Archive for Therapy
But HOW Do I Recover? ~ Emotional and other Abuse
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- Success is a series of small accomplishments
I wanted to know HOW I would recover from emotional abuse; how do I do it? What do I do?
As though knowing HOW would make it possible.
I wanted to know HOW the healing would take place, as though knowing how would make it real or as though knowing how would enable me to make the decision on whether or not I was willing to go through with it.
But the truth is that I didn’t ever get to know how. I didn’t ever get prior knowledge as to where the journey would take me.
I was held back on some aspects because I thought the pain would kill me, but the pain of recovery was never as bad as the pain of living broken. Unfortunately, we don’t know that for sure until we are on the other side of broken.
I thought that if I ventured forward but didn’t succeed, that the pain of another failure would kill me; so I hesitated about moving forward.
I hear this question all the time; “But how does it work? How will I do it?”
I didn’t know, I never knew, and looking back I don’t see how I could have even been told. Because it is different for everyone. Because it is a step by step process that takes time. Because on breakthrough builds on another.
What I remember is that I believed it was possible. That belief came because my therapist told me that there were others that had overcome and recovered from chronic depressions and dissociative behavior. I had not actually met anyone that had overcome, but when I started to trust him, I started to believe him and after I began to believe him and when I had my first little breakthrough, then I believed that I could do recover too. I finally had hope. I finally believed that if someone else could overcome ~ if someone else had recovered from dissociative identity disorder, sexual abuse, and a lifetime of psychological abuse, then maybe I could recover too.
I finally believed that I was worth taking the chance on. I was worth the effort. And I also realized that the reason that I had not considered that I was worth it prior to this was because from a very young age I had been treated as though I was not worth it. As a child I had no choice but to believe that lie.
I dug my heals in and went for it. I just put one foot in front of the other and took my time looking at the reasons that I had been in this state of difficulty and struggle with my mental health for so long. All I had was hope and it turned out that was all I needed. Each little success, each little breakthrough no matter how tiny was what kept me going forward after that. My breakthroughs became my motivation and hope was my foundation.
Blind faith I guess you could say.
I realize today that success is not the end result but rather a collection of accomplishments.
I took someone else’s word for it; that recovery was possible and it ended up being the truth. This is my biggest inspiration for writing this blog. I want to inspire hope as it was inspired in me.
I made the decision to face the pain. I made the decision to go forward but I didn’t know the answer to the HOW question. And in the end, it didn’t matter.
What are your thoughts on the “HOW” question? Please share them with us in the comments.
Exposing Truth ~ One Snapshot at a Time
Darlene Ouimet
If Love is the Answer, What is Love?
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- What makes love real love?
Everything had a double meaning in my mind; almost all definitions that had to do with relationships had two opposite meanings to me and when I found this truth at the roots of my belief system and began to sort it out, I found some real freedom. I found out that I had learned to accept a lot of false truth about a lot of word meanings.
Take love for instance; I believed in fairy tale romance, and believed that there would be a prince charming saviour type guy ride in on his trusty steed and sweep me off my feet and then life would be good. Then I would be good enough. I would be loved. Life would begin! Maybe I got that idea from fairy tales, I am not really sure, but I certainly held the belief inside me somewhere. The belief that I could be rescued and that love would be the cure for everything.
But there is another side to what I believe about “love.” For the trauma survivor or the person who suffers with depression, we also have a whole other different belief system about “love”. Some of us have been taught (in words or in actions) that love is dangerous, frightening and hurtful. Some of us have been taught (in actions or in consequences) that love is physically painful and terrifying. Our personal reaction to being loved by someone else largely depends on what our belief system has become about the words and the emotion of “love”. And about how we feel about ourselves as a result of our past experience with it.
In my case I had polar opposite belief systems about love. In my fantasy world, love could cure all evil, love was the answer, love was all I needed. Songs like “If I had you…; you’re the only one that I would ever need “ or “I can’t live is living is without you”; “you are the sunshine of my life” or “All I need is the air that I breath and to love you” oh yeah baby, he (his love) would be the answer to everything.
In reality however, at least in my reality, love hurts, love is mean, love means nothing. I love you means obligation, ownership, disrespect, putting up with being devalued, manipulated and accepting that I am not as important and my needs are not important, but only the person who says that they love me, is important. This is quite a mixed message and makes love a word charged with many different feelings and fears that are triggered just hearing the words.
