Posted by Pfinstegg on February 22, 2004, at 23:53:58
In reply to Oh, I forgot! » Pfinstegg, posted by Dinah on February 22, 2004, at 18:43:02
Well, I wanted to keep with the "B's" which have been adopted by everyone who (so far) has given their therapists a name, and it just popped into my mind that it suits him- he loves linguistics, and knows a lot about early and medieval Indo-European languages. He especially loves Celtic (a benign boundary-crossing that he has let me know about).
Yes, I do know people who have truly changed. My husband and I got together, with neither one of us knowing how much abuse there had been in both of our childhoods. We were so hoping to make a new, happier start, ourselves: we did truly love one another. We did do that, but out terrible histories gradually took over our lives, and we both began re-enacting our pasts with one another; we didn't want to, but we just could not help doing it. For a long time, we kind of avoided this huge problem, and concentrated on raising our son, who easily took up a lot of out energies, as he had serious learning disabilities. But now, he is sailing along towards his PhD in physics at Princeton, with a wonderful girlfriend, lots of friends and interests, and all sorts of clever ways around those learning disabilities. So! Now, we really had to face our own lives, and what was happening in them. We both went into therapy with different analysts, and also started couples therapy with a great
psychologist.We are putting as much energy and effort as we can into all of this, and I can say, for sure, that my husband is changing a lot- becoming much more flexible, loving, thoughtful- and free of his own terrible past. For me, it's harder to say, although I know a lot is happening, I am not yet sure whether I'll really get to where I would like to be, but I do hope so, and I know that my analyst has confidence that I'll be able to do it. When I was in my twenties,, I had a wonderful two-year experience with an analyst; I knew that I was changing a lot for the better, and I feel that it enabled me to fall in love and marry. What's so hard about neglect, abuse, or just plain terrible mis-attuned parenting is that it presents all of us with an enormous lifelong task- preventing our children from suffering the same fate, and finding a way to live fulfilling lives of our own. But then. being a doctor, i see so many terrible physical things wrong with people, and I have to recognize that I have been blessed with physical health, so far, whereas many people are not. For me, it's the mental health which I have to accept as being my lifelong challenge. Still, Dinah, I have had periods of feeling that I was really growing and changing; and I have that feeling now, too. I know I can do a lot, but, however much I might wish it, I can never become what I would have been if those terrible things had not occurred in my childhood. But, think of the people who, as the most painful example, have half of their faces eaten away by cancer- they have a different challenge, but it is just as hard.
poster:Pfinstegg
thread:316431
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040218/msgs/316719.html