2: your sister is the one that got through to them
Speaker 2: about this stuff as well. Do you have a relationship
Speaker 2: now where you don't need your sister and if something
Speaker 2: is going on, if there's something you wanted to bring up,
Speaker 2: you feel comfortable doing it in a way that they
Speaker 2: can hear and respond to.
Speaker 4: Luckily, yes, it took up me a long time to
Speaker 4: get there, but I have really strong boundaries with my
Speaker 4: parents and they respect them. For example, my mother she
Speaker 4: knows when she comments on my clothes. I know it's
Speaker 4: very trivial, but if she comments on my parents, she
Speaker 4: knows I'm going to flip out on her. Probably isn't
Speaker 4: the mature thing to do, but I've gone into a
Speaker 4: place where my boundaries are my boundaries, and I'm really
Speaker 4: proud of the boundaries I have with my parents, and
Speaker 4: I think because they respect my boundaries, I can have
Speaker 4: a good relationship with them.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if the timing of having boundaries with your
Speaker 1: parents and having them really see you coincides with not
Speaker 1: going after unavailable men anymore and meeting your fiance.
Speaker 4: So I think some of the men. Well, two of
Speaker 4: them were divorced, and they were only divorced for a month,
Speaker 4: So I think that should have been my first red
Speaker 4: flag that maybe they weren't ready to be in a relationship.
Speaker 4: I think after you dating some men like this, I
Speaker 4: had rules for myself. One of them was something as
Speaker 4: silly as they couldn't add me on social media unless
Speaker 4: they were serious about being serious with me. I try
Speaker 4: to look at everything and say like, Okay, they may
Speaker 4: have messed up, but where did I fail to see
Speaker 4: the red flags?
Speaker 3: What did I just sweep under the rug that shouldn't
Speaker 3: have been So.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you were learning from these relationships with
Speaker 1: people who weren't available or weren't wanting what you were
Speaker 1: wanting at the same time, But in your letter you
Speaker 1: present it as if you're just not learning anything. You
Speaker 1: said something like I've learned nothing from this, and yet
Speaker 1: you were starting to set boundaries. You were coming up
Speaker 1: with what are my limits? You were looking at yourself
Speaker 1: and saying, what is my role in this? And then
Speaker 1: you started to have a different relationship with your parents,
Speaker 1: and you also met your fiance. So help us understand
Speaker 1: your perception from your letter that nothing has changed to
Speaker 1: I met this guy, and I'm in this really different
Speaker 1: relationship than I've ever been in.
Speaker 4: I still see myself as this helpless young child. As
Speaker 4: proud as I am of the strides I've made, as
Speaker 4: happy as I am with my fiance, I still am
Speaker 4: scared that I can't trust myself. I'm even scared to
Speaker 4: be one thousand percent happy with my fiance because I'm
Speaker 4: scared that I'm just going to keep making mistakes.
Speaker 2: Can you just clarify what mistakes you could make with
Speaker 2: your field and say right now?
Speaker 4: For example, I'm scared to want a baby, And the
Speaker 4: reason why I'm scared to want a baby is because
Speaker 4: I convinced myself that I'm infertile, even though I go
Speaker 4: to the doctors yearly. There's nothing wrong with me. But
Speaker 4: I'm just convinced that I can't have what other people have.
Speaker 4: And I'm even like scared to plan a wedding because
Speaker 4: I'm just I'm just like it's going to rain, something's
Speaker 4: gonna happen. I'm just like, oh, like, let me just
Speaker 4: elope so that I don't have expectations, I sort of
Speaker 4: self sabotage to manage so cold foreseeable failure.
Speaker 1: So desire is dangerous, Yes, because the other shoe could
Speaker 1: easily drop.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that's right. Sometimes I feel like a fraud.
Speaker 4: My fiance adores me, and I'm like, what do you adore?
Speaker 4: He's never given me a reason not to trust him,
Speaker 4: or every day he shows me that he loves me
Speaker 4: in some capacity.
Speaker 1: What do you love about him?
Speaker 4: I love that he's always there for me. Besides the
Speaker 4: fact that he's very physically attractive, at least to me,
Speaker 4: his comfort to means everything. His friendship to me is everything.
Speaker 4: He's a very sensitive guy, and that's very different than
Speaker 4: anyone have ever dated. His emotions are on his sleeve
Speaker 4: and I never have to guess what he's thinking. He
Speaker 4: surprises me with flowers all the time, or he'll cook
Speaker 4: for me and he'll say, like, you know, I made
Speaker 4: this meal with love. Just a lot of little things
Speaker 4: that I really have grown to appreciate about him.
