Encore: S03 Ep. 10 - Kayla’s Toxic Relationship

I'm Laurie Gottlieb. I'm the author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, and I write the Dear Therapist advice column for the Atlantic.

And I'm Guy Wench. I'm the author of Emotional First Aid, and I write the Dear Guy advice column for Ted. And this is Deo Therapists.

Each week we invite you into a real session where we help people confront their biggest problems and then give them actionable advice and hear about the changes they've made in their lives.

So sit back and welcome to today's session.

This week, a young woman who's now with a healthy partner still carries scars from an abusive relationship she had years ago.

Like I'm just ashamed of the whole situation.

I don't want to talk about how I had an abusive partner for three years of my life. I want to forget about it on the outside, but on the inside, I can't forget about it.

First, a quick note, Deo Therapists is for informational purposes only, does not constitute medical or psychological advice, and is not a subtitute for professional health care advice, diagnosis, or treatment. By submitting a letter, you are agreeing to let iHeart Media use it in part or in full, and we may edit it for length and clarity. In the sessions you'll hear, all names have been changed for the privacy of our guests.

Hi Guy, Hi Laurie. So what do we have in our mailbox today?

Today we have a letter from a woman who is still processing the fallout of a relationship she had several years ago. And here it is Deotherapists. It has been over five years since I ended the toxic and emotionally abusive relationship which I was in for approximately three and a half years. The reason I'm writing to you both is because, at twenty seven years old, I still currently experience intrusive thoughts and tend to relive parts of this

What struck me most about Kayla's letter is that she said that she's twenty seven years old, and doing the math, it sounds like she was about nineteen when she got into that relationship that still haunts her. And it's interesting because I think when we're younger. Often we don't know a lot about boundaries. But she still hasn't forgiven herself for this relationship that started when she was basically a teenager.

Sounds like she's done a lot of work on her SELFIEA, she's saying that nothing really has changed enough, So that's something we have to find out. She does seem to have a lot of insight, yet not a lot of changes happening. Let's go find out where she's stuck.

Yeah, let's do that. You're listening to Dear Therapists for my Heart Radio. We'll be back after a short break. I'm Lori Gottlieb.

And I'm dy Wench and this is Deatherapist.

Hi Kayla, Hi Laurie, Hey guy, thank you so much for having me on the show.

You are very very welcome.

We read your letter and we wanted to hear a little bit first about what's been going on with your dating life more recently.

So this might come as a bit of a shock seeing I wrote the letter. However, I'm actually engaged to a wonderful man. And the reason why I say you might be shocked is because a letter. You know, I feel like when I wrote it, it seems like I have a lot of unresolved trauma from the pest. But my fiance is a wonderful man. It's just the past that I can't seem to reconcile with.

So I think you wrote to us fairly recently. Tell us how long ago you met this man and how long you've been engaged.

Yes, so I recently got engaged about two months ago, and we've been dating for about two years.

So when you wrote to us and you were saying that you had this pattern of still choosing unavailable men, you were engaged or you were with this man when you wrote to.

Us, yes, not engaged.

You were saying you have this problem going after unavailable men, but you'd been in a relatively long relationship with an available man.

Yes, And it was very weird at first. I wasn't even sure I wanted to be with someone like him. Maybe he was too available.

What I mean is it sounded from the letter like you had been through this pattern for the last five years of continually dating unavailable men. When you were writing us that letter, Why do you think you left out the fact that you have and to be in a relationship with an available man.

I think I still feel a lot of shame for a lot of my past decisions, and I do feel like a fraud sometimes in my current relationship. So I think, while yes, I am in a happy relationship, I do also feel like maybe not deserving of the relationship.

Does the fact that you left out that detail reflect also how you think about yourself? In other words, it's been five years, you've done all this work in therapy, you're actually engaged to a good, emotionally available man at the moment, do you still think of yourself as the woman who was in the toxic relationship despite the fact that you've been in a good relationship for two years.

Yeah, I think that's pretty spot on about how I view myself.

So reality has moved on changed, but your self perception hasn't updated with it.

Yeah, definitely.