My therapist told me that he loved me. I felt extremely uncomfortable and wanted to leave. I thought love was physical. I was sure that I had no choice about it. When I was very fragile, I felt powerless to say no to physical love. In many ways and for many years I didn’t know that I had a choice. I also believed that if someone loved me (even in the wrong definition of love) it was my fault. So good or bad, I believed that I brought everything on myself. Quite an illusion of control, which I thought kept me safe, but also quite a burden of responsibility which was not safe at all.
There was so much really bad stuff around the word love. My mind had been conditioned to believe that love was the most wonderful thing and the answer to everything, but the truth was that most bad things had happened to me under the disguise of love and “I love you” and “because I love you” and “I want what is best for you”. I also thought that romantic love had a lot of physical obligation attached to it. Sex was the price that I had to pay for love. (but was it REALLY love)
I love you is a phrase that is thrown carelessly around; When a child wants love and acceptance so deeply it becomes easy to ignore the red flags from some people and it is also very easy to accept the wrong definition of love.
It helped me immensely to realize that I had the wrong definition of love all along. It also helped me to realize that controllers and abusers NEVER love you with the same definition of love that they want you to follow when it comes to them.
I thought about the things that I had to do to prove my love and thought about it “they” ever “proved theirs”. I thought about this a lot. If love means that you do what they want, then when will they do what I want? The truth is that love isn’t about doing what someone else wants. It isn’t about being who someone else wants either. I had to learn about what love really is in order to sort myself out. This was one very damaged area in my belief system that was full of lies. At the root of this was the KEY fact that I did not love myself at all.
I started to ask myself; If love is doing what is best for the one loved then what would that look like in practice? (Remember that self love is a key part of the healing process. Remember that you may also have to think about the definition of “best”.)
Looking at these complicated and yet logical viewpoints got me a long way out of the love fog I was in and really helped me to realize who loved me and who didn’t. It also gave me some practical application tools when it came to my relationships and with my children.
And when I was able to apply the true definition of love to myself, everything came together.
Please share your experience with the false definition of love, or how you came to feel about the concept of love.
Another little snapshot.
Darlene Ouimet
Related Posts: emotional abandonment, rejection and recovery
Invalidation ~ when the truth is not true
The problem with Love ~ Fi MacLeod from “you can fly with broken wings”
Hearing Negative Self Talk?
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- dangerous places in the mind
I became aware years ago of the negative self talk that went on in my head. I tried all sorts of ways to deal with it or combat it. I heard all kinds of cute sayings and instructions such as “tell the committee to shut up, the meeting is over” and tell them to “stop renting space in my head”. I thought this was great advice and I didn’t realize that this was not a really effective solution to the problem of negative self talk.
Maybe I thought it made sense to ignore the voices because like many of us I grew up with my needs being ignored, so it was familiar and comfortable to ignore them myself. I don’t think I ever saw those nagging critical voices as expressing a need but maybe they were after all. Maybe I thought it made sense to ignore them because I didn’t have any other solutions about what to do about negative self talk.
I mentioned something in therapy once about this subject and my therapist asked me “whose voice is it?” I was kind of taken aback. I always assumed it was my voice. My voice telling me that I couldn’t do something I wanted to do, my voice demanding “who do you think you are” and my voice telling me that I am an imposter, and that everyone who ever liked me would eventually find out that I am not lovable, worthy or even productive. I am a phoney, depressed, “nobody” disguised as a happy and fun person.
So that night after therapy, I went home and got quiet and thought about those negative affirmations in my head and what the most common ones were. I looked at each common statement one at a time. My therapist had instructed me to ask some questions to the statements or voices, and to ask “them” what else they had to tell me. What other judgements did “they” have related to the statements that “they” made. At first I was pretty sure that the “voices” were my own voice, but then after I asked a few clarifying questions, I realized I could actually begin to hear the sneering voices of my mother, my brother, my father, my teachers old boyfriends and even a few “friends”.
The reason I heard my own voice is because I had adopted those opinions as TRUE. When I began to see the whole picture I realized that I had taken over where the abusive and controlling people in my life had left off. I continued to feed negativity about myself to my own belief system.
Once I started to listen to the “voices” and ask them questions, all sorts of other mysteries became clearer to me. I began to realize how when I moved out of the house when I was 17, that I was attracted to men who would also continue to affirm this negative belief system that I had about myself. I don’t know if I was attracted to them because I was comfortable always trying harder and that I truly believed that love was something I could “earn” and eventually deserve once I earned it, or because that type of devaluing person was so familiar to me, or if it was a combination of both. It was as though the negative beliefs I had about me, actually made me feel safer.