Speaker 1: So you were talking about how cared for you feel
Speaker 1: by your fiance, and at the same time you're afraid
Speaker 1: to really talk to him about some of your experiences
Speaker 1: that still live inside of it. What do you think
Speaker 1: makes for that disconnect between I really trust this person
Speaker 1: and I really feel cared for, and I also don't
Speaker 1: want to open up to him. Is that the other
Speaker 1: shoes going to drop? And if so, how might it drop.
Speaker 4: I don't think he would leave me or anything if
Speaker 4: I did open up. I really think it's rooted back
Speaker 4: in the shame I still feel from the experience. I
Speaker 4: want to present that things are peachy, when in reality
Speaker 4: there's turmoil inside. I think it's really just the vulnerability
Speaker 4: of opening up to such rough subjects, to dark times
Speaker 4: in my life.
Speaker 2: You have shame about the relationship with Jay, but do
Speaker 2: you also have shame specifically about your elementary school experiences?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, what are people going to say
Speaker 4: if I'm like, oh, you know, I was a loser
Speaker 4: in elementary school And I know that's dramatic.
Speaker 3: I know it's not that dark, but you know, it
Speaker 3: scares me.
Speaker 1: I notice how much you downplay your experiences. Earlier in
Speaker 1: our conversation, you said about a boundary that you were setting.
Speaker 1: This might sound silly, when it was not a silly
Speaker 1: boundary at all. It was a very valid boundary to set.
Speaker 1: And now you're saying you're being dramatic by talking about
Speaker 1: what sounds like a very lonely and painful time in
Speaker 1: your childhood. You said after the Jay relationship that they
Speaker 1: have to be emotionally available, they have to be stable,
Speaker 1: and you have this partner who seems to be that,
Speaker 1: but you don't seem to want to be emotionally available
Speaker 1: in your upcoming marriage. What do you think will happen
Speaker 1: if you continue to hide like this?
Speaker 3: I mean, worst case a divorce.
Speaker 4: Obviously that's not something I would ever want, But I
Speaker 4: understand what you're saying, Laurie. If we did have kids,
Speaker 4: if I'm going to do what my parents did to
Speaker 4: my kids and invalidate their emotions that you know, that
Speaker 4: terrifies me too, even have kids, to know, like, what
Speaker 4: if I screw them up the way my parents screwed
Speaker 4: me up? You know, what if I invalidate their emotions
Speaker 4: or their needs, or you know, if I have kids,
Speaker 4: what if I try to give them the life that
Speaker 4: I always wanted but never had and force them.
Speaker 3: To do things they don't want to do.
Speaker 1: First of all, it sounds like you're so aware of
Speaker 1: these things in a way that parents who do do
Speaker 1: those things to their kids maybe aren't so aware that
Speaker 1: they're doing it. But also, you went away from my question.
Speaker 1: And I bring that up because again we're talking about
Speaker 1: the emotional intimacy with your fiance, and when I go there,
Speaker 1: you go to a different worry. So if we can
Speaker 1: sit for a second and think about that and see
Speaker 1: what happens in your body as that question goes through you,
Speaker 1: you imagine being emotionally available to him. What do you
Speaker 1: imagine it will feel like to be with this person
Speaker 1: who really cares about you? But then you stay closed
Speaker 1: off in certain ways, so you're kind of unknowable. He
Speaker 1: doesn't really get to know you, and in certain ways
Speaker 1: you won't really get to know him.
Speaker 3: Feels like really unfair to him and to myself.
Speaker 1: How does it feel unfair to you?
Speaker 4: Because I deserve to make peace and I deserve to
Speaker 4: express myself, and I just keep denying myself that it's
Speaker 4: only going to just further confirm to my self disbelief
Speaker 4: that I'm not worthy.
Speaker 3: It's a cruel form of self sabotage.
