Pros and Cons

In addition to the whole not worrying about normal vs. not thing, therapy lady and I spend a lot of time on feelings. Not just how I was feeling, but how I felt about the feelings I was having. Real meta shit.

In my little bag of hilariously charming issues lies the inability to decide for myself whether I really like the way I behave. It's partly inconsistent reinforcement for behavior when I was growing up. One week it would seem like I could get away with anything, and the next week it seemed that everything I did warranted some type of lecture, reprimand, or physical punishment. So therapy lady and I do a lot of talking and rationalizing about things that have happened in my world, how I feel about them, and then how I feel about my feelings about that thing. To make it a bit more concrete: I'll have a conversation with Now-hubby, something stupid about like where we're going to dinner, and I'll actually voice an opinion about where I'd like to go. This means I will go to therapy lady and be all, "I had a good moment where I actually said what I wanted!" Then therapy lady and I will have an in-depth discussion about how this makes me feel (generally good, if not a bit anxious because now I have to follow up and might have to do it again at some point). And then how I feel about feeling that way (completely anxious, and a little guilty because I feel like I shouldn't feel that way about it).

One behavior thing that took me a really long time to come to realize as a definite pro for myself and stop feeling guilty about was the way I judge people. I'm actually fairly good about not generalizing about people. I've had very little luck meeting Brittanies that were anything other than annoying twats, but that doesn't mean I automatically discount every Brittany I meet. However, I am a very quick judgement maker, and once I have a judgement in place about someone it tends to stick and influence all other interactions with said person. At the beginning of therapy lady time, this used to make me feel not great about myself. I'm alienating myself from people and such and such blather. Then lots of discussion and rationalization happened, and now I actually sort of like that attribute about myself.