Try talking to those negative self thoughts instead of yelling at them to shut up. See what happens. This single teaching opened many doors to healing for me and led down many paths that I might never have traveled down, had I kept telling the committee to shut up and go home.
Please feel free to share your own thoughts and reactions to this concept.
Always seeking freedom!
Darlene Ouimet
My Inner Child was My Self Image
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I had an image of a little girl in my mind and I dreamed about her often. She was a little over two years old; she had a dirty face and it was tear streaked. She wore a little white sleeveless dress, a rather fancy dress which barely covered her bottom; the dress was old, now dirty and grimy, tattered and torn and her legs were filthy, scratched and bruised. Her little black patent leather shoes were scuffed and her ankle socks were dirty and droopy. Her dark curly hair was messy and matted and from her hand dangled a sad and ripped little teddy bear with the stuffing hanging out one side. She didn’t speak; I got the feeling that she couldn’t speak. She had no voice. She had a haunted kind of empty look in her dark eyes. I wondered why I had these recurring dreams about her and often saw flashes of her in my mind.
In the dreams I also saw her surroundings; she lived in a very dark and dirty attic. There was a broken window which let a small sliver of light in, but it was also cold. The floors were bare and littered with broken furniture and broken toys. There were no blankets, no creature comforts. It was dark, cold and barren.
There were other rooms in that attic, there was a room full of cribs, about 5 of them all in a row, but none of them had sheets or blankets on them. The place looked as though it had been suddenly vacated, and someone forgot to take the little girl with them. The whole vision screamed of abandonment. She haunted me.
When I was in my forties, I told my therapist about her and for the first time in my life I realized that she was actually me. She was me at that same age. What had happened to her I wondered and why the heck was she living all alone like that, dirty, cold, unloved, unfed, unprotected and abandoned. My life in actuality was nothing like that. I had food, shelter, clothing, warm blankets, good food, parents, friends and toys; But the little girl was my “self image.” She is how I felt about myself. She is how I saw myself and the questions I had about her became about me; “how did that happen, why have I come to see myself that way?”
In a way this was another beginning. I was able to realize that for me to have this kind of “self image” something really awful must have happened. I knew some of what “it” was, but a lot of what I knew about I thought was “normal” and much of it I had tried to put behind me. I tried to do positive thinking but it wasn’t working and I realized that I was blaming myself for my past and I mixed in feeling like a failure for not getting over it.
I started to go and visit the little girl that was me, in that cold dirty attic. At first she didn’t respond to me, she huddled in the corner, cowering from me, and I saw her as separate from myself~ just as I always had.
She didn’t trust me, just like I didn’t trust myself anymore either. I had neglected her in the same way as everyone else had. In some ways, I blamed her for what happened to me as though it didn’t happen to her ~ its logical that I would blame her/me, if you consider the other posts I have written about being convinced that I was the problem and the problem started when I was that age.
I had to stop blaming myself. I had to understand what happened to ME that caused me to see myself and my self image that way. I had to become very gentle with myself, find compassion for myself, and then find ways to accomplish emotional healing with myself. I did spend time talking to that little girl; the little girl that was me. My time with her was intentional. My time with her was about building trust and self love and although when I was “with her” I saw her as separate from me, it was never far from my mind that she was me.
She never did speak to me, but eventually she let me wash her face, brush her hair and get some warm clothes on. Eventually, she let me wrap her in a blanket and hold her on my lap. Eventually she let me comfort her while she cried. She let me care for her. One day she took my hand and we walked out the door; we took one last look around, then together we descended down the long staircase and we left that dark cold attic ~ we walked out into the bright sunshine and fresh air, no longer separate but as one.
Please share your thoughts if this post has impacted you in any way,
~ because there really is gold at the end of the rainbow
Darlene Ouimet
My Dual Thought Process in Therapy Sessions
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Everything felt NEW in the process. Everything WAS new! I had been so protected by my coping methods for so many years. When I started what I call “the process that worked” In my intake session with a new therapist, we talked about some of my coping methods, and my therapist mentioned that we would work on letting go some of my self control. I thought “I don’t think so, no freaking way” but I smiled and nodded. The truth is that I had no idea what he was talking about but it didn’t sound like something I wanted to try. I realize today he was talking about my coping methods. When I began to consider letting some of them go I quickly became very aware of my trust issues. For me, the therapy room became the tiny world where I would try out my new tools, new thoughts, new hopes and dreams. It would also be where I would face my fears, my false beliefs and the truth about my life and what had really happened to me.