Speaker 1: It's self sabotage in the name of self protection, except
Speaker 1: that it doesn't actually protect you. It leaves you more
Speaker 1: vulnerable to things going wrong.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what I'm hearing from you is that there is
Speaker 2: a way in which you actually really don't feel worthy
Speaker 2: because you still feel in part and too much like
Speaker 2: the weirdo kid, the loser as you represent it, and
Speaker 2: you still have so much shame around Jay. And I
Speaker 2: think what's preventing you from opening up and being emotionally
Speaker 2: available to your fiance and to other people in your
Speaker 2: life perhaps is that there is very very little self
Speaker 2: compassion in all those formulations. You are viewing yourself through
Speaker 2: the eyes of a young girl that was really suffering
Speaker 2: and really having a hard time. Till you can start
Speaker 2: thinking of your history and of yourself with much much
Speaker 2: more self compassion, it's going to be very hard for
Speaker 2: you to open up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you said that your finance job made you miserable.
Speaker 1: Have you made a change since that job?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I quit was sort of another moment similar to when
Speaker 4: I broke up with Jay, where I felt very empowered.
Speaker 4: Within like two months, I literally lost like twenty five pounds,
Speaker 4: like just the stress just evaporated from my body. That's
Speaker 4: how much stress I was holding in to my body
Speaker 4: from that job, and it just left. I didn't even
Speaker 4: like change my diet, and everyone was like, you just
Speaker 4: look like a different person. And I think once I
Speaker 4: left that job that was suffocating to me is when
Speaker 4: I really decided did that things needed to change. And
Speaker 4: I almost can thank my fiance a little bit for that,
Speaker 4: because he has a job that he loves and he
Speaker 4: almost inspired me to seek different for myself.
Speaker 1: So are you pursuing something that excites you.
Speaker 4: I took a different job at a much smaller firm
Speaker 4: and I've been there for like a year and a half.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: I am still like in the sort of the finance world,
Speaker 4: but I'm working nine to five, which is just amazing.
Speaker 4: My priority has been trying to fix myself, if you.
Speaker 1: Will, or can we say, maybe trying to heal myself.
Speaker 4: Yeah, my priority has been to heal myself. I'm, you know,
Speaker 4: in therapy. I'm reading books again, which is something I
Speaker 4: haven't done in years. I have, you know, dabbled in
Speaker 4: yoga a little bit.
Speaker 3: Though.
Speaker 4: I think my career is sort of on a back
Speaker 4: burner right now because I'm trying to fix these other
Speaker 4: areas of my life first.
Speaker 1: And where in all of this is your interest in
Speaker 1: psychology and your desire to become a therapist.
Speaker 4: I mean, I still think I would love to be one.
Speaker 4: I know I could do it if I really wanted to, So,
Speaker 4: sort of like I do another areas of my life,
Speaker 4: I kind of keep my life small, or I stay
Speaker 4: in this limbo to protect myself.
Speaker 1: Does your fiance know about that desire?
Speaker 4: He does, and he said, like, if you want to
Speaker 4: do it, you know, I'll support you. But I'm scared
Speaker 4: to shake things up in my life because right now
Speaker 4: I feel a lot better. But I'm scared to be
Speaker 4: too happy and I'm scared to be too depressed. So
Speaker 4: I keep myself in a limbo area.
Speaker 1: Saying that you're afraid to feel too happy and you're
Speaker 1: afraid to go spiraling down into depression. So you want
Speaker 1: to stay in this kind of safe middle. But the
Speaker 1: problem with that is that you don't really feel Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I think there is something in between depression and
Speaker 1: just not feeling great that day. But for you, it's
Speaker 1: like it's either going to be really great or really awful,
Speaker 1: kind of like it was with Jay. You know, things
Speaker 1: are great he called me, he wants me, or things
Speaker 1: are terrible. He's ignoring me, or he's treating me poorly.
Speaker 1: And so your idea to solve that problem is to
Speaker 1: just kind of stay in this safe middle. And what
Speaker 1: I want to suggest is that if you mute one feeling,
Speaker 1: you mute the others. And so you're so afraid of
Speaker 1: feeling joy that you're muting some of the pain, and
Speaker 1: you're so afraid of going into the pain that you're
Speaker 1: muting the joy, and so you're not really kind of
Speaker 1: alone live in your emotional world. And you again have
Speaker 1: this all or nothing idea that well, i'd have to
Speaker 1: kind of drop everything into a psychology program when I
Speaker 1: don't know if I'm committed as opposed to maybe I'll
Speaker 1: just take a class in psychology, just one and see
Speaker 1: if I like it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wanted to ask you, Kayla, in the therapy
Speaker 2: that you've had, has the topic of anxiety.
Speaker 3: Come up now? I was always very focused on the
Speaker 3: depression part of myself, or I thought that was the
Speaker 3: most urgent thing that needed to be addressed. We never
Speaker 3: really got to the anxiety part.