Can you tell us how the feelings that you're carrying around from the earlier relationship play out in the current relationship.

Yes, So early on in the relationship, it was very weird to me to have a man that was texting me every day wanting to spend time with me. So those were things that freaked me out in the beginning. But I will say like, as we would start dating, I noticed that sometimes when you know, he would make like a small comment like oh I miss you or

That's how you interpreted him saying I miss you.

I saw it as something like you never make time for me. That's how I viewed it because that's how it was with my ex boyfriend Jay.

But with my current fiance it's very different.

Another example, so we lived together recently and I tend to keep dishes in the sink sometimes, and last week he was making a joke, oh look Kayla leaving her dishes in the sink again, and I just jerked up from the couch and I was like, oh my gosh, I'll clean this up right away. I'm so sorry. And he even said like, relax, I was just busting your chops. So I think I was so scared of my ex boyfriend Jay that that fear still controls me in my current relationship.

Does he make the connection in his own head between, oh, she's reacting strongly because of her ex.

We've had a little bit of discussions of my previous relationship experience a lot of shame. So I maybe didn't tell him a lot of things because I didn't want him to look at me differently. I didn't want him to say, like, why would Kayla choose a man like that? What's wrong with her? Even though I don't believe deep down that's what he would think.

I just.

Choose just not to say certain things that have happened. But he definitely knows that I was in a very toxic relationship. I didn't say to him that it was abusive. I just said it was toxic.

I think what's interesting is that you thought he might say, what's wrong with her? That she was in that relationship. But I think that's what you say to yourself, And that's so common with people who have been in abusive relationships. They think something is wrong with them. And so I'd be curious if you could tell us a little bit more about what actually went on in that relationship.

So the relationship spanned about three years. It was sort of in like two phases, if you will. The first year and a half was us trying to figure out what we were. The second year and a half was when we were actually in a relationship.

We had met in college.

We would flirt and when we would see each other parties, we would sometimes kiss when we saw each other at the bar, but nothing ever progressed from there. And right before he was about to graduate, I was a few years younger than him, he told me that he cared about me, and I realized that I had feelings for him as well. I realized right after he said those words that that's all they were.

They were just words.

There was no actions to back him up, because that weekend after he told me he cared about me, and went to the bar and he was making out with another girl right in front of me. But we continue to play this game of him pretending he didn't want me, pretending I didn't care, when I really did. So we hung out that entire summer. He didn't want to do long distance when I was going back to school, and I would say that year that I went back to

And I didn't even fight him.

I was just like, yeah, let's get back together, even though he had completely broken my heart.

So that first section you weren't actually together. Was there a period that you were actually together?

This summer after he had graduated, and this is right before my junior year of college. We were hanging out all the time and I fell in love with him, which now I see it wasn't love. I almost describe him like he was a drug. When he wouldn't text me, I physically felt sick. And then when he would text me, I felt like I was on top of the world. But every time I hung out with him, I always felt this sense of emptiness and loneliness, and I couldn't really pinpoint why I felt that way.

You said you felt empty after you hung out with him, and at the same time you said you fell in love with him. What did it mean to be in love with him? What did you love about him?

He was very popular at my college, but he was known for being a player. He was one of, in my opinion, one of the most attractive men at the school, and he always had girls like pining over him. So I think when got to the point where he told me he cared about me, I almost felt like I won something. I won, like this prize of this of like the most attractive, most popular man of college.

So I was saying it was like winning a prize, because for you to be with this popular, handsome guy kind of elevated your status in other people's eyes, but probably mostly in your own. Were you aware that you were kind of tethering your self esteem a little bit to him?

Definitely, because there were times that summer that I had tried to end things with him because I really felt like I wasn't getting what I deserved or needed. But then he would always come back and say, no, I'll fight for you, and I believe those words, but those words were always empty with no actions to back them up. It kept going on like that for quite a while.

What internal dialogue did you have about trying to get yourself to not capitulate when he came and said, no, I'll fight for you. You're the one. And was there an internal fight about like no, I shouldn't or was it just like, okay, good, let's let's do it.

I think part of me wanted him to fight for me.

