My Sanity (Insanity)

I don't know why I do this, but I am a worrier when it comes to relationships. I worry that I say the wrong things or do the wrong things and that my beloved will one day decide that I'm not worth it and decide that he is done trying to make things work. That is my biggest fear- that he'll leave me heartbroken and emotionally crippled. He has never given me enough reason to believe that this is the case, but I still worry. Our relationship is more than great, for the most part. In many ways I believe that growing up in a large, Mormon family, while continually hiding my homosexuality and many times feeling emotionally neglected, fucked me up a little...

I know that a lot of people have a hard childhood and a lot of them somehow overcome their issues and live happy lives and that is what I am trying to do, but I still have my neurosis. Sometimes I wish that my therapist had never moved away. Dr. Grice was great and helped me a lot during a very important transitional period in my life and I will be eternally grateful to him for that, but life is often tainted with problems and I often wish that I had someone trained to help people with their issues that could help me with my issues.

The main reason I got into Psychology was, first and foremost, to "fix" myself! I didn't like a lot of things that I saw in myself (weaknesses, fear, anxiety, neurosis, etc.) and I wanted to become a better person. I still see a lot of those things in myself and I sometimes wonder how I am going to help other people with their issues when I still have a lot of issues myself. How do you help someone overcome fear when you are still afraid that the person that means everything good in the world to you will, for some unknown reason, decide to leave you? How am I supposed to help someone overcome anxiety when I still have anxieties? How am I supposed to help someone overcome their neurosis when I often feel neurotic? I wonder how I am going to help other people when I can't help myself...

I think I would be a lot further along than I am in my own personal development if I would practice what I will eventually preach: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or, basically, "Talk Therapy". I often try to avoid painful, stressful, anxiety-causing thoughts, feelings, and emotions. But, that is exactly what I will be helping people do as a therapist. I think I need to be subjective with myself and try to be as logical and sensible as possible. When I start thinking about an issue I am having, I so often let my mind getting flooded with negative thoughts and emotions. And they are often unsupported negative thoughts and emotions. Like, for instance, when I worry about my boyfriend leaving me someday. Why do I think that? What reasoning do I have to believe that? What examples or signs are there? NONE! He has never given me any reason to believe that he loves me any less than he used to. In fact, all of the evidence points to the opposite- that he loves me more and more as time goes by! I think I might have something here... This CBT stuff really does work... OK, I'll try this out and see how things go. Thanks for listening :)