Category: therapy
Posted on September 25, 2018
by MJ
3 Comments
I used to write a lot about trauma and the nature of it largely because I was in the middle of dealing with it. For me, I would try to get outside of my own traumas and inspect them as if I were looking… Continue Reading “Nine Things I’ve Learned”
Category: domestic abuse, domestic violence, encouragement, happiness, mental health, Moving Forward, personal development, PTSD, therapy, traits in victims, traumaTags: creating happiness, developing grit, getting triggered, healing from PTSD, love after divorce, personal development, resiliency, sense of foreshortened future, therapeutic process, trauma recovery
Posted on April 7, 2018
by MJ
4 Comments
Today is a momentous day. I see my mother at noon today for the first time in almost ten years. At least I think it’s ten years. I have some long-time readers who will know that this is a big deal. I have many… Continue Reading “Becoming Strong”
Category: abuse in families, assertiveness, Borderline Personality Disorder, Healing, Mothers, personal development, Personality Disorders, Rage, therapy, traumaTags: assertiveness, borderline mother, Borderline Personality Disorder, boundaries, emotional exploitation, resiliency, therapeutic process
Posted on February 17, 2018
by MJ
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To bring you up to speed, one of the reasons I started this blog ages ago was to process having a relationship with my mother. My mother has borderline personality disorder (BPD), but she also has other co-morbid disorders. When I was growing up,… Continue Reading “Choosing the Healing Path”
Category: abuse in families, Borderline Personality Disorder, co-dependency, Healing, Mothers, Personality Disorders, Rage, Sadistic Personality Disorder, suffering, therapy, TruthTags: abuse in families, borderline mother, Borderline Personality Disorder, co-dependency, enabling abuse, healing process, sadistic personality disorder
Posted on February 12, 2018
by MJ
1 Comment
I have been trying to find an appropriate way to write about a particular “emotional” experience that I have endured for years. I wouldn’t blog about this were it not for the fact that most survivors of trauma seem to experience something quite similar. … Continue Reading “Healing Past Trauma in The Present”
Category: Healing, human trafficking, panic attacks, PTSD, therapy, traumaTags: biologically embedded trauma, essential oils in emotional healing, healing, PTSD, therapeutic process, trauma recovery
Posted on December 25, 2017
by MJ
1 Comment
My daughters and I did something a bit unusual for us yesterday. For the first time in my life and henceforth theirs, we did not celebrate Christmas Eve. When I was married, our family was interfaith in terms of family tradition, and my family… Continue Reading “The Holiday Revisited”
Posted on December 22, 2017
by MJ
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I want to talk about negative core beliefs and dissonance–and perhaps a way to challenge them effectively. Bear with me as I get there. I have written a lot about my last two years in therapy with a neuroscientist. I didn’t know initially that… Continue Reading “Pushing Back against Malignant Core Beliefs”
Category: Complex PTSD, coping strategies, mental health, personal development, PTSD, Recovery, therapy, traits in victims, traumaTags: biologically based trauma, challenging core beliefs, cognitive dissonance, healing from PTSD, maladaptively processed memories, malignant core beliefs, target behaviors, therapy
Posted on December 7, 2017
by MJ
6 Comments
Jack the New Therapist aka the FNG will be no longer. It has become a failed collaboration. That is what my reasonable self says. My snarky self is pointing at this: Jack has one of the worst Resting Bored Faces I’ve come across. There are… Continue Reading “A Timely Ending”
Category: divorce, domestic abuse, emotional abuse, encouragement, Healing, human trafficking, mental health, personal development, PTSD, therapy, traumaTags: cognitive dissonance, domestic abuse, EMDR, healing from PTSD, healing from trauma, myth of arrival, Recovery, Resting Bored Face, therapy, when a therapist isn't effective
Posted on November 23, 2017
by MJ
6 Comments
I saw Jack, my still-feeling-new therapist, on Tuesday, and we had an almost adversarial session. It didn’t feel therapeutic to me. I felt as if I were there to challenge his ideas and assumptions of what survivors of trauma look like. He consistently says,… Continue Reading “Making Changes on Purpose”
Category: anxiety, encouragement, Healing, mental health, Moving Forward, personal development, therapy, traumaTags: epigenetics and trauma, healing process, imagining change, narrative brain, Recovery, therapy, trauma recovery
Posted on November 15, 2017
by MJ
4 Comments
I had an interesting therapy experience yesterday. Jack is a very different therapist from my previous therapist. The gap is growing wider forming a gulf that is coming to represent their differences, and I’m missing my former therapist more and more. Alas, change is… Continue Reading “That Which Does Make You Stronger”
Category: encouragement, Healing, love, mental health, Moving Forward, Recovery, sex, sexless marriage, Sexual Abuse, therapy, traumaTags: life after divorce, relationships after divorce, sex after divorce, sexless marriage, sexual recovery after trauma, sexuality, therapy, trauma, Trust after Trauma
Posted on November 1, 2017
by MJ
24 Comments
I am an independent person by nature. I was an only child until my mother remarried when I was 11 years-old suddenly making me the youngest of three girls. My developing personality came to a grinding halt. I didn’t know my place in my… Continue Reading “The Prison of Maladaptive Behaviors”
Category: abuse in families, Healing, mental health, Moving Forward, Recovery, relationships, therapy, traits in victimsTags: asking for help, conditioning, core beliefs, extreme self-reliance, family of origin abuse, healing process, maladaptive behaviors, maladaptive coping strategies, Recovery, therapy