So when I got those words from him again, I felt that high, like I took a drug. So I I really didn't push back when he would you fight for me, And even like from the point where I actually broke up with him, you know, years later, he did try to fight for me again, and that time I was actually done. But at the time, like I knew it was bad, but I almost couldn't help myself, and I feel a lot of shame around that currently.

I'm not sure if you're aware, but the science of heartbreak is quite clear that what happens in our brain when we're heartbroken is very similar to what happens in our brain when opioid addicts are withdrawing from heroin. In other words, you said drug, and our brain absolutely regards it as a drug, and like heroin in the sense that you feel desperate to just get a fix, to just get him back, to just be in touch, and you feel pointless without him, the drug is the answer

That's really good to know.

I suspected it was like a drug, but I didn't know there was actually science to back that up.

How did you eventually decide that you were going to go to rehub let's say, by breaking up with him?

So I remember this day so very clearly. He refused to come to anything that pertained to like family or friends events, and when he was around my parents, he was just you could just tell he was very uncomfortable. So he picked a fight with me a few days before Christmas, and I knew he did that because he didn't want to come to Christmas.

He knew I was going to beg him.

So at Christmas, when everyone was asking me, like, oh, hey, where's Jay, I was like, we broke up and at that point we actually hadn't, but I was telling everyone that because I knew my decision was made. That was sort of like the straw that broke the camel's back. And the next day I went over to his house and I broke up with him. And for all the times he watched me cry, he was the one finally crying.

So it definitely didn't.

And well, but I was just proud that for once I really stood off for myself.

What was it about that straw that broke the camel's back? Because it sounds like he had done things like that throughout your time together, sending these very mixed messages of come close, no go away, come close, go away, and then there's this one incident that sounds not that different from the other things that went on. What was it about that one?

I think part of me was scared of him. Again, he was never physical with me, but I was scared of him in the sense that, you know, he was always yelling at me. So I definitely think at that point I was walking on eggshells around him, was afraid of him. So I think I didn't know I wanted to break up with him. I just didn't know how because I think I still was afraid of him.

The relationship. Were you ever able to say to him, Hey, I didn't like when you did that.

I definitely did at first when we were like officially dating. Now, I wouldn't stand up for myself. Every time he came to visit me at school. We always got into a fight. He was always mad about something, and I always just apologized to him and begged for his forgiveness. And there was actually a specific incident that happened where one of my friends was also visiting me that weekend with him. I think it was my birthday weekend, and I just remember fighting between the two of us and it was

You know, you mentioned that you felt a lot of and still feel a lot of shame about the relationship and that you didn't really talk to friends much about it. But after that experience, when a friend actually just sees something and a good friend she is to come up to you and say I'm worried without going too much further than I'm worried. I think she handled it really well.

I think I didn't share because I knew what everyone was going to say. I think I knew people were going to tell me to leave him, and I don't think I was ready at that point.

It's interesting, cable because in fact, a friend you pointed out very specifically in the first comment was I'm worried for you, and you specifically said she didn't tell me I should leave or anything. It was your own fear that if I tell them, and I am open with them, and I hear my own mouth say these things about him, I'll think I really have to leave, rather than they'll think I really have to leave.

Yeah, definitely, And that makes me wonder a little bit if you have any ideas now in retrospect about what do you think it was that made you continue to stay in a relationship where that behavior was going on.

They think my childhood was not that great in the sense that in school I was the weird girl. I was the girl that didn't have any friends. I struggled academically up until I got to high school, and I also was an athletic, so I think from a social aspect, I didn't have that much confidence because I.

Was that weird girl.

So I think that's why I was even more attracted to him at first, because here I was getting attention from the popular kid, which was something I think my inner child desired.

What made you weird exactly?

I was one of the youngest kids in my grade, and I just struggled academically. Looking back, I just believe that I was physically and emotionally immature. And my parents are blue collar workers, so I think, you know, while they were very physically present, they didn't really know how

She thought she should have had. It was definitely rough.

In your letter, you talked about grieving this time in your life that you spent with Jay, But what you're talking about now is grieving those years of childhood. Long before you met Jay, you were so isolated, so alone, weren't really seen in the way that you needed to be seen. And I think this grief piece is really important because when we're trying to process a loss, sometimes what we do is we confuse one loss with another loss.

