Reddit mentions: The best psychology counseling books

PART TWO

> I'd simply have nobody to discuss it with unless I want to look like I'm totally off my rocker.

Yeah. Me either. I have my gf - who’s ultimately a pretty captive audience (lol), but A) she pretty much thinks I’m off my rocker anyway, and B) she’s not really very interested in the subject, so it’s not like I have an “active” person to talk about these issues and go back and forth on ideas with, which would be cool if I did. I’ve had a pretty active interest in the subject of ETs as of the past few years now because I had experiences when I was young that were rather anomalous, and the more I looked into the issue, the more I started discovering a global coverup that links to a lot of other sociopolitical issues as well.

> There should be programs available to help the parent(s) 100% with whatever it is they decide to do, whether they decide to keep their child, put it up for adoption, or abort it.

Cannot agree more with you here.

> Some promiscuous woman who accidentally got knocked up? Those people just need help.

Absolutely. I agree. However, if those type of people really weren’t intending on having kids or don’t want kids but accidentally got pregnant anyway, then it just seems like a pretty horrible situation to bring a child into the world under those types of circumstances. The child is not wanted under those circumstances, and to put an infant through a situation where they’re not wanted is just…argh. It’s really horrendous as far as I’m concerned - nearly unconscionable.

> if they truly want to have the kid and be happy, the community should support them all the way and help them be successful parents.

I mostly agree with that. I mean if someone wants to have a kid, then there should indeed be programs available to help them. Yes. However, I also think that there are a lot of people who want to have kids…who maybe really shouldn’t have kids because they’re not ready or fit for it for some reason or the other regardless of whether they want to or not.

Like, for example, if it’s a young, unwed, teenage girl w/little education and she really wants a kid? I still think she shouldn’t have a kid.

If she goes to school, gets married, has a good husband, they’re both adjusted and settled, and then she wants a kid? Then hell yeah. Have one if you want to under those circumstances.

I think it should ultimately be about what’s going to work for the child. Seems to me too many people make the decision to have a kid based on what they want, when in fact what should really be given the top most consideration is whether or not it will be a good environment or good circumstance under which to bring a child into in the first place.

I feel that parenthood - and the consideration of going into it or not - is supposed to be a very unselfish undertaking: It’s not about you. It’s about them - the kid(s) - and I think too many people think too much about themselves first and what they want as opposed to the life of that unborn child and the kind of world that the child would be being brought into.

> Those kids end up with shit lives under normal circumstances because nobody cares.

Exactly this, sir. This is the very reason why, as much as I love children, I don’t think they should be brought into a world under anything less than optimal circumstances. Heck, it’s because I love children that I feel this way.

> The parents suck at being parents and nobody in the community is there to guide them or the kid. Maybe if they're lucky a friend or a relative or a teacher will help them out in some way, but for the vast majority of people, they face a cold world who's only word of guidance is, "you're on your own".

Agreed fully.

> If everyone knew that no matter what, whether they wanted the kid or not, they'd have all the support they could possibly need, it wouldn't be such a stressful situation.

Not a bad point.

> "Starship Troopers" by Robert A. Heinlein.

I realized that my saying “only the most worthy individuals should be fit to be parents” brings in the idea of a dictatorially controlled system where “only the state dictates who does and does not breed, citizen! Eugenics for everyone!”

Yeah. I certainly don’t mean that. Heck, what you and I have been talking about this whole time has dealt with just how bad and untrustworthy the state is in the first place. Last thing we want to do is give them the power to decide who does and does not breed.

However, at the same time, I don’t think that the rampant breeding that is the case now in today’s world is the answer either. By far.

> Don't bother with the movie though. It was pretty cheezy IMO and had almost nothing to do with the actual content of the book beyond the war with the bugs.

Yeah. When you first mentioned the book, I was thinking “Is that the same as the movie?” I saw the movie way back when, and it was nothing like what you just described here. lol I just remember it as a cheesy, campy, not very good sci-fi flick.

> I have a close friend with exact same circumstances. Adopted by a very loving family, has everything he could ever ask for, but still has major issues.

Introduce him to this book right here.

Do it.

It has all but revolutionized my girlfriend’s perspective and has helped her (and us) a great deal. We were already evolving and making progress, etc before she purchased the book, but her having purchased and read that book - and our sitting down and talking at length about it many times - has helped her a great deal in understanding why she is/was the way she is.

