'Your Voice in my Head' by Emma Forrest.

Another book I stumbled upon in my local charity shop. 

I loved it and could not stop thinking about it for days (and not just because of the celebrity gossip element of GH). It made Amy Winehouse's death even sadder in my eyes and made me even more determined to seek help for whetever it is that troubles my head.

At the moment I feel that tools may help us make sense of what we feel and that as for anything else differet tools fit different people and different situations. It may take a while to find the spanner that fits. And so from tomorrow I am trying a new, for me, approach. Could CBT mellow me down and stop me from always looking benevolently at myself and accusatorily towards others?
"It is very arrogant to presume you know what someone else is thinking or the reason behind their actions. As you cannot read theirs they cannot read yours. You must understand what you feel and let those close to you know so they can act accordingly!" tells me the therapist. She instructs me to repeat to myself in front of the mirror "When you do x I feel y. I want you to do z" and then I have to try telling someone face to face when their action has created in me a strong emotion.
I have tried it. Cheating slightly as I chickened out and sent a text, but hey it worked!! (Note to self: why chickening out? worth exploring.) Damon Bradley did not get all defensive and verbally aggressive as he usually does, we did not get into a competition but instead, to my utter surprise, he got it and did exactly what I wanted from him and, most importantly he did it lovingly.
Too true that my original plan (involving sulk all week, attack DB for something he was now too late to do anything about it) would have hardly been a success story. It was a nonsensical plan, yet one that I have found myself adopting often. I thought it a righteous way to behave - if one has done something wrong, one will have to be punished for it, unless one admits so and apologises. No wonder we always ended up arguing and saying unpleasant things to eachother!
Instead we had a brilliant week, and felt closer than we've had in a while.

And so I have since been doing my homework: recount my feelings daily and connect them to an event; try setting boundaries - finding those boundaries proved harder than imagined.

Tomorrow my first official session. Feel very apprehensive as this is going to push me out of my confort zone - if I like talking about myself I may not like to DO things differently. I fear it will try to change the way I think of myself.

http://www.emmaforrest.com/