Yeah, I do wonder that sometimes, but.

It definitely feels lonely because I feel like sometimes I can't really talk about it.

With anyone because what do you imagine would happened?

I just think, you know, my family and friends have been like worried about me, probably up until like a few years ago, and I just feel like I need to present like this stable person at this point, so I sort of suppress a lot of what I'm feeling or tell my therapist. But it definitely feels lonely. I want to forget about it on the outside, but on the inside I can't forget about it.

Do your parents know you said that your friends would notice some of Jay's behavior. Did your parents ever say we're worried about this?

They never said anything. Like recently, with like in the last couple of years, they've said, like, you know, we didn't know it was this bad. You hid a lot from us, But they said we knew the relationship wasn't good, they didn't realize it was abusive.

And how did they find out that it was abusive if you weren't talking about it.

My sister had told them. There was one night I had a complete mental breakdown about.

This after the relationship ended.

Yeah, after I had pursued one of these emotionally unavailable guys. Once that happened, I sort of was like crying over that guy as well as Jay. And like my parents like sometimes would joke about my ex Jay, and I think when they were joking one time, my sister said, like, you don't You can't joke about that relationship. You don't realize how bad it was. And I think my parents were floored. She just was trying to get like my parents to realize that they failed me in a sense.

What does your sister think your parents should have done or what do you think they should have done given that they didn't know what was going on.

Like I said, my parents blue collar workers. They we didn't have the most money growing up, but they really worked very hard to give us a good life. And as much as I love them, I think growing up their focus was always on what looks good on paper. The message me and my sister received when we're going to college, like you need to pick a major that is going to you're going to make six figures right right out of school. You cannot major in education. You're

That you didn't have the tools to really listen to what you wanted or desired because you didn't have practice with that.

Yeah, like everything I would like come to my parents with was always dismissed. You know, something as silly as wanting to quit softball. I would have so much anxiety going to practice. I used to cry in the bathroom because I didn't want to play it, and I would cry to my parents and it.

Was just sort of like too bad.

So I think I just learned to do things that I didn't want to do in life, learned to stay in jobs too long, stayed in relationships.

Longer than they wanted to.

You said that your parents are really concerned about you getting a job where you made a lot of money right out of college and that things looked a certain way. Did you end up choosing a career based on what they wanted?

One hundred percent.

I was always good at math in high school because I had sort of dealt with a lot of depression and anxiety. I actually wanted to major in psychology. I wanted to become like a therapist because I said I wanted to help people like me.

And.

I was told like, no, you're going to need to go to grad school for that major. It was basically like, you're good at math, so just do something in business. So I chose finance, and it definitely didn't belong in that major.

I think.

A lot of the reasons why I even stayed in my relationship with Jay's because I was very unhappy in college, forcing something that wasn't meant for me, and he was my only source of happiness really at the time. I mean, he wasn't happiness for me. But that was my only.

Crutch, let's call it an escape.

Yeah, and even the message like you have to get a job at a big bank, and that job was also one of the worst experiences of my life. I don't actively blame my parents anymore. I see them for who they are with their own issues. I just wished they would have listened to me. I wish I would have had the insight to, like, you know, go to college and choose my own major, or at least I wish I could have dual majored in psychology. I wish

Have you ever told them that you feel this way.

Yes, they harbor a lot of guilt.

My parents were actually paying recently for my therapy and I didn't ask them to. I think they just feel so bad for what had happened, and they've seen me have you know, a ton of mental breakdowns over my job. So I think knowing that they're sorry helped me forgive them a little bit, and not.

Just being sorry, but knowing that they can actually see you.

Yeah, Taylor, you said your sister the one that told your parents about what was going on with Jay, and your sister is the one that got through to them about this stuff as well. Do you have a relationship now where you don't need your sister and if something is going on, if there's something you wanted to bring up, you feel comfortable doing it in a way that they can hear and respond to.

