In a way this forum has helped me learn something about myself, or may be for myself.

First I had learned in my communications with LaLa, that I wanted to be liked! Strange idea it seems... but I always believed I don't do anything for anybody to like me, if they like me it is because my actions speak for there own. I realized, that's just bullshit. I want to be liked and there is nothing wrong about that.

Then in the communications with d I had learned that there is a way that you can get sucked into the interactions with somebody that are understood as not the correct way to go, yet they manifest themselves so strongly that you seem to almost not be able to avoid it. And I reacted in a way that I felt to be harsh, turns out it wasn't received as strongly as I thought it was, but my most interesting learning there was, you can get pulled in to confirm a behavior that the person who does it doesn't even want to happen.

I had to go back to my therapist for a booster session because things had gotten 'wrong' for myself again.

During the session I felt like being successful, like "I got it, and I can handle it, I can go out there and establish relationships and be good about it".

One of the things to help me cope there, was my therapist telling me, "carry me in your mind and imagine me asking you 'do you want to be special or do you want to be normal?'"

So I went out there thinking "you're on top of your game!" - feeling joyful and strong.

And already when I was sitting in my car it started. I felt so ashamed of myself, felt like "you darn fool, why did you have to go back? why couldn't you just do it on your own? You're such a looser to not get free of it" and while that dialog started I told myself already "do you want to be special or do you want to be normal" and I somewhat took myself out there, but not completely, didn't 'understand' it really.

So I tried to cope with my feelings of shame, and I suddenly realized that I didn't really know the difference between 'embarrassment' 'shame' and 'guilt'. So I started trying to define them and distinguish them from each other. In a dictionary of all places - I think - I found a statement that said (paraphrasing, not an exact quote) "One possible explanation is, that in order to feel shame there must have been an awareness of being judged".

So I immediately jumped to the conclusion "your therapist judged you! He can't stand your butt! He doesn't like you and he thought you're just a worthless piece of something, failing the therapy not being a success and probably had to force himself even to accept to see you, because you're just so disgusting in your self pity..." and on and on it went. And I remembered "do you want to be special or do you want to be normal?"

So in a quite timid voice I asked myself "is this again trying to be special?" Being special means to imagine everybody being against you, thinking bad of you, having even a conspiracy against you, all this and more in the attempt of putting myself in the center of the interaction of thinking "it's all about me, always". Then I thought, but this relationship is different, it IS by default about me!

But the little voice kept nagging me, when I was further contemplating how the therapist didn't like me and how I had caused for him to not like me and that I NEVER could go back (and all those big things, that left me in despair and shame and guilt), 'do you want to be special or do you want to be normal'? So I finally thought 'ok, think about things being normal'. What would normal be? I go to the session, I get straightened out... (oh and the guilt and shame set in again) and I told myself "hold on for a moment" this is being special again! Get yourself to being normal!

What is being normal, normal like everybody else? To fail, to not be perfect, to not succeed always and right away, that is what is NORMAL. I can fall back in old ways, because they are old ways, it is what happens, there are moments in which we don't succeed! I had fallen back into old ways. I had done what I needed to do to correct it - nobody but me expected from me to be perfect. So no guilt and shame and 'being special' needed, just be normal, have failed and accept it and let it go after it's being dealt with.

So I got back to my being 'normal'.

And I continued to thinking about 'how do would the interaction with your therapist be normal?' I started again. I go to the session, I get straightened out (no more guilt shame and other stuff there), I leave the therapy session, I'm able to incorporate what I learned in my everyday life.

bingo - there's the feeling of joy, of being strong, of being able to do it.

Hm... where's the judgment there? Where is the not being liked?

Nowhere.

And it started again... "but he can't stand your butt, he thinks you're just such a piece of lowlife that you had to come back to therapy and he had to straighten you out with some sharp words and he can't stand you and just wanted to get rid of you" and on and on and on

But... I knew him as being not judgmental.

That's one of those things being so good there.

Not being judged. Being allowed to put the things on the table, figure out the wrong and rights and deal with the wrongs and let go of them and NOT being judged so that you can dare to put them all out.

He doesn't judge me.

So in one big jump from not judging me he suddenly went to judging me? And I thought, that just can't be.

FINALLY I got it. "being judged" was me making myself special. Wanting desperately him making me the center of his universe, him just thinking about me and actually even violating his own strong rules of ethics and behavior, just for ME!

Oh god.... stop having such a blown up ego.

Be normal. Normal is, you go to the session and you straighten yourself out. Special is he judges you. So, simple, he didn't judge me, just dealt in a way he found appropriate with the problem I presented, carried by the wish to help me and get me out of there. oops... "the wish to help me and get me out of there?" Is that a person who doesn't like me?

And I remembered what had happened in the interaction with d and in the interaction with LaLa.

I wanted to be liked. And one can get sucked into the wrong behavior, confirming what shouldn't be confirmed through the interaction.

dough... would my therapist confirm my desperate desire for attention in giving me compassion for having all those self destructive feelings? hell no....

What is wanting to be liked, or better what would it translate into if you're not willing to put yourself out as being liked? It would be a desire for attention of whichever kind you get, a desire to feel confirmation in your misery, get compassion to feel fuzzy warm and liked. Which he had refused to give me.

Ergo I felt like he didn't like me!

dough...

Being special again.

There was no dislike from him. There was no judgment from him.

There only was an interest to get me straightened out and let me go out there and apply what I learned in real life - 'the normal'.

I figured it out on my own.

I didn't do any inappropriate thing, like call him and leaving a message that I couldn't come back to force him to have to deal with a person he dislikes so much. Or something like that - which would have been a reaction to my own feelings caused by 'being special' and not an appropriate reaction to something that happened 'normal'.

Actually the opposite, I feel like 'that's a good place to go back to, if you slip again'. And shame and disgust are also gone.

I won that round!