My therapist called my well-worn anxiety track the "Robin Death Spiral." She advised me to learn to recognize it and then do what I had to to to get sucked into it YET AGAIN. It took a long time, and anti-anxiety drugs helped a lot, but learning that I did not have to go down that path was huge.

The Lexapro got the anxiety to not be so manic so I could hold it still and examine it. Such a relief.

My inner yelling voice was always screaming because if I did or didn't do something then the consequences would break me.

And then some of those things started happening and I didn't break.

Bit also my therapist talks about inner parent and I need child and being an adult. The other break through was when I stopped seeing the inner critic as some kind of monster and I saw it as just another part of me and it stopped being such an adversary

Bit also my therapist talks about inner parent

My therapist, over the course of EMDR therapy to help me redirect old neural pathways, talked a lot about my learning to be the adult my inner, very skeptical and over-responsible child needed. Or as she put it, "You're the Head Witch. Remember that".

(She also told me that while taking advice from a stuffed bunny was kind of crazy, he's never given me *wrong* advice, so I should keep listening to him.)

learning to be the adult my inner, very skeptical and over-responsible child needed.

That's where I'm stuck. My therapist and I have been talking about this a lot (though my child is over-responsible and pant-shitting terrified of the responsibility because she's pretty sure it's going to lead to us living in a cardboard box under an overpass) (she's also SUPER resentful and angry about the responsibility, so it's a fun bundle of volatile emotions), and I cannot get to a point where I learn to be the adult that 12-year-old Steph needs. (Partly because I deeply resent having to be responsible for anyone else, which apparently includes myself.) (Ugh. This is why I'm still in therapy.)

(though my child is over-responsible and pant-shitting terrified of the responsibility because she's pretty sure it's going to lead to us living in a cardboard box under an overpass) (she's also SUPER resentful and angry about the responsibility, so it's a fun bundle of volatile emotions)

My sister? There was a whole lot of "What did she need to hear? What would you do if you were the adult in that situation?" which was hard, because getting to where I could admit that Mom loved me, but was profoundly messed up and not a very emotionally present parent felt like constant betrayal.

In conclusion: therapy is fucking hard, and anyone putting themselves through it gets pink and black sparkly stars from me.

There was a whole lot of "What did she need to hear? What would you do if you were the adult in that situation?"

That's what my therapist asks me, too, and I am *still* just SO. DAMN. RESENTFUL. that *I* have to be the one to do this. And so I can't get there.

I am also super terrified of responsibility and therefore resentful. Especially being single; even though I know partnerships can be complicated and unequal, I long sometimes for someone to at least share the load.

What did she need to hear? What would you do if you were the adult in that situation?

My therapist asking me some variation of "How would you have liked for your parents to treat you?" sends me into a DOES NOT COMPUTE frenzy and causes me to shut down.

I am also super terrified of responsibility and therefore resentful. Especially being single; even though I know partnerships can be complicated and unequal, I long sometimes for someone to at least share the load.

Same, sort of. I'm not sure I'd say I'm scared of responsibility, but it just feels like too much, a lot of the time. Like, when I've spent all day making decisions that will affect my students' lives, and then come home and post on Facebook or message friends to make stupid decisions for me, like what to have for dinner or which movie to watch, because I just need my brain to not have to do that for a while.