Speaker 2: I'm asking because I hear an undercurrent of anxiety in
Speaker 2: almost everything that you're talking about. By definition, anxiety is
Speaker 2: a fear of an unspecified, non immediate, vague kind of
Speaker 2: dread of something bad will happen. It's not an articulated
Speaker 2: what that bad might be. It's not something that's looming
Speaker 2: this second, it might happen later or tomorrow or next week.
Speaker 2: And that feeling of dread is the thing that people
Speaker 2: interpret sometimes as fear. But one of the biggest responses
Speaker 2: people have to anxiety is avoidance. They avoid the things
Speaker 2: that make them anxious. And you have a pattern of
Speaker 2: avoidance in your life, the avoiding getting too close to
Speaker 2: people by sharing truly what's going on, Avoiding going after
Speaker 2: the things you really really want, experiencing the joy which
Speaker 2: you know is there to be had in certain areas,
Speaker 2: because then what if I get blindsided and something goes
Speaker 2: wrong and there's no indication anything going wrong in your
Speaker 2: relationship with your fiance, Does that resonate with you in
Speaker 2: any way, that there's this undercurrent of anxiety that's been
Speaker 2: going on in your life as well?
Speaker 4: Spot On, It's even funny, I'm like trying to convince
Speaker 4: my fiance that I don't want to have a bridal
Speaker 4: party because I don't even want to like offend people
Speaker 4: by not like choosing them as bridesmaids.
Speaker 3: My go to is just to avoid even having a
Speaker 3: bridal party.
Speaker 4: So it's interesting you bring that up because it manifests.
Speaker 3: So many different ways in my life.
Speaker 2: And it's important to label it anxiety because if you
Speaker 2: don't label it anxiety, then you start coming up with
Speaker 2: rationales for it and justifying them. So why I'm saying that,
Speaker 2: I want you to note this idea of calling things
Speaker 2: anxiety when it fits that pattern, because then you at
Speaker 2: least know, no, that's not necessarily a real danger, that's anxiety.
Speaker 4: I think I've been focused on depression as the driver
Speaker 4: that I neglected to see, you know, anxiety in the
Speaker 4: passenger seat.
Speaker 1: You did that with the kids too, that I'm afraid
Speaker 1: to have kids because I might do things to them
Speaker 1: that would repeat what my parents did with me. I'm
Speaker 1: afraid to entertain the idea of psychology because I don't
Speaker 1: know if I'm committed to it yet. There's a reason
Speaker 1: for everything that you come up with. But underneath that,
Speaker 1: what happens is, and you've used this word several times today,
Speaker 1: self sabotage in the name of self protection when it
Speaker 1: doesn't actually protect you, does not keep you safe. It
Speaker 1: keeps you on high alert. As guy was saying, that's
Speaker 1: the anxiety. You're always on high alert, and you come
Speaker 1: by that Honestly, you've had experiences that might have taught
Speaker 1: you that you need to be accept Now you're in
Speaker 1: a different situation, you don't need to be in high
Speaker 1: alert around those things anymore.
Speaker 2: And the last thing about anxiety is it's exhausting because
Speaker 2: you have to do these mental gymnastics and these accountings
Speaker 2: and these rationales and explaining and avoiding. It just keeps
Speaker 2: you very busy.
Speaker 1: And the other function of it is that while you're
Speaker 1: spinning in your head, you don't really have room to
Speaker 1: connect with your fiance, maybe with your friends, maybe with
Speaker 1: yourself in the ways that I think would create a
Speaker 1: much richer experience for you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2: So, Kayla, we have some advice for you. Here's the
Speaker 2: first part. As I said, I was concerned that you
Speaker 2: are very self critical and that you need to improve
Speaker 2: your self compassion skills and practice. What would like you
Speaker 2: to do is would like you to make a list
Speaker 2: of the ten greatest self critical hits that play out
Speaker 2: in your head, things like I was a weirdo, or
Speaker 2: it's shameful that I stayed in a relationship that was abusive,
Speaker 2: what's wrong with me? Whatever the narratives are, write out
Speaker 2: the full sentences of the really harsh statements that you
Speaker 2: make for yourself. So make that list of ten, and
Speaker 2: then for each one, present the self compassionate option. The
Speaker 2: self compassionate option for I was a weirdo in school
Speaker 2: was I was depressed and I felt very alone, and
Speaker 2: I didn't have anyone to talk to, and I didn't
Speaker 2: connect with people, and I was really unhappy. Again, self
Speaker 2: compassion is about how you would talk to a friend
Speaker 2: or what's somebody who really cared about you, how they
Speaker 2: would frame that rather than the self critical way. So
Speaker 2: that's what would like you to do. Ten of the
Speaker 2: most self critical statements and then ten self compassionate takes
Speaker 2: on those exact same statements.
