![]() Over the many months that Marlene and I continued to talk in therapy, she began to make connections between how her mother, on many occasions would be hurt if Marlene didn’t have the “right” response. She became clearer that she would do anything to ensure that she was not the cause of her mother’s distress. In fact, Marlene had given herself the job of making her mother happy. Marlene remembered how scared she was when her mother was so distraught and how much shame she felt to have done such harm to make her mother feel that way. She recalled how her mother told her how much Marlene hurt her feelings and how could Marlene not appreciate all the time and money her mother had spent to pick out such a perfect dress. ![]() She had one memory where her mother started to cry and tell her how hurt she was when Marlene didn’t like the dress she was given for her sixth birthday. She remembered how her mother would get so hurt when she was little. Marlene considered my ideas with some skepticism. I added that this was something she could work on with Ben. I said that these experiences could be talked about and the other person might be able to listen and understand the intent. I said that you can’t always be sure how the hurt is affecting someone unless you are told or ask. I replied that it was appropriate to feel sorry or sad that you had been the cause of someone’s hurt, but that it didn’t have to make you feel like such a bad person. Marlene thought my questions were strange. How could it not be painful to see someone you love hurting because of you? How could you not feel like a very bad person? Of course hurt causes terrible damage. We also explored Marlene’s idea that when someone feels hurt they are horribly harmed. How could she possibly bear watching Ben be so hurt? She would have to give him what he wanted.Īs Marlene and I talked, I wondered what made it so painful for Marlene to consider that something she said or did had the unintended consequences of hurting someone she cared about. I asked Marlene how she thought she got the idea that it was totally unacceptable to hurt someone she loved. When I suggested this to her, it didn’t make sense. She didn’t understand that it is impossible to be in a relationship without hurting those we love. She had never considered that we all hurt people, even those we love, unintentionally. It also became apparent as I spoke with Marlene that she suffered in all of her relationships by worrying how she was impacting on everyone. While Ben might be particularly subject to feeling hurt or slighted, Marlene’s inability to tolerate hurting Ben and talk with him about these issues, made the relationship difficult. What Marlene described to me suggested that she had issues she needed to work on as an individual and that as we did this she would be more able to address the difficulties in her relationship with Ben. She was shutting herself down and feeling depressed. She also reported that when she was aware of a need that she felt she shouldn’t express to Ben, she would get anxious for fear that she couldn’t contain herself. She felt ashamed that she was the cause of his feeling so terrible. She would apologize to him and try to keep her feelings to herself, but then she would attack herself and feel like a bad person. She explained to me that when she told him these things, he told her that she made him feel unimportant, criticized and pushed away. ![]() If she expressed a need that conflicted with his wishes, his feelings would get hurt. She couldn’t tell him that she didn’t want to play tennis with him every weekend or that she was tired of going out every Friday night with his friends from work. She told me she loved her husband but was feeling like she was in a straight jacket. She described how unhappy she was in her marriage to Ben. Marlene, a 27 year old married woman, came into my therapy office feeling anxious and depressed. ![]() This inhibiting of the self can be harmful to our relationships and can create the conditions for developing anxiety and depression. As a result, we may avoid saying what is on our mind and put aside our own feelings and needs. PATHOLOGICAL FEAR OF AIRSHIPS HOW TO
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