Old Dog, New Tricks

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is challenging. The therapeutic situation is one I am familiar with. And in psychotherapy, you do most of the talking, you can say whatever you like, the therapist will occasionally ask questions and challenge you, but on the whole, you don’t really have to work – especially if you’ve had so much of it you are very aware how and why you feel the way you do. But of course, CBT asks you to question that and to change it. In principle, I am happy about this. In practise, it is very difficult. The psychologist throws things back at me, tells me there is another way, and I frown a lot, because I’ve never considered that the world could be very different; it is as it has always been.

I’m also being asked to accept that a lot of what happened to me and much of the way I have been treated by others through my life was not very nice. ‘Cruel’ is the word she uses, but it’s a word I’m very uncomfortable with. She asks me what I do when people hurt me and I tell her I don’t say much, preferring instead to walk away, hide, lick my wounds in private and avoid further pain. She asks if I confront my aggressor and I say that generally, I do not, and I certainly don’t retaliate. She asks why and I say because confrontation scares the hell out of me and that’s the way I’ve always done it. She points out that what worked for the little girl in a turbulent household and kept her safe, may not work now, and it’s time to question this learned behaviour. That gives me plenty to mull over. I tell her I accept she’s right, but truly, I have no idea how to be different – what does being different actually entail and what do I do to be that? She lists certain actions that seem incredible to me and as I sit there, I see clearly how what I learned as a small child has created the loveless and frightening world I exist in today. It is terribly saddening.

Deep at the heart of me lies the belief that nobody cares, and they don’t care because I’m not worth caring about. Life is full of evidence to the contrary and yet still the belief flourishes, undermining everything. There’s no logic, just habit, and the psychologist asks me to think about breaking it. Getting well seems terribly hard.