> Been arrested multiple times, lots of drug and alcohol abuse, anger issues, etc. Usually comes off as a pretty normal guy, but you spend more time with him and you realize his door is off the hinges a little bit.

Yeah, man. If you’re a real friend of his (and I don’t doubt that you are), GET HIM THAT FUCKING BOOK. Seriously. He might likely cry his ass off thinking that nobody understood what he’s been going through his whole life until he found that book.

> I still hang out with him though, it's not really out of the ordinary for me to be friends with people who themselves are a little out of the ordinary. I tend to champion the underdogs since I know what it's like to be one myself.

You seem like an awesome fucking guy.

Cheers, bro.

Namaste,

You're definitely not the only one. I was a strict conservative Christian for ten years until age 26, when I started to question and deconstruct my old beliefs. I also started to embrace my identity as a sapphic woman to a greater degree around that time. I had known for a few years that I was bisexual but believed I was required to be celibate and could only have platonic partnerships with women.

I also dated a woman and explored sex for the first time at age 26 which was an amazing experience for me. It helped that the woman I explored with had been friends for me for nearly a year by that time so we were close and I felt 100% safe and accepted with her. Getting comfortable with masturbation, self-pleasure and sex toys was a great place to start before I ever tried having actual sex with a real person. You can order them online if you feel awkward going into a sex shop. I'd recommend exploring your body and getting comfortable with pleasuring yourself.

If you're really nervous about dating or having sex, perhaps you could start by making some LGBT friends on the apps? Or maybe joining a local LGBT meet up group? I started off by finding a few platonic cuddle buddies through r/cuddlebuddies and other websites before I got comfortable with actual dating.

Here are some resources that might help as well:

For sexual health and sex education: Scarleteen

This article in particular is great: Figuring Out How to be a Lesbian Safer Expert

General tips for dating women: How To Be A Girl Who Dates Girls: Your Syllabus For Lesbian Dating 101

Finding other sapphic women: 10 Queer Women Reveal Where They Go To Meet Women, & It’s Really Great Advice

For flirting tips: A How-To Guide on Flirting

You might find the following books relevant to your situation:

Conscious Lesbian Dating

Leaving the Fold: A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving Their Religion

​

First off, good on you for taking the initiative.

For introductory books, I'd recommend Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled. Now, I haven't read it myself, but it's been mentioned on this sub often enough for me to feel comfortable mentioning it. It might also be a good idea to pick up a miscellaneous collection of poems in order to get an understanding of the variety and depth of the subject matter. A more informal volume might be something edited by Garrison Keiler, like Good Poems. While that specific book is more bent towards Modern American poets, there's still a lot to draw from. A more academic book would be The Norton Anthology of Poetry ot The Norton Introduction to Poetry, which has a lot more to choose from. These two also give you a bit of structure – my copy of the Introduction has clear headings, like "Symbol" or "The Sonnet," with neat little introductory essays and poems chosen to help you understand how these concepts work. That being said, Norton tends to be a little expensive, though if you live in a college town you can probably find a cheaper copy. The benefit of these kinds of collections lies in helping you to find a poet whose style or subject matter you particularly like.

Regarding online sources, there's The Poetry Foundation, which has archives of poems and articles on the poets themselves. Their monthly articles can vary from the interesting to the banal, however, so keep your bullshit detector on. You can probably also find podcasts that deal with the subject. A personal favorite of mine is called "Entitled Opinions," and is run by a professor of Italian Studies over at Stanford by the name of Robert Harrison. Mind you, this particular podcast deals with philosophy and literature as well, so while I'd recommend listening to all their episodes you would have to do a little bit of searching in order to find a particular episode on poetry – though I would reccomend the one on "Dante and Prufrock." I imagine these kind of examinatioms would be useful because they can give you a sense of what poetry 'does' or 'how it means' beyond a surface play with words.

As for the writing of poetry, the first thing I'd recommend is that you read and meditate on a lot of poetry, good and bad, in order to get a sense of how its all done. Learn certain conventions – like, say, that of the sonnet – in order to see how poets follow through with them, or how they play with them. Learn prosody so you can understand how the precise meter, or 'beat,' of each line can affect the reader. I can't really give concrete advice with regards to this, save for a metaphorical "go west, young man!"

youre talking yourself into staying miserable or numb, and paying someone to validate your internal status quo.

That's pretty sad and wasteful, because youre then going to use this failed therapy to further tell yourself "SEE I TRIED" to stay stuck indefinitely.