Luckily, yes, it took up me a long time to get there, but I have really strong boundaries with my parents and they respect them. For example, my mother she knows when she comments on my clothes. I know it's very trivial, but if she comments on my parents, she

I'm wondering if the timing of having boundaries with your parents and having them really see you coincides with not going after unavailable men anymore and meeting your fiance.

So I think some of the men. Well, two of them were divorced, and they were only divorced for a month, So I think that should have been my first red flag that maybe they weren't ready to be in a relationship. I think after you dating some men like this, I had rules for myself. One of them was something as silly as they couldn't add me on social media unless

What did I just sweep under the rug that shouldn't have been So.

It sounds like you were learning from these relationships with people who weren't available or weren't wanting what you were wanting at the same time, But in your letter you present it as if you're just not learning anything. You said something like I've learned nothing from this, and yet you were starting to set boundaries. You were coming up with what are my limits? You were looking at yourself

I still see myself as this helpless young child. As proud as I am of the strides I've made, as happy as I am with my fiance, I still am scared that I can't trust myself. I'm even scared to be one thousand percent happy with my fiance because I'm scared that I'm just going to keep making mistakes.

Can you just clarify what mistakes you could make with your field and say right now?

For example, I'm scared to want a baby, And the reason why I'm scared to want a baby is because I convinced myself that I'm infertile, even though I go to the doctors yearly. There's nothing wrong with me. But I'm just convinced that I can't have what other people have. And I'm even like scared to plan a wedding because I'm just I'm just like it's going to rain, something's

So desire is dangerous, Yes, because the other shoe could easily drop.

Yeah, so that's right. Sometimes I feel like a fraud. My fiance adores me, and I'm like, what do you adore? He's never given me a reason not to trust him, or every day he shows me that he loves me in some capacity.

What do you love about him?

I love that he's always there for me. Besides the fact that he's very physically attractive, at least to me, his comfort to means everything. His friendship to me is everything. He's a very sensitive guy, and that's very different than anyone have ever dated. His emotions are on his sleeve and I never have to guess what he's thinking. He surprises me with flowers all the time, or he'll cook for me and he'll say, like, you know, I made

So you were talking about how cared for you feel by your fiance, and at the same time you're afraid to really talk to him about some of your experiences that still live inside of it. What do you think makes for that disconnect between I really trust this person and I really feel cared for, and I also don't want to open up to him. Is that the other shoes going to drop? And if so, how might it drop.

I don't think he would leave me or anything if I did open up. I really think it's rooted back in the shame I still feel from the experience. I want to present that things are peachy, when in reality there's turmoil inside. I think it's really just the vulnerability of opening up to such rough subjects, to dark times in my life.

You have shame about the relationship with Jay, but do you also have shame specifically about your elementary school experiences?

Yeah?

I mean, you know, what are people going to say if I'm like, oh, you know, I was a loser in elementary school And I know that's dramatic.

I know it's not that dark, but you know, it scares me.

I notice how much you downplay your experiences. Earlier in our conversation, you said about a boundary that you were setting. This might sound silly, when it was not a silly boundary at all. It was a very valid boundary to set. And now you're saying you're being dramatic by talking about what sounds like a very lonely and painful time in

I mean, worst case a divorce.

Obviously that's not something I would ever want, But I understand what you're saying, Laurie. If we did have kids, if I'm going to do what my parents did to my kids and invalidate their emotions that you know, that terrifies me too, even have kids, to know, like, what if I screw them up the way my parents screwed me up? You know, what if I invalidate their emotions or their needs, or you know, if I have kids, what if I try to give them the life that I always wanted but never had and force them.

To do things they don't want to do.

First of all, it sounds like you're so aware of these things in a way that parents who do do those things to their kids maybe aren't so aware that they're doing it. But also, you went away from my question. And I bring that up because again we're talking about the emotional intimacy with your fiance, and when I go there, you go to a different worry. So if we can sit for a second and think about that and see what happens in your body as that question goes through you,

Feels like really unfair to him and to myself.

How does it feel unfair to you?

Because I deserve to make peace and I deserve to express myself, and I just keep denying myself that it's only going to just further confirm to my self disbelief that I'm not worthy.

It's a cruel form of self sabotage.

