As soon as you give up your self-image--that one tiny part of you that you thought would guarantee you love--and all the shame and grief surrounding the belief that the rest of you would not be loved: you'll be free.

It is sincerely grieving and angering to be forced into a tiny box of who you are--and for everything to hinge on one person's ( Read more... )

All right, not to release a bomb on you or anything, but what is this shit about not taking responsibility? I apologized. That's taking responsibility. I've tried to do better. That's taking responsibility. I am not responsible for your feelings beyond that point. Not, not, and did I mention? Not.

Because you know what? That's really all anybody ( Read more... )

In the most recent episode of The Vampire Diaries, we saw Elena going toe-to-toe with a very dark and very insidious foe.

Maybe inner critic is too light a word. Her own darkest fears became tangible. They started talking to her, in human form, embodying people from her past, one a person she'd killed, the other a reflection of everything she ( Read more... )

I'm going to start keeping a journal of all the words I come across that are unfamiliar to me. They may be words I've seen before but want to pin down better, or they may be words I literally have no idea

specious memification

http://www.get.gg/esteem.htm

I feel bad that you’re examining yourself and your behavior in order to explain his unethical actions; it’s the way young children come to believe they are defective or unlovable when in fact, their parents are limited.

I realize that this happened to me -- when I was growing up, I went through some very painful, awful experiences that no one ever ( Read more... )

In social situations, I try to develop counter-shame. I'm usually on edge, never really relaxed. How do I sound? How do I come across? I feel my social deficiencies so sharply, it's like knives in my belly. I feel the constant pull to develop an image, a self, that I am publically, socially, but I can't get there. I'm sure I have a personality that ( Read more... )

Dear Eric, would you be willing to write me a letter of recommendation for graduate school? I really enjoyed having you as a professor and would love to get your support as I move into the next stage of my education.

I often think of a conversation you and I had about graduate school, where I asked you, "Was it worth it?" and you laughed and said, " ( Read more... )

I was looking for a breath of life, a little breath of heavenly life... but all the choirs in my head say no.

I've felt my life to be made of this yearning for so long now. To get a dream of life again.. a little vision of the sun and the air. But all the choirs in my head say no.

That's not to say I'm not lucky. I am. No matter how horrible, how ( Read more... )

It's really difficult to put into words how I'm feeling right now, what it is I want to express. I'm thinking. I've got this hollow, depressed feeling that's chewing at my guts, somewhere deep and down, and then there's this awesome, lighthearted, freefalling motion going on somewhere higher. Dread mixed with excitement.

It's this really, really ( Read more... )