I've met and talked to lots of sad 50+ yr old self-bullshitting intelligent men like that in my neighborhood. They're well-educated lonely assholes who just can't see themselves from the outside. I was a 20something at the time and they'd chat with me about their lives (craving female company I guess) thinking I would be sympathetic, but I could see all their self-sabotaging patterns, subconsciously we are all exactly where we want to be. They had no intention of changing just a life of 'trying'... As a defensive neurotic person not willing to stay that way, it was a real cautionary tale.

I don't want to bullshit myself out of a good life....anyway

Maybe you should pause therapy, read a bunch of books on how it works, and then go back with deeper appreciation for the "type" of work involved and asked of you.

If you're lazy and like binging tv Could also watch the old HBO show "In Treatment" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0835434/

(season 1 and 2 are the best and a nice set of varied patients in each) if you want a well-written fictionalized sense of how therapy could be, how different patients bullshit themselves emotionally until theyre sick of themselves and their trust in the therapeutic bond helps them change. Each character has a real arc, about 5 characters each doing weekly sessions.

You can pirate/stream it /buy it in a few places I think. The only downside is unrealistic expectations because most therapists are'nt that emotionally skilled/ attentive and most patients don't reveal their symptoms, absorb insights, or go that deep in 8 sessions. It's idealized and strangely fun to watch for two people talking, but it helped me believe in the process before I invested in real life.

P.S. if at some point you don't bring it all back to childhood, you have wasted your money. In my opinion CBT and the rest of the "thinking" based stuff are bandaids, playing whack-a-mole with symptoms that will rear back in new forms.

Also, once therapy helps you get the initial emotional bond with yourself, you can better help yourself, self-help books etc go a long way when you can actually feel and intuit the messages better. None of those resources make sense or will help you at all while you are cut off from your body and unconscious self.

Thats the best bang for your buck in my opinion, read a bunch to prepare yourself on how it works under the surface, spend all the time in therapy feeling things you may have repressed, avoided, talked your way out of, then leave therapy better able to sort out which resources you can use (The books I've found have been more profound for me than therapy but I wouldn't have known which subjects to search for or been "emotionally available" enough for the words and insights to reach me)

this is also just a nice intro book and super short https://www.amazon.com/Gift-Therapy-Generation-Therapists-Patients/dp/0061719617

(the pdf is floating around libgen / web if you're feeling cheap) good luck

EDIT -- also you sound really stiff, why don't you watch some School of Life youtube videos just to get a better grip on the emotional rhetoric involved. Videos like this one always get to me...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fG9-W-OwCs

That was a pretty disappointing debate for me. Some good points were made, but there seemed to be a lot of hand-waving and naked assertions all around. Which I suppose is understandable, given the time constraints and there being five participants.

Some points of contention for me:

• Economy of sex. I understand the attraction of modelling sex and relationships on a societal scale in economic terms, but I'm not convinced that we can draw any meaningful conclusions about the motivations of individual participants from these models. Women say they're not happy with the dating scene, and so do men, so there's definitely something wrong. But who's the consumer in this case and what is the product? The video hedged that women want sex too, and then proceeded to cast men as more or less unilateral "consumers". Women, on the other hand were cast as sole (or main) "consumers" of relationships and emotional connection. This seemed wholly unfair to either sex, and really bothered me.
  
  
• I found the bit about porn and how it affects women's behaviour and men's expectations to be, again, ridiculously one-sided and very shallow. Our evolving understanding of sexuality is a result of continuous discourse on what stimulates us, how we process pleasure and what forms of engagement are societally permissible. To a large extent I'd argue that porn is a reflection of this evolution, and not the principal driver of it. Casting women as receptors of social influence, and men as projectors is again a disservice to us all. This, coming from a man who is fairly vanilla sexually, and has been friends with very open women for most of his life. I'd say that some women seem to be quite enthusiastic givers to receptive males.
  