It's self sabotage in the name of self protection, except that it doesn't actually protect you. It leaves you more vulnerable to things going wrong.

Yeah, what I'm hearing from you is that there is a way in which you actually really don't feel worthy because you still feel in part and too much like the weirdo kid, the loser as you represent it, and you still have so much shame around Jay. And I think what's preventing you from opening up and being emotionally available to your fiance and to other people in your life perhaps is that there is very very little self

Yeah, you said that your finance job made you miserable. Have you made a change since that job?

Yeah?

I quit was sort of another moment similar to when I broke up with Jay, where I felt very empowered. Within like two months, I literally lost like twenty five pounds, like just the stress just evaporated from my body. That's how much stress I was holding in to my body from that job, and it just left. I didn't even like change my diet, and everyone was like, you just look like a different person. And I think once I left that job that was suffocating to me is when

So are you pursuing something that excites you.

I took a different job at a much smaller firm and I've been there for like a year and a half.

Now.

I am still like in the sort of the finance world, but I'm working nine to five, which is just amazing. My priority has been trying to fix myself, if you.

Will, or can we say, maybe trying to heal myself.

Yeah, my priority has been to heal myself. I'm, you know, in therapy. I'm reading books again, which is something I haven't done in years. I have, you know, dabbled in yoga a little bit.

Though.

I think my career is sort of on a back burner right now because I'm trying to fix these other areas of my life first.

And where in all of this is your interest in psychology and your desire to become a therapist.

I mean, I still think I would love to be one. I know I could do it if I really wanted to, So, sort of like I do another areas of my life, I kind of keep my life small, or I stay in this limbo to protect myself.

Does your fiance know about that desire?

He does, and he said, like, if you want to do it, you know, I'll support you. But I'm scared to shake things up in my life because right now I feel a lot better. But I'm scared to be too happy and I'm scared to be too depressed. So I keep myself in a limbo area.

Saying that you're afraid to feel too happy and you're afraid to go spiraling down into depression. So you want to stay in this kind of safe middle. But the problem with that is that you don't really feel Yeah, so I think there is something in between depression and just not feeling great that day. But for you, it's like it's either going to be really great or really awful, kind of like it was with Jay. You know, things are great he called me, he wants me, or things

Yeah, I wanted to ask you, Kayla, in the therapy that you've had, has the topic of anxiety.

Come up now? I was always very focused on the depression part of myself, or I thought that was the most urgent thing that needed to be addressed. We never really got to the anxiety part.

I'm asking because I hear an undercurrent of anxiety in almost everything that you're talking about. By definition, anxiety is a fear of an unspecified, non immediate, vague kind of dread of something bad will happen. It's not an articulated what that bad might be. It's not something that's looming this second, it might happen later or tomorrow or next week. And that feeling of dread is the thing that people interpret sometimes as fear. But one of the biggest responses

Spot On, It's even funny, I'm like trying to convince my fiance that I don't want to have a bridal party because I don't even want to like offend people by not like choosing them as bridesmaids.

My go to is just to avoid even having a bridal party.

So it's interesting you bring that up because it manifests.

So many different ways in my life.

And it's important to label it anxiety because if you don't label it anxiety, then you start coming up with rationales for it and justifying them. So why I'm saying that, I want you to note this idea of calling things anxiety when it fits that pattern, because then you at least know, no, that's not necessarily a real danger, that's anxiety.

I think I've been focused on depression as the driver that I neglected to see, you know, anxiety in the passenger seat.

You did that with the kids too, that I'm afraid to have kids because I might do things to them that would repeat what my parents did with me. I'm afraid to entertain the idea of psychology because I don't know if I'm committed to it yet. There's a reason for everything that you come up with. But underneath that, what happens is, and you've used this word several times today, self sabotage in the name of self protection when it doesn't actually protect you, does not keep you safe. It

And the last thing about anxiety is it's exhausting because you have to do these mental gymnastics and these accountings and these rationales and explaining and avoiding. It just keeps you very busy.

And the other function of it is that while you're spinning in your head, you don't really have room to connect with your fiance, maybe with your friends, maybe with yourself in the ways that I think would create a much richer experience for you.

