From the sounds of things, you may have suffered emotional abuse. If what you've said is any indication of what it's like living with mother and grandmother, you should check this out:
http://www.controllingparents.com/Signs.htm
It was a big eye-opener for me
~^^

Aegis,

Thank you for your insightful response! I have alot to think about now. I don’t even know where to begin. My mind is spinning….. You brought up quite a few questions that I had never considered and now must decide how I want to proceed. Therapy is so exhausting, even thinking about re-entering the process drains me. In some ways it doesn’t make me feel better, it makes me feel worse because then I have to think about things that I may not have wanted to think about.

I have a few more questions, if you don’t mind and to anyone else who is still reading this post and has experience in this realm, please feel free to share your thoughts as well.

1) If you said that therapy works for you as “an internal dialogue”, then what do you need a psychologist for? I have internal dialogues with myself all the time, usually people just call me crazy for talking to myself, but maybe that’s just me?
2) How does therapy help change the way you see the world? Is my inability (NOT refusal) to alter my line of thinking a sign of my resistance to change?
3) When I say that I “talk the talk”, I mean I talk a good game. No one would ever guess I’m not what I claim to be.
4) The point you brought up about being scared to get better is true. But I relate it terms of weight loss and body type. I wouldn’t say I’m addicted to being hateful and critical of myself, although I must admit I probably wouldn’t know what to do with the excess energy – yes I do, log in more gym hours! My biggest fear is reaching the goal number and then thinking “Now, what?” So I hit the magic number and now what do I do with myself? And even worse, is what if (and I strongly suspect this will be the case given my present circumstances) I’m at goal weight and I’m still not “perfect”, I’m still not good enough for my own standards? I’ve made huge strides in changing my body and I take a tremendous amount of pride in my progress, particularly knowing my history/genetics and innate sense of laziness, but there are areas of my body that I’m very unhappy with that I will not be able to alter through diet and exercise and part of me wants to accept that and move on and just be the best body I can be and part of me says, “Never say die and never surrender.” How do I reconcile that?
5) I think I’m in conflict over purposely creating an environment and/or body that I know others will react negatively to. On one hand I want to be warm and inviting and loving and attractive, but somewhere deep down I know I’m not and could possibly never be any of those things without a substantial amount of effort and now with things definitely over between me and the musician boy, I wonder if it’s even worth the effort since it didn’t seem to work (and hasn’t in the past with my other “crushes”). It’s so easy to stay fat; to build this barrier. To become thin means I am forced to face certain truths about me. I won’t be able to hide behind the layers of fat and flab and claim that he wasn’t interested in me because of it. I can’t use that defense as an excuse anymore. It comes down to ME now. The more weight I lose, the more I actually do want to hide and stay a recluse, its far easier and less painful. I go to work, I go to the gym, on weekends I occasionally go out to dinner or see a movie and every so often I go to concerts. That’s the extent of my social life.

PK, I checked out that controlling parents website questionnaire. Thank you for the link. OK, so now what? How has discovering this information changed you? And now that you know the answers how do you “fix it”? Since I’m living at home, I’m still under the “control” of my mother and my Nana to a certain extent, but also now that I’m over 30 they realise they can’t tell me what to do. To a certain extent…..

Do we ever truly outgrow being under our parents thumb? Someone once said that we don’t truly become adults until our parents die. I wonder if this is true?

That is the exact reason why we'd rather not think about it; cus they are hidden for a reason, and that reason is usually painful. I'll really glad to see a positive response from you.



I didn't think I needed one too, for years in fact. I have a great inner-dialog for the longest time. However, I discoverd that the dialog is usually dictated by your current, conscious mind and your sub-conscious is usually clouded. Plus, you will want to actively avoid the painful subjects which has been hidden away. Talking to another person, like when you do during cognitive therapy, can help you find what you have been avoiding yourself with, and this person, if he or she is well-trained, can direct you to the right place and lead you the very thing you've hoped you'd never have go. One is always blinded when it comes to oneself, and sometimes it takes another pair of eyes to see oneself more clearly.




