Need help with a complex situation with depression

Always @Faith-and-Hope 😊. Just had some distractions and brain is on go slow. I just lost a big response to Apple 😔 In between S1 was messaging me so I know which country he is in at the moment. And the kids came home so I said hello, and I scanned and uploaded some overdue documents. Will respond to your post in a minute when I get over losing the other post 😬:face_with_rolling_eyes:

@Faith-and-Hope You are right on the money with what my therapist is trying to do with me. It's a slightly different framework but essentially you are on the money. The child modes I'm learning are my feelings which guide the show but it's my inner critic that rules it. I don't have space between us and often can't see her as being different or apart from me. So it's almost impossible for me currently to acknowledge what is happening then do something about it. It was supposed to be my homework, just recognising the inner critic voices but I failed again at that. Today has been a day of extreme self loathing. I've had my precious in my hand willing myself to take it but haven't. Inner critic pleading to I guess. The battle between good and bad in my brain has hit overdrive and it's destroying me but I haven't given up, just feeling battle weary.

The thing is @Faith-and-Hope im caught in a cross fire at the moment all the time. I was looking for help to take the battle out for a bit but it all seems too hard. I have my appointment with my therapist tomorrow so I'll talk to her. She was counting on my phams worker helping me with this too. Thanks for writing it. I'm not sure how to develop self compassion yet. It will take lots of work. My brain never stops and says 'that'll do donkey' (not sure if you're a shrek fan), it's never enough and this week I couldn't even get over the bar set at 1cm. Guess I'd better stop there.

I SUCK at visualisation @Faith-and-Hope because I don't have a minds eye. I cannot visualise anything including my kids. I can only think of them via photos of them where I know the colours etc because I've looked at the same image over and over and memorised it. I can only remember my grandparents by very specific photos. Having said that my therapist did say we are going to do some and I have to suck it in and try.

When I first started with my therapist @Faith-and-Hope she tried to do a visualisation with me about a little lost girl which I struggled with but went along with. When she got to the part to now pretend it was me as a little girl I had an extreme emotional reaction and hated her because she would grow up to be me, not a reaction my therapist was counting on. I've moved on with a less intense emotion to that now. We haven't done much visualisation since then but she did tell me it's on the agenda.

I guess I need to try different things out but taking selfies is scary. I have no photos hardly of me either because I hated them all. There are very few of me and the kids as I always refused. I guess there has been lots of self loathing at every level for decades. Anyway you have helped me realise I need to stop hiding from all this too. It's uncanny that you are on very similar pages to my therapist. It guess maybe others can see what I can't.

❤️💕 @Former-Member ....