How old is your therapist?

I'm not sure, I'd say early-mid 30s.

I know the question might seem odd, and I'm not trying to imply that she is inexperienced, because I do think you have chosen wisely.

You have gotten validation for your mom's behavior, and that's a good thing. However, even if you hadn't, your perception of her behavior has left you stuck with very real anxiety, a very real sense of shame and rage, and these feelings would be no less valid, regardless the opinion of CPS in 2016.

Was your mom a dippy hippy? I'm from that generation. A generation of sexually repressed women who exploded with the idea of freedom of sexual expression, free love and let it all hang out.

Some of us really f***ed up our kids. Unintentionally, but the feelings are the same.
And I am wondering whether or not your mom was one of those who felt she was somehow helping you to try to understand that sexual feelings are natural, innocent.

This is in no way meant to excuse your mom's actions. Definitely inappropriate. But it would be interesting to see how she viewed them.

My mom was kinda hippyish, she has lots of feminist books from the 70s and 80s. She didn't change her name when she got married. She's definitely the boss of the household.

My dad is always eager to tell everyone how progressive he is because he makes less money than his wife. He doesn't mention that the main reason is simply because he has no marketable skills.

They both grew up Irish catholic. They both had some standard 50s/60s era physical abuse, and laugh about it with their siblings now, as if a grown man punching a small child is just hilarious. Both of their mothers were generally mean people, especially my dad's. I've heard only negative stories about both of their mothers.

I'm not sure how to describe my mom's attitude about sex, as I always tried to talk about it as little as possible. But I always felt like she was trying to sexualize me in some ways, and I didn't want her to. There was this incident that I mentioned earlier:

So yeah you're about right.

Had an epiphany at my therapist yesterday: I hate myself.

Hang in there. This will pass.

The thing is what you are gonna do about it? Is it possible to change that? What is the plan?

My life makes a lot more sense now that I've gained the perspective that I hate myself.

Of course I'm completely unable to form any kind of meaningful connenctions to other people. I don't even like being around myself, why the hell would anyone else want to be around me?

Of course I get super nervous talking to people. I wouldn't want to talk to me, why would anyone else want to talk to me?

Of course I freak out if someone likes me. I don't even like me, there must be something wrong with a person if they like me. Or they have an ulterior motive.

I don't know yet. That's the thing about having an epiphany at around the 40 minute mark of a therapy session. You'll have to wait until next week to find out what to do about it. It's like a cliffhanger until the next episode.

Krunic, can you see yet how healthy you are becoming? As hard and as painful and depressing it sometimes feels, that's therapy working. You are putting the pieces together, and are beginning to see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. You'll get there.

Awareness is a big step in the healing process. You're making great progress keep it up

OP, do you hate yourself for being unable to defend yourself in childhood*? Well, you need to understand that the childhood weakness was an inevitable natural phase and that you're stronger now and can rebuff when needed during social interaction and can also be more intimate (not codependent) with certain people because now they have no power to harm you that much.

* Fwiw, some childhood episode might be also the reason for your fetish for brawny women.

Or at least that's what I'm trying to tell myself I have a long history of self-hate/sabotage, so I know how it 'works'. I didn't bring it up because I thought you already knew that about yourself.

GL with rebuilding yourself, you've been set on the right path!

whoa whoa whoa, I don't have a "fetish for brawny women." That Colombian girl is in good shape but not brawny by any stretch.

I don't think my issues are related to being unable to defend myself. It's not that I'm afraid people will harm me, it's more about me being skeptical of anyone who shows interest in me.

I know I'm healthier than I was before, but I still feel like a broken **** up.

Its 4pm and I just got out of bed. Weeeeeeee depression!

I'm anxious about the conclusions that you might make together with the therapist

Something I'd like to stress is that what you need to achieve with the treatment is freedom from aversion, which doesn't equal desire; both aversion and desire are obstacles to nirvana. Over 99% of people tend to desire an intimate relationship with a certain someone, but they're not more objective than those who avoid it.

An ideal ('superlover') state in my book is when one doesn't turn mutually +EV opportunities down but recognises -EV spots, can give a certain other the pleasure and support that they need, in exchange for various benefits, but doesn't get overly attached to the SO.

Demanding emotional attachment from an SO sounds predatory to me; I'd accept only a constructive contractual relationship, even though I know that this filter renders >99.9% of people ineligible.

Being confident that I'm capable of not getting attached to wrong people would free me of the paranoia about ulterior motives, as the right people (if they exist, but it's not a problem if there are none) bring their key motives on the table.

Freedom from aversion is definitely a goal. However, I don't think all intimate relationships are necessarily of the unhealthy codependent type you're talking about. I think it's very possible to have an intimate connection with someone without being mutually possesive and codependent.

I think paranoia about ulterior motives goes deeper than just not trusting your ability to pick the right person. It's worth exploring how you really feel about yourself and how that affects your openness to others.

Keep in mind this is coming from a guy who hates himself and has never had the ability to form any kind of connection to people, so I'm really just talkng out of my ass.

I've started reading a book called Running On Empty by Jonice Webb. It's about what the author calls "emotional neglect" in childhood, how to identify it, and how it makes life and relationships difficult in adulthood. Many people had emotionally neglectful parents but don't think there was anything wrong with their childhood because they were never in any physical danger. I'll post a more complete review when I've finished it.

Yeah, this is huge. I didn't realize it until I got much older.

Sounds like an interesting read and applicable to a lot of people. looking forward to your review.

I found out about the book because the author was a guest on The Mental Illness Happy Hour last week: http://mentalpod.com/Dr-Jonice-Webb-Emotional-Neglect

I don't mean to keep spamming for this podcast, but it's gold, Jerry, gold.

I'll have to check it out, thanks for the link.

This happens to all natural introverts and leads them down a path where they start to be happy when everyone leaves the room. I remember as a young kid being excited when everyone left because i could think about my own things instead of other peoples stuff.

Light makes my eyes hurt. Sounds make my ears hurt. Thoughts make my brain hurt.

Do you sleep with earplugs and an eye band? If so, they make your sight and hearing more and more sensitive, in my experience.