Oh man, I am so thankful for you. Hearing about the shame spiral and about looking compassionately at our younger selves because they were just a kid trying to survive is just what I needed. I've thought for the longest time that I deserved everything bad that's happened to me, I'm now trying to reframe that as outcomes of difficult circumstances. Turns out punishing oneself endlessly doesn't help turning one's life around. I'm going to write those letters. Thank you, Kati, so much.
I was just thinking that 2021 will officially be the year of *letting go* my past selves. I’ve been holding onto guilt from my childhood, but I’ve realized that I’ve grown so much while I’ve been in college. I’m so lucky that I fell upon this video💗 thanks for everything, Kati
*Questions:* 1. 02:19 Hey Kati! How can I know if I am still attached to my therapist or if it started to be a healthy bond? Also, How do I know that everything I feel towards my therapist isn't just transference? How would I know the difference if I truly like someone or... 2. 07:53 Hey Kati! Hope you are doing well. How does one get over having to switch therapists and process the loss of that relationship and having to start a new one? Thank you for your content! 3. 11:45 Hi Kati! I hope you're doing great. I wanted to ask: am I ever going to make peace with what happened to me as a child and the collateral damages it has created? I was sexually abused from the age of 6 till I turned 8. I've been in therapy on and off since I was 11. A lot of my work in therapy has been about dealing with what happened, but I just still feel like I'm the one who has to deal with the rest of the unfair stuff, for life. For example my abuser is part of my family so... 4. 19:54 Hi Kati, How do you get through social anxiety during therapy sessions (when therapy triggers it much more than any experience ever has), anxiety leading up to sessions, dissociation during sessions, and constantly needing to distract my mind with two things at once after sessions as it makes me panic to think about what was discussed in session. It feels traumatic to... 5. 24:40 Hey Kati! What impact does having a surgery as a baby have on our emotional development? I was wondering if my fear of abandonment is connected with a surgery I had at 6 months old. I recently found out that it was also connected to staying at the hospital for a month... 6. 31:29 Hi Kati! I have a very hard time coping with change, I seem to be seeking comfort and stability all the time and the slightest change in my life brings me a lot of fear and anxiety, sometimes to the point that I have to cancel everything I was about to do to go back to my comfort zone. How do we know when fear is there to protect us (and so we shouldn’t do the thing) or when fear is useless (and so we should do the thing)? Do you think this fear of change could come from... 7. 41:22 Hi Kati, You’ve mentioned in the past about listing what you had in a relationship vs. what you needed from that relationship and grieving the difference. I’ve never quite understood what that meant. What does “grieving the difference” look like exactly? Thanks for all you do. 8. 45:48 Hi Kati. How can you start dating when you struggle with fear of intimacy (especially regarding romantic relationships and sex) and tend to use avoidance as a coping mechanism? I tend to find myself shying away from any situations that include flirting or physical contact... 9. 49:24 Hi Kati happy Thursday! How can I stop blaming my past selves? I always feel like I had so much potential as a 17-year-old and I feel so angry with her for not fulfilling that, despite being aware of how much abuse she had sustained and how lonely and powerless she felt at the time. I just feel like... 10. 56:38 Hi Kati! Thank you for all the content you're posting! My question is: how do you know if you need therapy or if you can cope on your own? If I compare myself to my past self I think I'm doing quite well, I'm able to study more regularly than ever before and I'm often able to soothe myself with meditation. But my dermatillomania is still present (though mild/moderate), I still have bursts of anxiety, issues in some relationships, and a screen addiction... 11. 1:01:37 How important is it to have a clearly formulated goal that you want to work on before your first appointment with a therapist? I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to say anything beyond a vague: "I'd like to not hate waking up in the morning."
So happy to have this today. Thanks Kati! Much love to you and to this entire community! ETA: As a victim of CSA I'm in tears at how Kati is talking about someone's abuser! I wish my therapists were this candid and awesome.
I was just feeling very depressed, hopeless and crying and wished i had someone to talk to....clicked on this video and your voice immediately calmed me down a bit! :)
Oh wow! Someone asked my question! (number 2) I have been trying to ask it for 2 months now but I'm always missing the notification and asking too late. I'm glad someone else had the same question and that it was answered!
I really like the idea to write to my younger selves and then respond as them. I have found it extremely helpful to look at photos of myself at those ages and see just how young and helpless I was... to imagine how I would react to a child or teen if I found out they were going through the things I went through at that age.