As soon as I made the decision to really engage in the process of recovery, the fears came up in a big way and those trust issues were more evident than ever before. My first fears about learning to live in a new world were about my tiny new world ~ the therapy and the therapist. First of all I had to know that I could escape the therapy room, it I needed to. Each session I checked around for the escape routes. There were two doors one leading outside and into a beautiful garden and one leading out of the office itself. I made sure that I could reach the garden door if I had to run. Sometimes I had to sit on my hands; I thought I would get violent. I was afraid to get angry, I was afraid to “do the wrong thing” and I was afraid that if I did the wrong thing that my therapist wouldn’t like me. I could not relax; I was so sure that I would make a wrong move, and if I did, then he would make a wrong move. I was afraid of the therapist, but yet saw him as my last hope. Looking back my adventures in therapy were a tiny mirror of how I lived my life. Everything looked fine on the outside but inside it was chaos.
My therapist pointed out the escape routes in his office. I smiled nervously. Part of me was wondering if he knew that I had already planned my escape which meant that he would know that I didn’t trust him and that might hurt his feelings or make him angry; the other part of me immediately wondered why he was pointing the escape routes out to me. Was he going to do something to make me want to run? Was he going to try to trick me into trusting him? He told me that trust was something that came with time and that I didn’t have to trust him with anything until I felt more comfortable. Looking back, he explained this really well, but in my mind I heard that I should not trust him because he was human and that I might need to run. I had had problems with therapists in the past. A few of them made passes at me or made it clear that they were attracted to me. Part of me was pretty sure that I had caused the attraction and had sabotaged any help that they could have given me. I was afraid that I was going to do it again. I wanted help but I didn’t believe that anyone could help me; furthermore, I didn’t believe that I deserved it.
Even though I planned my escape should the need arise, I was absolutely sure that I would not use it even if I had to. I had frozen so many times before that I didn’t even trust myself to protect myself.
I wanted recovery but I was afraid of it. I wanted to trust someone to be able to help me, but I had learned my whole life that people rarely could be trusted. This is a difficult spot to be in when in counselling therapy because these trust issues and this mixed up thinking get in the way. A therapist can’t help you if you don’t or can’t tell him what is going on but the problem in most cases and certainly in my case was compounded by the fact that I didn’t really know what was wrong and I was pretty sure that the problem was me. I was afraid to tell the stories in case he validated that the problem was indeed me, and once again, I was afraid that he wouldn’t like me, therefore reject me and then my last chance would be gone. I was also afraid he would like me (inappropriately). There were two distinct sides to everything that I thought, although I was not really that aware of it then. Round and round I went, all my thoughts spinning and swirling in my head; most of them opposing each other. I had a lot to sort out and there were days when I wanted to give up ~ “Stop the world, I want to get off.”
Everything was hard. My therapist somehow picked out one thing for me to start with. The process was really truly difficult but the combination of wanting recovery so bad and some of the things that this therapist was saying enabled a little seed of hope for recovery and even a seed of hope for wholeness to take root and that is what kept me going. I fought for my life just a bit more then I fought the process at first. Eventually I fought the process less and less. Little by little the therapy helped, I got stronger, I learned how to feel and deal. I learned how to listen to my dual thought process and figure out the truth and false of each side of it. I learned how to stop spinning and sort my thinking out. It wasn’t super quick but it happened!
My therapist told me that we would find the jewel that was unique to me, the gem inside me. (I thought he was the one who needed therapy but I smiled and nodded.) But once again, he was right. I found the jewel inside of me. And guess what? We all have one.
Life is more colourful without the spin,
Darlene Ouimet
The Recovery Journey ~ Common Bonds
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These past few years I have realized a commonality between almost all of us who struggle with any or all issues, whether those issues have to do with the causes ~ such as physical, sexual, or emotional abuse or if they have to do with conditions ~ meaning symptoms or diagnosis such as depression of any kind, dissociative identity disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, bi polar, borderline personality disorder or mild or serious low self esteem. I am not discounting or stressing the importance of any one type of struggle here because I’ve realized this common bond we all seem to share. If you have been reading this blog for a while, you know that I am talking about the belief system that develops in our lives when we have been abused, neglected or devalued. That belief system seems to have something to do with the resulting problems that interfere with the individual having a life filled with joy and freedom.