Speaker 1: And we think that will help with the next part
Speaker 1: of the assignment, which is when you can have a
Speaker 1: little more self compassion for yourself, you might be able
Speaker 1: to start to connect with other people in a deeper way.
Speaker 1: And we want you to start with your fiance. We
Speaker 1: would like you to talk to him about some of
Speaker 1: the things that you haven't shared with him yet. For example,
Speaker 1: when that thing happened where he said he was joking
Speaker 1: about you left the dishes in the sink, and you
Speaker 1: immediately got up and said, Oh, I'll take care of
Speaker 1: that right away. You said, he sort of understands where
Speaker 1: that comes from, Yeah, but not completely. We would like
Speaker 1: you to tell him that you have been holding back
Speaker 1: a little bit because you have a lot of shame
Speaker 1: around some parts of your life that happened before you
Speaker 1: met him, and that as you start this marriage together,
Speaker 1: you really want to practice being more connected and open
Speaker 1: and you value so much how much he cares for
Speaker 1: you and the trust that you have with him, and
Speaker 1: so you want to share with him something that feels
Speaker 1: very delicate to you, and then tell him a little
Speaker 1: bit about your childhood and what that was like what
Speaker 1: you shared with us today, and maybe tell him a
Speaker 1: little little bit about how much shame you have around
Speaker 1: staying with this person in your early twenties that still
Speaker 1: haunts you today and that you're really working on that,
Speaker 1: but you just want him to know that it's there
Speaker 1: because you want to get closer with him, share with
Speaker 1: us what it felt like to share this with him,
Speaker 1: and then also how he responded to you. And then
Speaker 1: the third thing we'd like you to do is that
Speaker 1: we noticed again that you are a master of coming
Speaker 1: up with reasons that you can't do or have the
Speaker 1: things that you want. And you talked about how much
Speaker 1: you would have liked to have pursued psychology or at
Speaker 1: least explored it if finance was not the mandate in
Speaker 1: your household, and so we want you to really have
Speaker 1: the space to explore that. And that doesn't mean you
Speaker 1: have to commit to a graduate program when you have
Speaker 1: no idea if you really want to do this yet.
Speaker 1: But what we'd like you to do is to take
Speaker 1: a class. We want you to sign up for a
Speaker 1: psychology class. There's probably one at your local community college.
Speaker 1: There might be one online. It might be more fun
Speaker 1: if you go in person. But as you're doing your
Speaker 1: yoga and your therapy and all of the other things
Speaker 1: you're doing to heal, we'd like you to invest a
Speaker 1: little bit of time in your joy. And what you
Speaker 1: can learn from this experience is you might say, oh,
Speaker 1: you know what, I don't actually like that after all,
Speaker 1: but it inspires me to think about what I might
Speaker 1: enjoy more than finance. Maybe it's not psychology. Or you
Speaker 1: might say I really love this. I might want to
Speaker 1: take a second class, or I might want to get
Speaker 1: some brochures about graduate school or whatever it is, but
Speaker 1: either way, it will give you some useful information that
Speaker 1: is coming from your desires, your wishes, and not some
Speaker 1: external mandate that you've been living with for a very
Speaker 1: long time. So you want to give some space to
Speaker 1: your desires.
Speaker 2: One lost. We were thinking also about the anxiety that
Speaker 2: you have, especially around experiencing joy. So we would like
Speaker 2: this week you to catch, if possible, five times that
Speaker 2: you are thinking about things that could bring you joy
Speaker 2: in a way that's full of dread and avoidance. For example,
Speaker 2: how can I have a bridal shower. I'll alienate one
Speaker 2: of my friends, so I can't do that. You have
Speaker 2: that thought, all you need to do is go, okay,
Speaker 2: that's an anxious thought. That's not a realistic concern. That's anxiety.
