Individual Therapy

Life shouldn’t be like this.

You secretly wonder, “Why all the fuss about life?” Most mornings, you wake up and wish you could throw the covers over your head and avoid this thing called life.

You spend most of your waking hours inside your head ruminating with irritating, negative thoughts.

You always criticize and judge the people you love the most. And are not much better to yourself – calling yourself an “idiot” multiple times a day for silly things like missing an exit on the freeway or forgetting your phone at home.

Although you believe kindness is the most important value, you are often unkind and snappish to the people you love the most. Why do you care so much if your partner didn’t put the cereal back where you had it nicely organized in the pantry?

And those petty annoyances demand to be stated out loud.

Instead of connecting, you unwittingly push people away. And then you wonder why you don’t have more friends or feel a sense of belonging.

Everyone looks so happy around you.

Were you born with a negative brain? You feel different and disconnected. You remember feeling separate and detached, even as a child. Other people seem to be more alive, have more friends, and enjoy the routines of life much more than you do. Ho-hum.

Everything is just “eh.” Wake up, go to work, come home, watch TV, put kids to bed, go to sleep (without sex or intimacy once again). Wake up and do it again tomorrow. This routine is not the life you imagined for yourself when you were growing up.

If this is what it means to be human, you wonder why people are so afraid of dying. Is life really all that?

You feel different and disconnected…

Yet, all you have ever wanted is to belong somewhere.

“Why does everyone around you seem so positive and happy all the time? Is it true that they are enjoying life or is it just something they are portraying on social media? You find yourself looking for the negative in every situation. Looking for proof that everyone’s life is better than yours. You create conflict out of fear of being rejected. You put people down in your mind for no reason and this just makes you feel worse about yourself. Why are you so fearful of being vulnerable?

Why do I always feel like I am back in high school trying to get into the popular group?

Think about the last time you felt excluded. Did you exclude yourself first, before others could push you away? Did you stand slightly outside of the circle of people talking around you?  Are you in the habit of you silently critiquing everyone around you?

Deep down, it is possible that you don’t feel worthy of belonging. But why?

Therapy can help you end the tug of war in your mind.

You want more friends, but you have the sense that people don’t like you very much. Maybe you are just paranoid or maybe there is something about you that people find difficult to be around. Could it be that you push people away because deep down you are afraid of rejection. Is it easier to be rejected than to feel connected?

One part of you desperately wants to belong, and the other part wants to remain in your comfort zone, safely observing life as an outsider, rather than being a part of life.

Fortunately, you are the problem, not the people in your life.

 “Dr. Roth helped me understand that I wasn’t recognizing my own faults and needed to accept that I can be wrong sometimes.  I learned to argue less and to listen more.”

While you cannot change other people, you can change yourself.

Once you realize that it is your negative thoughts that are making you miserable, you can actually learn to change the way you think.  Instead of worrying about the worst case scenario happening, you will learn to ask yourself, “what is the best outcome possible?”

When you know what you want for yourself, you can send simple, clear messages to the people in your life. You can decide to be flexible and open to diverse people and experiences, rather than listening to negative thoughts on repeat in your mind.  Living in “shut down” mode is not what you want for yourself. You can learn to stay open rather stuck inside your head.

The goal of therapy is to uncover the negative thought patterns and behaviors that sabotage your ability to view your life (and your future) from a new perspective. Right now, it is almost like you are two people – the person who wants to belong desperately and the person who is afraid to risk being rejected.

Stop being a magnet for negativity and criticism. Start Gritty Therapy and learn how to change the way you think about yourself and others.

While working together, feeling a sense of belonging is possible.  Therapy is a relationship.  Start practicing how to connect now.

Text me today!