Building Self-Confidence 104

In another recent post, I wondered why I drop so quickly to these feelings of detachment and emptiness. It isn't depression; it's not anxiety. It's something else entirely and I don't really know how to name it. So, 'suicidal feelings' it is. I hate feeling this way. It's easy enough for me to use healthy thoughts and behaviours to control them, but the feelings still persist. They start up 'randomly' and finish just as randomly.

Theoretically, I understand dissociation. I know I have a dissociative disorder. My therapist and I have talked about how I heavily dissociate my feelings. I have the emotional intelligence of a gnat. But I am trying to treat myself with compassion, love myself regardless of how I feel, and even use my dissociative abilities as an advantage. For example: even though it seems silly or even crazy, I talk to myself.

I know that properly attached children develop such that they have a healthy mum/dad inside themselves. So, even when the mum/dad goes away, the child can still regulate himself. He knows who he is.

I know that I never had any healthy attachments, so the 'mum/dad' inside me is quite controlling and protective/defensive. I have to learn to be a better parent to myself (aka treat myself with compassion), which may sound straightforward but isn't really. Because bad parents assume that they know what is best for their children. They don't listen to what their children have to say. They don't let the children express themselves. I admit, I'm guilty of treating myself like that: ignoring my own needs, my own voice, my own desires.

I have so many huge decisions to make right now (jobs, home, kids, marriage), and I've been paralysed because I don't know how to treat the different parts of me with respect. But it strikes me that my child part doesn't really care about any of that (and that's maybe why I've not been able to decide).

[This post was written on May 18th, but I didn't have the courage to finish or share it.]

Read on the NHS Choices blog.