I started this blog to write about the healing journey and the difficulties with it; a place to talk about our common bond and to stay away from emphasizing the differences or highlighting the diagnosis. I had been diagnosed with a few different things, and the diagnosis was not what helped me to recover. I found a way out of the brokenness that I lived in for so long and want to share my journey because I realized that the road so many of us travel on the journey to freedom is similar. It is noteworthy to mention that we also have a lot of commonality in the places that we get stuck.
I talk a lot about how I got broken in the first place; Other people got to decide what I was worth or not worth, what I could be used for or what I was good for and even what I was good at. With sexual and physical abuse, someone took control of my body and did things to me that I did not want done to me and I had no choice, although I was told and even convinced that I did have a choice. With neglect or with a parent who never noticed or took interest, I learned that I was not valuable, not important enough to be cared for. I was groomed and trained in guilt and shame, convinced that all of this was my fault; I was influenced and I convinced myself that I could do better or try harder and then it would stop. As I grew older, those childhood beliefs became even more skewed because now I am told that I have a choice about how I view it, and that I should just accept it and get over it or not talk about it because it was a long time ago, and because I still have the deep rooted belief that I was not really loveable due to something I might have done or something that was missing in me and I became even more distressed. I was so sure for so long that it was my fault that I struggled. On top of all that, as an adult there were a lot more voices and influences telling me what was wrong with me, what I was doing wrong and what was in my way. These are the well meaning people, books and leaders that told me I didn’t have enough faith; that I needed to be more grateful, that the past belongs in the past, that I needed to forgive and forget….. Well I’m sure you get the picture.
I spent years practicing positive thinking, telling myself that I loved myself, telling myself that “God don’t make junk”; never speaking of the past, never acknowledging depression, resentment or anger. I practiced gratitude, prayed for people that were my enemies, went to extremes with my physical health and joined self help programs. For 8 years I studied Greek and Hebrew word origins so I could study the original meaning of the bible, I confessed all my sins, and practiced accountability. I submitted to my husband, which in my case meant that I gave up my identity and individuality and became a servant to my family. If I had any dreams I gave them up in favor of his dreams. My struggle only increased.
I learned to cover my real feelings up. I smiled to the world and dissociated much of the time and I beat myself up whenever I was discouraged or ungrateful. I was unhappy and I felt guilty about it because I could not see past all the things I was told and believed that I brought on myself. Consequently I never got over it until I really took a good look at all of it. I took a look at the whole picture. There was no way that I could just get over it or put it behind me, especially with all the mixed up beliefs in there.
There was something missing between the events of my childhood and the “getting over it” and “letting it go” part. The bridge was broken and the keys were on the bridge. There was no real acceptance, no real freedom, no real forgiveness and no real life, until I got the bridge repaired and found those keys. I am grateful every day that I did.
Stay Tuned for part 2 ~ “Mental Health Recovery ~ Ten Necessary Changes“
As always I love to have your comments!
Darlene Ouimet
The View from Now…
Posted by: | CommentsToday I contemplate the journey of wholeness, with emphasis on the journey… Last week I had my first listen to Alanis Morissette’s “Limbo No More” (listen here). I was moved to tears, not because I will never have limbo days again, but because I have come to this point in my journey where I am actually feeling excited about my life. I feel myself standing on my own two feet, making intentional decisions about things that stir my soul, relying less and less on other things or people to spark some kind of excitement for me. Darlene often talks about being reborn, crashing through the walls… I don’t really know how it happens, but I know I crashed through something last week.
A journey is unpredictable, even the most well-planned ones. This journey of wholeness is wholly unpredictable. For so long I held myself back, figuring there would be all these determining factors to tell me that I had finally “made it.” I figured I would feel this certain way or know this certain thing or behave exactly like this or that. But I am letting that go. I am letting myself be, trusting my heart, trusting that what I truly desire will manifest in my life in good time, enjoying what already has. We are human beings. Wisdom can recommend better and best paths to take, but our souls also thrive in spontaneity (especially when we have seen and let go of the lies that have trapped us for so long.) The spontaneous aspect of my soul has been so squished for most of my life. Now, I see how daring to embrace my spontaneity is another force propelling me along my path.