Happy New Year! I had an epiphany when you discussed ASD!!! Oh my gosh, validation! I am determined this year to overcome and change my behavior of negative self talk. The “stop, stop, stop” method works great for me. Recently you also mentioned how when we’ve been traumatized by something we can begin to see EVERYTHING as some kind of trauma and that made so much sense to me. That’s exactly what I’ve done for years trying to overcome my cancer trauma as well as being raised with a narcissistic Mother who used shame, blame, fear, judgement and guilt to bully me into who she thought I should be. I wouldn’t have thought my anxiety disorder was born out of a lack of self worth but Holy Cow Batman, of course it did! Zero self confidence because I was actually always trying to please a mother who could never be pleased. She wasn’t happy with herself. I’d give anything to talk to my 17 year old self. Maybe I’ll write her/me a letter. My New Years resolution is to stop being everyone else’s emotional Sherpa! It’s tearing ME in pieces and is just not sustainable. I cannot save the world and the only person I wanna be responsible for is myself. I’ve even set some boundaries with the hubs and I think he’s appreciating that I’m not so hostile all the time. 😁 Thanks for your wonderful content and persevering with Sean in 2020. You kept so many of us from losing are MINDS! Much love from Nashville! 🙌🏻🙏🏻❤️🥂
1. 2:18 Hey Kati! How can I know if I am still attached to my therapist or if it started to be a healthy bond? Also, How do I know that everything I feel towards my therapist isn't just transference? How would I know the difference if I truly like someone or everything I feel just always is transference? 2. 7:51 Hey Kati! Hope you are doing well. How does one get over having to switch therapists and process the loss of that relationship and having to start a new one? Thank you for your content! 3. 11:45 Hi Kati! I hope you're doing great. I wanted to ask: am I ever going to make peace with what happened to me as a child and the collateral damages it has created? I was sexually abused since the age of 6 till I turned 8. I've been in therapy on and off since I was 11. A lot of my work in therapy, has been about dealing with what happened, but I just still feel like I'm the one who has to deal with the rest of the unfair stuff, for life. For example: my abuser is part of my family so, as complicated as it is, I never could get any justice, and that's still something that bothers me, cause I deal with having to still hear from him o even seeing him. I don't know if this was confusing, but thanks for reading, and for your work. Happy Holidays from Venezuela. 4. 19:53 Hi Kati, How do you get through social anxiety during therapy sessions (when therapy triggers it much more than any experience ever has), anxiety leading up to sessions, dissociation during sessions and constantly needing to distract my mind with two things at once after sessions as it makes me panic to think about what was discussed in session. It feels traumatic to think back to the sessions even months later, I spoke to my therapist and she just said it was normal and to be expected and it would get better, but I wasn't told how to cope. Thank you for all that you do. 5. 24:39 Hey Kati! What impact does having a surgery as a baby have on the emotional development ? I was wondering if my fear of abandonment is connected with a surgery I had at 6 months old. I recently found out that it was also connected to staying at the hospital for a month, partly without having my parents there. I imagine this is a traumatic event for a child that age especially since I read it's around the time the object constancy develops. 6. 31:24 Hi Kati! I have a very hard time coping with change, I seem to be seeking comfort and stability all the time and the slightest change in my life brings me a lot of fear and anxiety, sometimes to the point that I have to cancel everything I was about to do to go back to my ‘ comfort zone ‘. How do we know when fear is there to protect us (and so we shouldn’t do the thing) et when fear is useless (and so we should do the thing)? Do you think this fear of change could come from insecure attachment? I feel it might be because I always need a lot to feel safe. How do we address that in therapy? I have no idea how to work on insecure attachment or this fear of change with my therapist! Thank you so much for everything! 7. 41:22 Hi Kati, You’ve mentioned in the past about listing what you had in a relationship vs. what you needed from that relationship and grieving the difference. I’ve never quite understood what that meant. What does “grieving the difference” look like exactly? Thanks for all you do. 8. 45:47 Hi Kati How can you start dating when you struggle with fear of intimacy (especially regarding romantic relationships and sex), and tend to use avoidance as a coping mechanism? I tend to find myself shying away from any situations that include flirting or physical contact. What are small steps I could take to get over this fear? Thanks for all you do, and happy holidays from Switzerland 9. 49:25 Hi Kati happy Thursday! How can I stop blaming my past selves? I always feel like I had so much potential as a 17 year old and I feel so angry with her for not fulfilling that, despite being aware of how much abuse she had sustained and how lonely and powerless she felt at the time. I just feel like a lot of the mistakes later in my life could have been prevented if only she was stronger and could make better choices. How can I stop blaming her and move on from this? Thank you 💕 10. 56:40 Hi Kati! Thank you for all the content you're posting! My question is: how do you know if you need therapy or if you can cope on your own? If I compare myself to my past self I think I'm doing quite well, I'm able to study more regularly than ever before and I'm often able to soothe myself with meditation. But my dermatillomania is still present (though mild/moderate), I still have bursts of anxiety, issues in some relationships and a screen addiction. I'm currently in therapy with a new therapist because I felt like as someone who wants to become one herself, I need to address my own issues first. But I sometimes feel like maybe I don't need it because there are weeks when I'm managing things quite well. Plus, I have already fought and reflected on myself so much on my own before, so is there really more to discover? I wonder if I'm experiencing resistance... Greetings from France :) 11. 1:01:37 How important is it to have a clearly formulated goal that you want to work on before your first appointment with a therapist? I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to say anything beyond a vague: "I'd like to not hate waking up in the morning."
