Old news
Sometimes I flatter myself thinking how far I’ve come. I listen when people tell me that I’m kinder and more gentle. I believe them when they say I’m calmer. I get on a high horse. Then I pull out old journals and fall right off.
My jaw drops when I see how some things haven’t changed. How some of the worries and self talks I have with myself today are the same ones I had five years ago. While it’s true that my life is more stable and positive, it’s also true that I am a damn mess in many of the same ways. I think there is a lesson here, but I don’t know what it is. Is it to see that these are things about me that are inherent and accept them and try to let them go? Or is it to see a pattern and find a way to change it? It shouldn’t bee such a shock every time, but dagnabbit it is!
Do you have things like this? Things about yourself that you’re sure have changed, but actually haven’t? How do you deal with them?
The Dog Ate My Antidepressants 
I knew a guy, a PhD in psychology. He said a client would come in, work on a problem, and get “cured.” A few years later the client would come back with a “new” complaint, and after an hour they’d discover it was just the old problem manifesting in new ways. He said everyone has two or three or four issues that they work on their whole lives, but at ever more complex levels. I didn’t know whether that was encouraging or discouraging, but it does seem to be so.
I think it IS encouraging. It’s nice to know that I”m not nuts! ha!
Hello Clementine,
First of all I don´t think being pleased to hear people say you have changed equals “getting on a high horse”. People obviously mean it and you seem to feel you have become calmer about certain things and happier in general, so isn´t it great peole reflect what you feel?
There will probably always be things that bring out emotions, maybe emotional outbursts that you thought were not part of you anymore but I think that´s totally human and part of you being YOU with all your great character traits AND your flaws but if on the whole you experience these things LESS than before then that´s already progress isn´t it?
I know these things only too well and I have only just read my journals from when I was 17/18 years old and I kept thinking “Oh my goodness, how bloody insecure were you?” BUT I also see how far I have come and I´m very much ok with who I am now and if I have one of my emotional outbursts which ultimately have to do with insecurity I accept that and I know now they are exceptions to the rule.
Sending you lots of love,
Alex
You’re far from alone! On my supposed last day of therapy (33 years ago!) my therapist said, “Yes, you are crazy, but, you’re the good kind of crazy.” I asked if I was done with therapy. She smiled and said, “For now.”.
We’re human, we have flaws and that’s what makes us so damn perfect. 😉
Life is full of doubt and doubts brings us to pause occasionally (too ?). We grow, we change but our basic questions are still there, even if sometimes we do like it they did not exist, it always comes back. Small I wondered why this, this or that, and today, I still catch myself to ask me such questions. They may return in different directions but they are there. So, no, you’re not alone in this.