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[quote=Anonymous]So I’m seeing a therapist for issues that I have now as a forty something. It’s been a couple months now. I started because I was in a traumatic car accident last year and I’m still having PTSD symptoms. In preparation for doing EMDR, my therapist and I have been practicing memory reprocessing on less traumatic memories and she’s been asking questions about my childhood and adolescence.

This led to her uncovering the fact that I have a big self worth problem, in that I have very little. I already knew this about myself (I’ve had an eating disorder since 14, for example, mostly manageable but periodically not) and didn’t think it was relevant or related to my PTSD symptoms but she seemed surprised and wanted to explore it further. I assumed my lack of self confidence or self esteem or whatever you want to call it was just part of my personality type, which is highly anxious. I’ve always had this undercurrent of self hatred and anxiety running through my life. I’ve never felt good enough in anything that I do. I can’t even remember when it started, that’s how far back it goes. But isn’t that really common? I frankly assumed everyone experiences this, to some degree, based on the things they say. Doesn’t it seem like most women in our society secretly hate themselves? Don’t we constantly get the message that it’s literally not possible for us to be “good enough” in any area of life from appearance, to work, to parenting, etc.? Whatever we’re doing, we’re told to do more and better.

Anyway, my therapist doesn’t agree and thinks this is the crux of my issue with my traumatic memory. Basically, she thinks I’m subconsciously stuck in the memory because I’m essentially using it to punish myself. She keeps trying to link this to things I have told her about my parents. Narratively and logically, this actually makes a certain amount of sense. But at the same time, there is a big part of me that instinctively rejects it. I feel like there is something extremely immature and cliched about blaming all of your problems on your parents in your forties? Is this how all therapy goes? You have a problem and it must have started in childhood by your parents?

At any rate, even if this is true, I don’t know what good dwelling on it now will do me. It’s not like I’m going to be able to suddenly start loving myself just because I know where my self esteem problems come from.

Sorry this is turning into such a novel. If you e read this far, does this sound normal to you? Does all therapy go back to childhood wounds? How does this actually help us as adults? I struggle to see where this is going and how it’s going to help me.[/quote]

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