  
• Stay at home dads. I agreed with quite a few points made about what stands in the way of it, but couldn't identify with either the pro or anti-SAHD positions expressed in this video. On the one hand I found the shrink's dismissal of it poorly justified. On the other, I think that fully supported fatherhood shares all the problems that motherhood has, and perhaps a few more. Are women today raised in a way that would make them feel responsible for the continued well-being of their husband? A majority of divorces are initiated by women, so would it be a a good bet for a man to hedge his future on a stable relationship? Going beyond the economic factors, the panel completely missed the opportunity to talk about what expectations are to be put on housekeeper husbands. In her research on women and shame Brene Brown found that perfection in housekeeping is a powerful shaming strategy used against women. And in my experience many women have ridiculously high expectations of, say, cleaning around the house, order etc. Most guys are much more tolerant of messiness. Do we start inflicting the same shame on men, so that women will be happy to keep a stay at home husband? How about free time? There is a lot of negativity towards women who'll spend their time at home watching daytime TV, but at it's nothing compared to "He's a gamer deadbeat, drop his ass and find a real man".
  
  Anyway, thanks for linking to this /u/schnuffs. I hope it starts an interesting debate here. Before I leave, here's an interesting article about masculinity by a guy who used to be heavily invested in the PUA community, but has moved away from it, and gives dating/relationship advice from a slightly different perspective these days. I'd be interested to read what FeMRA debates has to say about it.

It may be a bit specific/higher level than you are looking for as I used it in medical school, but I really liked Nolte's The Human Brain. It is a very readable and interesting text but may be more specific than what you are looking for (I may be able to scrounge up a pdf if you PM me)

Aside from that I also highly recommend Purves as others have. Another good one that deals with more of the brain behavior link and neuropsych side is Biological Psychology by Kalat.

Best of luck! I was a neuroscience undergrad and loved it.

Edit: look for used or one edition old if you want to buy them - will save you a lot

No problem and thank you for the compliment. Overall, I love experiential and psychodynamic theories but I try to approach any theory as a means to an end. Any clinician that becomes too dogmatic risks missing the point (that is, helping the client and not serving your own ends). I like playing between affect and behavior with clients and attachment theory is behind it all for me.

In any case, why don't you ask an easier question? Haha. There is so much material out there for each modality that I could recommend plenty.

Strengths-focused

• 1001 Solution-Focused Questions by Fredrike Bannink
  
  
• Positive CBT by Fredrike Bannink
  
  
• Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman
  
  Experiential
  
  
• Learning Emotion-Focused Therapy by Robert Elliott
  
  
• Emotion-Focused Therapy, 2nd ed. by Les Greenberg
  
  
• Focusing in Clinical Practice by Ann Cornell
  
  Attachment
  
  
• Attachment in Psychotherapy by David Wallin
  
  
• Affect Regulation Theory by Daniel Hill
  
  
• The Healing Power of Emotion by Diana Fosha, Daniel Siegel, & Martin Solomon, ed.
  
  Psychodynamic
  
  
• The Transforming Power of Affect by Diana Fosha
  
  
• Treating Affect Phobia by Leigh McCullough
  
  
• Psychodynamic Therapy: A Guide to Evidence-Based Practice by Richard Summers and Jacques Barber
  
  
• Time-Limited Dynamic Psychotherapy by Hanna Levenson
  
  
• Negotiating the Therapeutic Alliance by Jeremy Safran
  
  Hope that helps! Feel free to PM me too. I wonder if /u/evilqueenoftherealm would have any suggestions too.

NTA. Whoo boy. I have been exactly where you are...it sucked. It sucked SO HARD. We didn't have the internet back then either (I'm old). I hope reading the comments in this thread has helped you know that a) you're NOT at fault here and b) you're in great company. I don't have any useful suggestions for you under your current circumstances (the people saying "play along until you're 18" are probably right, but I don't know if I could have so I can't ask you to, y'know?). I will recommend a book, though, either for once you're out of the house or if you are ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE you can hide a copy where your mom won't find it. It's called "Leaving the Fold" and it's a pretty fabulous psychological text/workbook for people who grew up in strict religious households and have suffered trauma as a result (which is absolutely a thing) (I'm glad to see that a few comments called your mom's behavior emotional abuse, because it is). Here's the link if you're interested. Best of luck!!! Hang in there. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BD5ILAW/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

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Edited to say: If links aren't allowed in this sub (I'm new), please let me know and I'll remove it. Thanks!

Hi -- I just came across your post.

You've gotten some good replies on here. To add to them, I'd just like to point out that many people who go into a psychology field for their master's degree have a different undergrad degree.

From what I understand, most schools will require you to get a certain score on either the GRE or the MAT, demonstrate that you have decent writing skills, and have a few people recommend you. Also, interviews are common. Typical interview questions often try to get a sense of your maturity, your motivations for wanting to be in the field, possibly some degree of cultural competency, and how well you can present as professional and articulate.