I’m so glad I decided to follow my intuition to listen to this, some things that are happening in my personal life were answered in a couple questions. Yay! It’s like getting virtual therapy 🥺♥️ thanks!
Thank you for talking about emotional development and hospital stays. I was in a hospital for the first six months of my life and I always wondered how it affected me.
This is such a big part of my week. Thank you so much for all your help. I start DBT next week and your videos about it is helping me know a little what to expect.
#4 GROUND YOURSELF!!! aaaahhh can't stress that enough, please try to ground yourself! Sounds like you are dissociating, so you might try to do things like freezing an orange and taking it out, scratching the peel and smelling it or using mint gum and cold water or putting an ice pack on the back of your neck inside and outside of session. It will help! I had a trauma and when I was doing exposure and trauma therapy, I couldn't even say the dudes name or hear any music that I listened to back then without wanting to self harm and going into dissociation. These are things that I had to do in order to be able to talk about it. Now, I can even see that person and go to the place where the abuse happened and not feel any type of way about it. I mean I don't want to see him but if I did i know I would be okay. PLEASE LEARN GROUNDING TECHNIQUES, THEYRE GOLD IN TRAUMA THERAPY. Trauma work is BRAVE and you CAN do it!!! For me, it got worse before it got better and I never could have imagined how much better it did get. Its worth it!
In terms of having an abuser in your family. My family are still in contact with my abuser despite knowing what happened. They see him talk to him laugh with him. I try my best to avoid him and his presence. He tried to talk to me I ignore him and walk away. All I can do is try my best to stay away from him even if he's in the same room as me
If I could go back in time to see one of my past selves I'd just give her a hug. I dont remember if kati said this but I've heard before not to blame your past self because u did the best u could at the time. Sometimes u have to learn things the hard way and it can be best to learn those lessons while young...
For me with ASD it is always relationships that is the big issue. I have constant anxiety (always about the past - NEVER the future), don't sleep and eat well, don't do my daily tasks. I am stuck and completely passive. Those periods last for months - sometimes almost a year. Now I am in a new crisis. It's about expectations. All of a sudden things that felt so safe before don't work anymore. My identity. What's the purpose of relationships, anyways. (I mean relationships in the broadest possible sense - interaction with other people.)
Thanks for anwers to #6. For other families struggling with OCD, mental obsessions, intrusive thoughts and pure-O, I recommend the OCD stories podcast.
Wow, I am letting something from #9 saturate and marinate.. I’ve been given the challenge of these letters to or from myself and I can’t do it right now. Resistance and avoidance full on. But simply imagining how little my younger self was and acknowledging just that right now is helpful. Thanks Kati.
