Today I had my third therapy session.
I realized after two therapy sessions that I hadn’t said anything really critical about myself yet. It felt like I was potentially going to therapy to stroke my own ego and to get another person, someone I am telling myself is an objective and learned voice, to tell me I’m a good husband, a good parent, a good employee, a good person.
But I don’t _actually_ want that.
So I told my therapist that.
After meandering for a while, I finally found the voice inside myself that I feel the most insecure about. The voice that says,
“I am not a good parent.”
Cognitively I don’t think I believe this to be true.
But I feel the pressure to never let that be true constantly.
It has something to do with control. I can identify that. It also has something to do with the weight that I give to the voices around me. I give too much time, energy, and thought to the opinions of people around me, especially to those that are complete strangers.
I often feel my kids are out of my control. And I think deep inside I tell myself that because of that, I am not a good parent. When we are out and about and my kids throw temper tantrums, it feels like every person is telling me this with their glances. At dinner when they refuse to stay in their seats, I feel like I am a failure. I can’t even get them to sit down for more than five minutes at a time. I feel this especially when we have guests over.
So my task these next couple weeks is to pay attention to this voice. Where am I hearing it loudest? Where is it coming from? When and where do I hear it the loudest?
It’s so hard to cognitively know something isn’t true true, but continually try and override the negative tapes in my head that seem to play on repeat in the background.
The Overlap 