It sounds like you're on the right track to being an appealing candidate, especially signing up for the hotline. I'd recommend, if you haven't already, doing some reading about what the counseling process is like. This will help give you a better sense of what to expect and allow you to speak more fluently about the topic. There are a few good books on the topic to check out.

Also, if you're looking for a master's program with a more clinical focus, it might be a good idea to look at counseling programs as opposed to social work programs.

Best of luck!

If you did not struggle with stats in undergrad, I would not worry about it, to be honest.

I was also out of school for 4 years before starting and I did not have any difficulties with the statistics classes we started with. My intro stats classes in grad school covered much of the material that we did in undergrad, just more in-depth, more variations on the tests, and we were expected to understand the math behind the equations more fundamentally.

If it happens to be helpful, my first two quarters of stats had these textbooks:

Statistical Methods for Psychology - https://www.amazon.com/Statistical-Methods-Psychology-David-Howell/dp/0495597848/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1523397437&sr=8-2&keywords=statistical+methods+for+psychology&dpID=51T8KyWmliL&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

and

Design and Analysis: A Researcher's Handbook - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0135159415/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A17LQ734FP5YDC

Please do not pay lots of money for them.

If it is at all helpful (aka not stressful), I also took a pic of my "map of statistical analyses", which basically has the non-fancy statistics - https://imgur.com/xw6cGxM Do NOT look at this and be like "oh no!". Look at it and be like, "Oh yeah, an ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) is a thing that exists."

If you do decide to spend a little time reviewing, I strongly recommend not spending a lot of time on it and not feeling worried about it. This is your time to unwind a bit and you should enter your program feeling chill and relaxed if it all possible. You got it because you are smart, passionate, and hard working, and, as a result, you will do fine in statistics.

I've always found the Norton collections to be a solid starting point for good poetry.

http://www.amazon.com/Making-Poem-Norton-Anthology-Poetic/dp/0393321789/
http://www.amazon.com/Norton-Anthology-Poetry-4th/dp/0393968200
http://www.amazon.com/Norton-Anthology-Modern-Contemporary-Poetry
http://www.amazon.com/Norton-Introduction-Poetry-Alison-Booth/dp/0393928578/

are all excellent introductions to reading. Very broadly speaking, classical poetry is more focused on rhyme and imagery that many can comprehend (albeit with some effort), while modern poetry is more focused on free verse and word choices, and tends to use imagery that's more self-referential (that's just my experience, though).

In terms of writing, I'd suggest scanning through /r/OCPoetry to see poetry written from a mostly modern, mostly amateur perspective.

What you're saying so far is basically akin to 'I want to know more about the ocean and everything living in it/relating to it. I know what a tuna, a blue whale, a great white shark, and an octopus are, but I don't know where to go to get information about them and learn about them. Can you guys help me find good sources for everything from marine biology to oceanography and everything in between?'

As such, my suggestion for the Norton's. If you find something that you like, you can help narrow your search field a bit, and it'll be a heckuva lot easier to help (in your reading search, that is).

Writing's a whole different ballgame, and I defer to /u/jessicay and/or /u/ActualNameIsLana for (possibly) helping you out a bit more on that topic, as they've far more experience than me.

I don't have kids but I found that reading some parenting books has helped me to understand both about myself and things that my parents did wrong, and how normal healthy parents respond to their kids. "The Conscious Parent" is an amazing book for this. It is to teach parents how to respond to their kids in a healthy way while being conscious of their own reactions and feelings and how to NOT put your issues on your kid. It's a great book. I love what the author is doing in trying to teach parents how to respond to their kids lovingly and not as a reaction /due to their own issues.

https://www.amazon.com/Conscious-Parent-Transforming-Ourselves-Empowering/dp/1897238452

This STEP parenting series is also good about how to talk to kids and what consequences are supposed to be like. (not crazy insane screaming punishments and 6 month groundings, like happened at my house) There's a different book for each age range.

https://www.amazon.com/Parents-Handbook-Systematic-Effective-Parenting/dp/0979554209/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1504368293&sr=1-1&keywords=step+parenting+systematic

The fact that you are concerned about how to best respond to your potential child and how it will make them feel means you are already far ahead of your parents. N parents don't think about this stuff.

My recommendations are not particularly ethics focused either but I found them all interesting and think they all give good insight into different aspects of genetic counseling- whether that's what it's like to be a healthcare provider or someone living with a family member with a genetic condition.