Yeah, I agree.

So, Kayla, we have some advice for you. Here's the first part. As I said, I was concerned that you are very self critical and that you need to improve your self compassion skills and practice. What would like you to do is would like you to make a list of the ten greatest self critical hits that play out in your head, things like I was a weirdo, or it's shameful that I stayed in a relationship that was abusive,

And we think that will help with the next part of the assignment, which is when you can have a little more self compassion for yourself, you might be able to start to connect with other people in a deeper way. And we want you to start with your fiance. We would like you to talk to him about some of

One lost. We were thinking also about the anxiety that you have, especially around experiencing joy. So we would like this week you to catch, if possible, five times that you are thinking about things that could bring you joy in a way that's full of dread and avoidance. For example, how can I have a bridal shower. I'll alienate one of my friends, so I can't do that. You have that thought, all you need to do is go, okay, that's an anxious thought. That's not a realistic concern. That's anxiety.

Okay, it sounds really good.

I didn't really realize to an extent that it was almost controlling my life. So even just recognizing that already just makes me feel a lot better and a little hopeful. So I'm definitely excited to do these tasks that you both mentioned.

Well, we're very excited for you to try these things this week, and we look forward to hearing how it goes.

Yeah, thank you or thank you guys so much for having me on the show. It's been a pleasure.

So I was really surprised when we started a session today and the first thing Kayla told us was that she not only was engaged, but had been dating this very seemingly emotionally available man for two years. And it seems so strange before we got to know her, but once we started unpacking some of this, it actually made sense that it is so terrifying for her to even voice something good in her life that she just pushes it down. She couldn't tell us this good thing had

It was really difficult for her to add that in her letter and say, oh, but things are good in this area because she has so much anxiety and dread about that going south at some point.

The going south part is the part that really trips her up. That I can't hold to tightly onto the things that bring me joy because something will go wrong. I can't think about having kids because I might repeat the patterns of my parents. I can't think about my bridal shower, even though that might be really fun, because I might offend someone. I can't think about this career that I might want to have because I'm supposed to

I love by the way her phrasing of I thought depression was driving this. I didn't realize anxiety was in the passenger seat. As you know, Laurie, those two go on road trips together all the time.

They're fast friends. Yes, so we gave her a bunch of things to think about this week and to do this week, and I am really looking forward to hearing how that all goes for her, as am I.

You listening to dea therapists. We'll be back after a short break, So Laurie, we heard back from Kayla. Let's hear how she did this week.

Hey Laurie, Hey guy, it's Kayla. I'm here to talk about the task that you have both given me too complete over the past week. Vers One guy maybe wanted me to make a list of ten self critical hits with the self compassion component, and I wanted to share one that I had written out. So the self critical hit is I should have never gotten into a relationship with Jay, And the self compassion component that I wrote out was I have always felt like the outcasts in society.

So we give people a lot to do every week because we only have one session with them, And with the first two tests that we gave Kayla, it sounds like she did beautifully. She got out of her shame and went into a place of compassion with some of the narratives that she had been carrying around, and she was able to talk to her fiance and start to connect with him in a different way without hiding some of these parts of her past that felt so shameful to her.

And I think that's all very positive. But when it came to the other two tasks around signing up for the psychology class and identifying her anxiety around joy, she seems to have struggled with those two.

And I want our listeners to understand that when we give these multi component tasks, it's for a reason, because things are always connected, and so the idea of the

It's really hard for me to open up to him because every time in the past I've opened up about my feelings, it's either bend, met with rejection or met with OCD. So it's really hard for me to trust that I can have a safe person to open up too.

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If you have a dilemma you'd like to discuss with us, email us at Laurie and Guy at iHeartMedia dot com. Our executive producer is Noel Brown. We're produced and edited by Josh Fisher, additional editing support by Helena Rosen, John Washington, and Zachary Fisher. Our interns are Ben Bernstein, Emily Gujierrez and Silver Lifton. And special thanks to our podcast Fairy god Mother Katie Curic, we can't wait to see you at our next session. Theotherapist is a production of iHeartRadio fisher Food