Last week I felt like I was on a mountain top… I drank in a bird’s eye view of all I have come through so far… The journey of wholeness is not always easy.
I started counseling 3 and a half years ago after 26 years of searching. The tough parts?… I have anguished over my progress/ lack of progress. I have thought a million thoughts, I have felt a million feelings, I have had highs and lows and everything in between. I have beaten myself up. I have grappled with the truth, trying to make it REAL to me, wondering why it didn’t feel real? Trying to put my questions into words… I have fallen, I have pulled myself back up, sometimes wondering if I really could pull myself back up. I have lost friendships, grown apart from people, I have gained new friends, I have renewed relationships. I have messed up. I have tried things and quit things. I have quit jobs, tried new jobs, and felt confused about what I was doing so many times. I have invested so much money towards my counseling. I have been broke, had to borrow, had to sell things, had to take second and third jobs. I haven’t had a real vacation in years! I have argued and yelled at God… I have wept and wondered why some victories didn’t seem to stick around long enough. I have even doubted at times if it was all going to be worth it, if I would end up quitting anyways…
Well, from where I’m standing right now… on this particular mountain top, with the crisp, fresh breeze, the sunshine, and the view… looking out over my journey with clear eyes and a full heart, right now it feels so much more than worth it. I am overwhelmed with gratitude. And it’s not even Christmas, or my birthday, and I don’t even have a boyfriend… I am envisioning new things for my future and learning to delve into the deep treasures of the NOW, based on who I know I am. I am excited.
I am excited…
Wherever you find yourself on this journey, especially if you find yourself going through some of the tougher parts, I just want to say that it’s worth it.
With love, Carla
Love, Respect, Relationship and Equality ~ Is Self Help Selfish?
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When I reach out my hand to yours, what do I have to offer you but my own experience, strength and hope?
Sometimes I go on rants. Everyone who knows me well enough knows this truth about me. I like to go on regarding what I feel strongly about, backing it up with all sorts of examples and insightful new ways to look at things. My rants are always truth based, but I base my truth differently than a lot of other people do. My truth is based on my new definitions of love, respect, relationship and equality. I have learned these new definitions over the years of my own process and journey to wholeness. My favorite rants are around the topics how do we learn to love, how do we learn self love and how our experiences determine our belief systems.
I was not taught to love by being loved. I was taught by empty words. There was an obligation ticket attached to the love. I was guilted, and shamed with statements such as “after all I have done for you” and “you think you are so hard done by” and “you are so ungrateful”. Throw a bunch of other false beliefs in the mix along with all that and what you have is a disaster waiting to happen.
My definition of relationship based on the examples that I had, was no better. Then I got married (to someone who had similar false definitions of love and relationship) and had kids of my own. How was I to teach them when my own foundation was so faulty!
My kids used to believe that my love was proven when I baked them cookies or pie, or bought them the DVD they desired. They thought that I loved them if I drove them to their friends’ house, let them have a sleep over and didn’t make them clean up their own messes.
My husband used to believe that I proved my respect for him by putting all his wishes and desires ahead of mine, and supporting all his needs as more important than mine. Our relationship ran smoothly if I never questioned his decisions, made sure that I did not confront him about anything, didn’t interfere with his 12-16 hour per day work schedule and well… the list goes on. If I was running things at home the way that he liked them ran, then I loved him. I had no idea what equality meant. It was just a word that I didn’t give much thought to.
It didn’t occur to me but by this definition of love, my husband and children rarely loved me. By my own definition, I was a good wife and mother because I gave and gave of myself and never expected anything in return. ( I was a slave disguised as a loving servant.) However, I could not understand why I struggled with chronic depression if things were so great in my life. I was exhausted, and didn’t really know why. I constantly dreamed of going on a long vacation all by myself. I longed for more out of life and felt guilty for it. I had to learn the right way to lead by example. In taking care of myself, my children and husband were introduced to my real value and therefore they learned something about their own real value.
There is an even worse statement then “self help is selfish”, and that is the statement that counseling therapy is selfish. When I loved myself enough to get some help for my mental health, myself, my husband and our children were saved from the destination we were headed towards. We didn’t know that we were on a destructive path, we only thought that I was. (This sounds funny now, but it is true) My husband will tell anyone he meets today that by my decision to get help, I have impacted him and our children in such a deep way that our lives are 100% better than they were before.
And to think that it all started with self help
From my heart to yours ~ Darlene Ouimet