It didn't change the way I see the world. It changed the way I see myself. My view of everything else, including the world, changed with it. I'd say your inability is perfect example of the sub-conscious resistance, or that "wall" I was talking about earlier. I know exactly how you feel, cus I used to believe that I was unable to change too. Now I realize I was simply fighting any change which may alter my mind's status-quo.



Yes, that's what I meant. I was pretty good to. I can convince another person to do things I would never do myself. The fact that I was too pursuasive to others was my undoing; I was able to convince anybody of anything, but I can't convince myself to face my own fears and painful past. Talking is only talking unless you do the walking. THAT was hard.



I would say to you now, that even though you have made great strides (congrads, btw), but you will never be happy with the results. Just like you've said, you'll always find fault with other body parts, feeling incomplete, and would never feel the joy of accomplishment. I just want to say that this is because there's something inside of you which is blocking you from the emotional joy of your physical accomplishment. Unless you find the block and resolve it, you will still feel the same about youself even if you somehow look just like some movie star. That's why there are so many women out there cutting themselves up and inject poison into their otherwise healthy flesh, and still hating the way they look afterwards. You will never be "happy" or "satisfied" until you find the REAL reason for your self-debasement. There's something about youself you have an issue with; you must re-discover it and release yourself from the block. Only then can you fall in love with your new body, and find real joy in your hard work and accomplishments.




You are moving forward already. You have come far and realize that it's comfortable keeping the status-quo and yet you're also actively fighting against that urge. However, since you didn't really confront the real source of your issue, your ever thinning and healthier body has actually brought on more stress; straying away from the comfort of the status-quo and self-criticism is taking its toll. Like your post title, you're not ALLOWED to feel good about yourself. Allowance denotes permission; so it sounds like a key part of youself is not giving "you" the permission to enjoy your healthier and more attractive self, and yet another part of you is fighting a losing battle against it. There's a lot going on there and that's why a therapist may help you sort out your many different voices. There's always more than 1 side to a person; for instance I discovered that I have 3 distinct sides of myself. My nick, Aegis_Mode, refer to the side of me who deals with external world in a logical manner. Sounds like you have just told me you have at least 2: maybe there are more in there, and they are all dying to talk to YOU?



I think PK is on the right track as well. You're always going to live with your parents compliments and criticisms. That's just the way human beings live. You may want to talk to a therapist about these feelings of control you feel from your mother and grandmother; maybe they will lead somewhere.

I don't know if this will help you, but my therapist uses a technique called EMDR to help me overcome my many traumas, and I find it very useful in discovery of hidden emotional issues. Here's a website where you can find therapists who uses this technique, and I would recommend anyone to at least look into it if you have similar emotional issues. You can find a local therapist with this training from their website:

http://www.emdria.org/

I read a book that was very helpful (among other things) called, Toxic Parents by Dr. Susan Forward. It talks about some things you can start doing to help your situation. It has taken me two years to get as far as I am today and I still struggle with some issues. My parents are coming out to visit this summer and to be quite honest, it scares me half to death. Instant headache. I hear my mom's negative voice in my head that tries to convince me that I am not worth anything or not smart enough to make choices for myself or incapable of looking after myself. The first thing I've done that helped incredibly has been to stop saying negative things to myself. As in, if say I drop something, I don't berate myself by calling myself stupid and clumsy. And if I slip up and do something like that, I (speaking OUT LOUD) say "NO, that's NOT right. I made a mistake cuz I wasn't paying attention," or whatever. Self talk is very important. Especially for shutting up the nasty voices that you hear in your head. Check out emotional abuse and recovering from it online or take books out at the library. And even when your parents die, you can't escape the voice of the past. YOU have to help yourself. It takes time and effort but you'll find so much more happiness in your life and in your self. YOU ARE WORTH IT!
~^^