Speaker 2: Or I can't have kids because I might end up
Speaker 2: perting them in some way as a parent, So let's
Speaker 2: just avoid having kids all together. Any one of those
Speaker 2: things that comes up that are things that could bring
Speaker 2: you joy or pleasure and the dread comes up about
Speaker 2: them just to label them anxiety. This is my anxiety
Speaker 2: around joy. We want you to do in that way
Speaker 2: so that when you have anxiety around joy and you
Speaker 2: take it less seriously as a threat, and we're like,
Speaker 2: here's me doing this anxiety around joy thing, and so
Speaker 2: that's why we want you to catch it as much
Speaker 2: as possible this week.
Speaker 3: Okay, it sounds really good.
Speaker 4: I didn't really realize to an extent that it was
Speaker 4: almost controlling my life. So even just recognizing that already
Speaker 4: just makes me feel a lot better and a little hopeful.
Speaker 4: So I'm definitely excited to do these tasks that you
Speaker 4: both mentioned.
Speaker 1: Well, we're very excited for you to try these things
Speaker 1: this week, and we look forward to hearing how it goes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you or thank you guys so much for
Speaker 4: having me on the show. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 1: So I was really surprised when we started a session
Speaker 1: today and the first thing Kayla told us was that
Speaker 1: she not only was engaged, but had been dating this
Speaker 1: very seemingly emotionally available man for two years. And it
Speaker 1: seems so strange before we got to know her, but
Speaker 1: once we started unpacking some of this, it actually made
Speaker 1: sense that it is so terrifying for her to even
Speaker 1: voice something good in her life that she just pushes
Speaker 1: it down. She couldn't tell us this good thing had
Speaker 1: happened in her life. She couldn't write it down until
Speaker 1: we actually were in session, and she had to tell
Speaker 1: us so that we could do the session with her right.
Speaker 2: It was really difficult for her to add that in
Speaker 2: her letter and say, oh, but things are good in
Speaker 2: this area because she has so much anxiety and dread
Speaker 2: about that going south at some point.
Speaker 1: The going south part is the part that really trips
Speaker 1: her up. That I can't hold to tightly onto the
Speaker 1: things that bring me joy because something will go wrong.
Speaker 1: I can't think about having kids because I might repeat
Speaker 1: the patterns of my parents. I can't think about my
Speaker 1: bridal shower, even though that might be really fun, because
Speaker 1: I might offend someone. I can't think about this career
Speaker 1: that I might want to have because I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: do finance. And it's interesting that when you brought up
Speaker 1: anxiety that seemed to really resonate with her, that she
Speaker 1: hadn't thought about it that way. And that's so common
Speaker 1: I think for anybody listening, this idea that when we're
Speaker 1: spinning around something, or we're perseverating on something, and we
Speaker 1: focus on something almost obsessively, that there's something else that
Speaker 1: we are afraid of. And when we get to that fear,
Speaker 1: it becomes much less scary. If we can just name
Speaker 1: the fear, the anxiety goes down.
Speaker 2: I love by the way her phrasing of I thought
Speaker 2: depression was driving this. I didn't realize anxiety was in
Speaker 2: the passenger seat. As you know, Laurie, those two go
Speaker 2: on road trips together all the time.
Speaker 1: They're fast friends. Yes, so we gave her a bunch
Speaker 1: of things to think about this week and to do
Speaker 1: this week, and I am really looking forward to hearing
Speaker 1: how that all goes for her, as am I.
Speaker 2: You listening to dea therapists. We'll be back after a
Speaker 2: short break, So Laurie, we heard back from Kayla. Let's
Speaker 2: hear how she did this week.
Speaker 5: Hey Laurie, Hey guy, it's Kayla. I'm here to talk
Speaker 5: about the task that you have both given me too
Speaker 5: complete over the past week. Vers One guy maybe wanted
Speaker 5: me to make a list of ten self critical hits
Speaker 5: with the self compassion component, and I wanted to share
Speaker 5: one that I had written out. So the self critical
Speaker 5: hit is I should have never gotten into a relationship
Speaker 5: with Jay, And the self compassion component that I wrote
Speaker 5: out was I have always felt like the outcasts in society.
Speaker 5: Being with a popular guy like Jay gave me more
Speaker 5: confidence and maybe believe I was worthy of love even
Speaker 5: if it didn't work out. I think writing that out,
Speaker 5: I try to imagine myself what my friend would say
Speaker 5: to me, but I really try to believe that it
Speaker 5: was something I would say to myself. So I definitely
Speaker 5: think this exercise really really challenged me and enjoyed, you know,
Speaker 5: sort of writing out the self compassion components. You know.