I always like listening to this podcast. I especially connected to this one. Although I connect to a lot of the questions you get of course. I like the term neutral. I've always found the term "safe" kind of confusing, since I've never been physically/sexually abused. So my home life growing up seems "safe," even though it was incredibly toxic and damaging. I spent the first 3 months of my life in an incubator before being released into my neglectful family. People didn't stop asking me if I was autistic until I was 27 because I was so socially stinted. And of course it's really easy to go back and say, "I should've done the thing!" when really I was doing the only thing I knew how to do, best judgement or not... And that's even forgetting the fact that had my actions been different, other people's would have as well, and maybe it could have turned out even worse in the end somehow. I just need to get through a few more months, and then maybe I can leverage some sort of therapy session over a long lunch break at my new job with my therapist.... If she even still has a spot available at the time, since I gave up the first one to help someone else, and gave up the second because it turns out I can't use it at all. I haven't seen her in so long; it feels like forever. She gave me an online resource for cheap sessions, and there are two "maybes" of the few available... But I really don't want to open up to a new one. I don't know, I just feel like crying right now, but I can't cry. And like she says, the beer probably isn't helping. Happy New year. Stay safe, stay healthy. Hopefully you can find a good place in Austin soon. EDIT: I used to skin-pick a lot too! Also, I really like the flower pattern on your sleeves.
Yeah, that question #9. Ever since I had that "it wasn't your fault" moment in my therapy, I'm going back through my life and seeing all these moments where people were rude to me and I blamed myself. It is excruciating. I could write a novel of all the ways Im blaming myself for not sticking up for myself and telling the person "um, that's a rude thing to say." But now, its done. And I have to live with my mistakes.
Opinions that don't matter .hope you had a good week. and a good Christmas lastly thank you for still doing a new podcast for today much needed and appreciated. it's been a long last week for me even know everything s bad in the world hope you have a nice new year ❤
I reeeeally loved hearing about ASD on this episode! I hope everyone has a lovely New Year🥰🥰 (If anyone’s looking for RU-vid channels who post about autism, my fave is ‘YoSamdySam’)
I haven't watched the episode yet but I had to let you know that my therapist basically called me a pufferfish last session so I will be rocking your merch very soon.. 😂❤
How do you submit questions for the podcast? I'm confused... I recently came upon a couple of videos about parasocial relationships and was wondering why they occur and how can someone get out of them. So far when I've been into one, I've just kinda... outgrown them, but I'm worried about friends who have a very unhealthy relationships with celebrities (to the extent of spending most of their incomes for show tickets and patreon instead of stuff they need for living).
Oh man, I've been reading about this transference stuff for a while now and thought, oh this will never happen to me and I won't let it. Pshhhh yeah right! Well, fast forward to my session this week and I let something slip that I suspected about my therapist (I'm a terrible liar) and I was right (good guesser). About 2 hours later I realized I had crazy bad transference and although nothing was said, my therapist reacted in that moment and I knew she knew! I was mortified. I keep realizing all of the things we have in common and I want her to be my friend. A nice person who doesn't judge and listens to me and likes all of the same things I do? Yes please. I mean, who wouldn't?! I don't like that I know some of her hobbies because they are the exact same as mine and it makes me more attached. Kind of pisses me off even though she's awesome. I'm going to try and work through it on my own because I see that it's related to an attachment to my parents that I wasn't able to have and am seeking it from my therapist instead (unhealthy!). Trying to learn from that. These videos and the comment sections help : )
Happy New Year, Kati! And how can we tell, when you are really pissed? When you say things like: "I want to throw him down a rocky hill into a river" - well said, this is what should be done with all abusers. Hope the person who asked this can still press charges - from what I heard jails in Venezuela are not pleasant places.
Hey Kati! I've just found your podcasts and listened to a few episodes and it's really good, so thank you! I wanted to ask, personally, I struggle with making myself vulnerable and often feel scared to trust someone due to my past experiences I feel like there is just a mental barrier I've created where everyone is at an arm's length and there are circles as to how much I am willing to trust someone and in terms of wanting to date or going in a relationship. I'm struggling with this. What would you suggest?
Woah! I relate to #5 and I’m working on lots of trauma having to do with surgeries and all kinds of various things since I was born. I’m 34 and trauma is still a possibility. I have Spina Bifida and other things so surgeries and procedures have been a lifelong thing.
Hello and good afternoon well actually its early evening as its 5:07pm in the uk just started watching I did see my notification until now also I couldn't see anything in the community tab for this week still listening to everyone s questions and of course listening to all kati s answers.i just want to say also happy new years eve everyone wish I was feeling ok but been very unhappy and stressed out and emotional though 2020 and now I'm just trying to find some good in 2021 it's just so hard to feel good about the new year when everything s still bad in the world I say just try keep hope everyone x
You gotta be careful with that language Katie. Some people still care about and love the person who abused them. What they did was wrong, screwed up, messed up...but that doesn't mean they are. Isn't that the message of therapy anyways? My dad is not fucked up. What he did was. People like that need help too.
