I so hate getting caught up in unplanned flashbacks. I am usually pretty good at avoiding my triggers, but sometimes, they seem to have a mind of their own.

In my last session, my therapist says that it is time to move onto the second phase of therapy that he calls redeciding. For instance, early on, I decided I was a nothing because I could not be a girl and I knew I was not a boy.

The other was that I was terribly broken because I could never please my mother and my teachers. It turned out that achievement tests showed that I was bright, but I have a non-academic form of intelligence. So the punishment was that I saw things differently than everyone else, and I was not living up to my potential. Ha! I was not bad. I was not understood. But as a child, all I could see was the negative reactions and took the blame onto myself.

I am still struggling with those early decisions, but they are getting easier as I tell myself the new decision each time I become aware of the old one.

I hope that you are having success too in redeciding. I'm sure you know you are intellectually know you are not a toy, instead an intelligent, aware woman. And give yourself credit for understanding who you were early. It was the adults around you that did not understand, and they gave you the wrong information for you to use to build your self image.

tight hugs,
Cassie Ellen