Speaker 5: The second thing you would have requested was to connect
Speaker 5: with my fancy more. And I talked to him about everything,
Speaker 5: including what it was like an elementary school for me,
Speaker 5: and sort of more about what happened in the relationship
Speaker 5: with Jay, and to my surprise, but probably not to
Speaker 5: Laurie or Guy surprised, his response is sort of like,
Speaker 5: you know, I wish you had told me sooner. We
Speaker 5: were able to have a conversation about it, and I
Speaker 5: feel pretty good after sharing with him, so I think
Speaker 5: it's something I'm going to continue going forward. The third thing, Laurie,
Speaker 5: I know you have requested that I sign up for
Speaker 5: a psychology class. Unfortunately I have not done that yet.
Speaker 5: I just not for me. I can mentally get myself
Speaker 5: to do right now, but I feel hopeful that it
Speaker 5: is something I will do one day. So I just
Speaker 5: really want to thank you both for taking the time
Speaker 5: to speak with me. Really put a lot of things
Speaker 5: into perspective. I made me think about a lot of
Speaker 5: different things. So I hope you both take care.
Speaker 6: So we give people a lot to do every week
Speaker 6: because we only have one session with them, And with
Speaker 6: the first two tests that we gave Kayla, it sounds
Speaker 6: like she did beautifully. She got out of her shame
Speaker 6: and went into a place of compassion with some of
Speaker 6: the narratives that she had been carrying around, and she
Speaker 6: was able to talk to her fiance and start to
Speaker 6: connect with him in a different way without hiding some
Speaker 6: of these parts of her past that felt so shameful
Speaker 6: to her.
Speaker 1: And I think that's all very positive. But when it
Speaker 1: came to the other two tasks around signing up for
Speaker 1: the psychology class and identifying her anxiety around joy, she
Speaker 1: seems to have struggled with those two.
Speaker 2: And I want our listeners to understand that when we
Speaker 2: give these multi component tasks, it's for a reason, because
Speaker 2: things are always connected, and so the idea of the
Speaker 2: psychology class was not well. Try psychology was a symbolic
Speaker 2: way to step out of her parents' expectations and do
Speaker 2: the thing that she had trouble advocating for herself when
Speaker 2: she was younger, and the task around the anxiety around
Speaker 2: joy was an important task also to create a separation
Speaker 2: between the previous history that she had of really struggling
Speaker 2: with anxiety but thinking that actually her desire and her
Speaker 2: wishes and her wants were problematic like having children, as
Speaker 2: opposed to realizing that that was about anxiety and they're
Speaker 2: all connected. So that first part of leaning into the
Speaker 2: engagement more and being more self compassionate is something she
Speaker 2: did well. But I hope, Kaylor, if you're listening to this,
Speaker 2: I would urge you to pick up those other two
Speaker 2: tasks and do them if you can, because they, together
Speaker 2: with the first two, which we hope you'll keep working on,
Speaker 2: as you said, together will help you really change the
Speaker 2: old patterns that tend to be dominant in our lives
Speaker 2: when we've had them for many years and we need
Speaker 2: a multi prompt approach to really break out of them.
Speaker 2: And I hope if you can do all of those things,
Speaker 2: it would really help you move forward in a really
Speaker 2: substantial way. Next week, we're checking in with Doug, who
Speaker 2: struggled with a fear of intimacy after an emotional scarring relationship,
Speaker 2: to hear how he's doing one year later.
Speaker 7: It's really hard for me to open up to him
Speaker 7: because every time in the past I've opened up about
Speaker 7: my feelings, it's either bend, met with rejection or met
Speaker 7: with OCD. So it's really hard for me to trust
Speaker 7: that I can have a safe person to open up too.
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Speaker 2: If you have a dilemma you'd like to discuss with us,
Speaker 2: email us at Laurie and Guy at iHeartMedia dot com.
Speaker 2: Our executive producer is Noel Brown. We're produced and edited
Speaker 2: by Josh Fisher, additional editing support by Helena Rosen, John Washington,
Speaker 2: and Zachary Fisher. Our interns are Ben Bernstein, Emily Gujierrez
Speaker 2: and Silver Lifton. And special thanks to our podcast Fairy
Speaker 2: god Mother Katie Curic, we can't wait to see you
Speaker 2: at our next session. Theotherapist is a production of iHeartRadio
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