// Start The Road Interview "copy between the tags" //

This is an imaginery journey down a road. Take in the sights, sounds and colours, just like a video camera recording all that lies surrounding you. Survey the scene, noticing whatis far off in the distance, the background surrounds, the weather, the season and a total image of what you view. Feel the ground beneath your feet. Try to visualize it as a picture on a canvas, but with movement, sound, colour and emotion. You are the surveyor on this journey. Draw your journey on paper if you desire, as it often shows clearer results, then attach your drawing via snapshot or scan to your post.

Q1. What colour is the road? red
Q2. What texture is the road? smooth
Q3. How solid is the road? thick concrete

You continue walking and come to a river that must be crossed. There before you is the river; the size and depth are up to you. You cannot go around it but must imagine a way to cross it. Whatever you need to cross the river is already within your mind, just imagine seeing yourself do it.

Q4. How do you cross the river? push a tree over and walk across it
Q5. What does the water look like? thick and choppy, dark blue with green specs.
Q6. How fast is the water current? very fast, rushing and swirling
Q7. Is there anything in the water? If so, what? plants, like kelp being pulled by the fast water.

You have crossed the river and continue walking. You come to a house. Take a good look at the house. Notice the impression it makes on you.

Q8. What colour is the house? brown
Q9. What condition is the house in? good, 2 white windows a red door, no trees
Q10. Does anyone live in the house? If so, who? I don't know, I don't think so, to scared to ask.

We continue forward in our minds journey and come to an open field. A cup is on the ground, and we stop to examine it. The cup can be of any size, shape, colour and description. Focus on it's look, condition and contents.

Q11. What colour is the cup? white styrafoam
Q12. What condition is the cup in? totally perfect
Q13. Is there anything in the cup? If so, what? nope it is empty.

You continue walking down the road and come to something blocking your path. It stops you in your tracks and prevents you from going forward. This is an obstacle.

Q14. What is the obstacle, and please describe it in detail? no obstacle, the road just stops
Q15. What do you see beyond the obstacle? nothing, blackness.

// End The Road Interview "copy between the tags" //

// Start Self Analysis "copy between the tags" //

Now you have had a break, go back to every question and look at your response. Try and find what you feel that your mind presented the image it did. Explain colours you chose, textures, water, cup, solids, liquids, space, objects, people, anything and everything that you wrote from your projected image, try and find what you feel to why you have that image. Don't look hard at things, instead try and look for the easy answers, as they are often the correct one's. Don't attempt to find something that isn't present, just look at each aspect for its absolute simplicity.

This is not an absolute, but something you must do in order to try and self analyse yourself. This is important. Please answer what you can, and simply define if you cannot find an emotion to a response you gave.

// End Self Analysis "copy between the tags" //

I think the road is solid, because i long to be on solid ground with something underneath me that will hold me up and never fail me.

The house was hard for me, I could see it rom a distance but I couldn't walk up to in or knock on the door, this envokes fear in me and I froze.

The road just ends...maybe because I don't know where to go.

Hmmmmmmmmm.... ok, lets have a quick look here Monica with some questions.

You have been hurt by men within sexual intimacy and keep secrets of this, likely due to victimization you have suffered. Do you want to release your secrets?

Tell me about your support systems please. You show you feel depreciated, or unappreciated from them, even a little naive at times hoping they are/have been good. This is pretty clear from your low self esteem shown.

Mon, before your obstacle, there is another obstacle, what is it and please describe it?

The obstacle is me, I just see myself.

My secrets, I think I have been letting them out, I didn't want to at first but I have done it, the actual events. How they make me feel and my emotions, I am working on that but it mostly remains with me, I don't like to show weakness.


My support system...hmmm I have a great husband but I don't share a lot of the deep down stuff with him. Therapist, I work on things with. I have a couple of friends but I put on a happy face for them most of the time when they ask me how things are going, if they knew the real me, they would hate me. I blame myself for everything. Big deal, most people do.

Ok Monica, what exactly do you blame yourself for?

I think you should be proud of yourself though monica, because you demonstrate that you own your own actions, you take responsibility for yourself, instead of blaming others. Interesting that can be found from what you write... an excellent trait.

what do I blame myself for? Anything and everything that goes wrong, but I am starting to see that if I blame myself for the bad stuff I also need to give myself praise for the good stuff, I often don't do that. I lay alot of blame on myself for the situations that i have put myself in and been hurt for doing that. I blame myself for not being open with my parents and friend/family about how and why I have felt the way I do, I pushed them away instead. I blame myself for the loss of my job this last week. I blame myself that my son has OCD.

I am not that easy to get along with I can be hard on others sometimes and I tend not to take bullshit but when I am weak I let people mess with my mind and when they say something mean I take it to heart and I let it hurt me.

I do take responsibilty for myself, who else would?

Monica, have you ever read Unhelpful Thinking Styles? If not, maybe you need to. Excellent trait that you do take responsibility for yourself though, because there is more to that than you think, in that a lot of people who sit in self sympathy don't, which says your not wanting sympathy, which is proved outwards as simply saying; I am not in denial, I am progressing through my pain. This is actually quite excellent Mon, and very well done to you. Maybe at times your not giving yourself enough credit for the things you do, regardless how large or small?

Ant - I know that I have a problem with my thinking style, I can relate alot to just about everything on that list, I do it all, that is how screwed up I am, believe we are focusing on this in therapy. It is horrible stuff and leads to the self harm and all the other crap. I see it though and if I can slow down my thinking then I can process through it easier so instead of saying, "god Monica you always screw up everything, why can't you get anything right?". Then I think that thru and say " do, you screwed up this time, not everytime, that is impossible. Is it really that big of a deal, probably not so let it go." I am getting better at it but it things are really bad I go from 0 - 60 ina second and I don't have time to think it through and I get in trouble. Same with my anger apparently.

It is hard to comprehend that my thinking has been all wrong for so long, maybe forever.

You are right I need to give myself credit for things, it is so hard though because I feel so sad and shameful inside and I don't feel like I deserve credit. I will be working on that for awhile.

I was wrong in what I wrote yesterday I am a total screw up and always will be that isn't false thinking that is reality and i need to come to grips with that.

Monica, you are what you allow yourself to be, or what you tell yourself you are. That is actually the truth and factual. If a person tells themselves they will amount to nothing in life, then that is what will occur because they put in little effort, and when the going gets tough, they fall down. Easy as that. Its a lot harder to live life than it is to cope in life. When you want to live, you will, because you want it bad enough. Nobody can make you want it, nobody can tell you how to want it, only you can work that out for yourself, usually around the point when you get to enough is enough, and your decisions are often limited to life or death, then people tend to do something about it. Unfortunate it has to be that way, but that seems to be the way the human mind wants to go.

I think I am just trying to sort out how I really feel and how me losing my job is making me feel. I know it is all inside me, noone else can help me, people have been giving me complements all week and I just blow it off, I just feel worthless sometimes. At some point I hope to snap out of this I just can't right now. I have a job interview next week and I don't even want to go and I was excited about it before. More and more I think about starting my own company so I don't have to work for anyone again, I am obviously not the type to work well with others. I demand alot of myself and others I guess. Both of my parents have their own businesses and that is how they made their money, I guess I am just afraid of failure. I just have to figure out how to snap my ass out of this depression.