My Foreign Cities: Just finished this one. A beautiful memoir about a woman and her marriage to her high school sweetheart, who had cystic fibrosis.

Genetic Rounds: A Doctor's Encounters in the Field that Revolutionized Medicine: A series of stories about the experiences of a pediatric geneticist.

Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity: One of my favorite books. It explores what happens when children turn out to be very different from their parents in some way, with chapters dedicated to children with autism, Down syndrome, schizophrenia, and multiple severe disabilities, among other things.

[The Still Point of the Turning World] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594205124/ref=x_gr_w_glide_bb?ie=UTF8&tag=x_gr_w_glide_bb-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1594205124&SubscriptionId=1MGPYB6YW3HWK55XCGG2): A memoir by a mother whose son is diagnosed with Tay-Sachs disease.

I also want to second The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down- another favorite of mine!

\> This scares me because I'm worried


Exactly. Exactly. You're scared and you're worried. The reason you're scared and worried is that Christianity engages in the BITE model, which involves programming people with fears triggered by certain thoughts. When someone moves from inside the cult toward the outside, they hit these edges they've been trained to fear, and the anxiety kicks in. You've been told perhaps your entire life "If you do ANYTHING but what we tell you to do, you will never be happy again, you'll immediately switch from the pure virtuous asexual being waiting for a heterosexual marriage with children into a syphilitic prostitute. There is no middle ground. Here are some carefully managed narratives of people who will tell you they used to be prostitutes and unhappy but now claim to be Christian and happy. See?"


Then someone starts leaving the "pure asexual being waiting for straight marriage with kids" and before they have any experience they are accosted by the ideas they've been infected with, since before they could judge whether those ideas made sense. The chewed-gum metaphor. The horror stories of STIs and suicidal depression. The idea that there is only black and white, only absolutely Christian or absolutely unChristian and- by the Christian definition- necessarily unhappy.


But here's the thing. Those people who claim to be ex-fuckups that are happy in Christianity? Track them down five or ten years later; they quit. Their problems, if they had any, weren't solved by Christianity. And when you go out and experience the life these BITE "fences" were programmed to prevent you from encountering you discover that the vast majority of trans people are happier when people aren't Christian at them; when they're called by their trans names, when they're given support and validation and surgery. And the Christians who famously are "good?" Mike Warnke was super famous for being an ex-satanist. Except he wasn't. Josh Harris wrote Christian dating advice that influenced a generation- now he's divorced and attending Pride events in rainbow shirts. The Bakkers earned millions talking about how real and good their God was- and then they went to prison for fraud.


What Christianity says is "here is one/several examples we'll show you where something we don't like overlaps with being unhappy. Now take our word for it that all of the things we don't like mean being unhappy." The real world isn't like that.


You're not overreacting. You're responding to a carefully constructed narrative built to make you terrified of "the outside." If it were true in whole or in part then it would be entirely right and functional to fear being different than what Christianity wants you to be. But it's all bullshit. The thing is, until you step outside the religion, until you meet atheists and bisexuals and trans women who are living life with happiness and respect and health, you'll keep believing that to be anything but Christian is to be without sexual limits or happiness.


So, my advice would be, first, to start seeing a secular, state board of psychology approved, therapist, about these programmed fears. My second would be to read about the BITE model so that you have a different perspective to consider what you've been told and still believe/worry about. Check out Marlene Winnel's Leaving The Fold, which has a chapter or two on the sexual dysfunction Christians are programmed into. Lastly;


I used to be a hardcore Christian virgin. Didn't even like kissing girls. When I deconverted, I started to explore what my sexuality meant without religious chains. I tried having sex with women. I tried having sex with men. I tried having group sex, casual sex, sex with friends. What I discovered was that none of these things made me less of what I was. I carefully chose the people and times to express my sexuality and learn about myself in a healthy way- after seeing a therapist for a good long while, because I knew my early desperation for affection could have led me to some unhealthy behaviors. But as I experimented and learned (and even made mistakes, which is good and how we all learn), I became more sure of myself in my sexuality, less afraid of some hidden power in my genitals that would overwhelm me, and began to saw my body as a partner and a tool that I could trust rather than a terrifying beast I had to shut away and control. And now I have both a girlfriend and another lover who has a great boyfriend, and we're spectacularly happy with each other, and I'm pretty happy to be the person I am, and to have the kind of deeply satisfying sex that I do, in relationships that I find both emotionally and sexually fulfilling. And I couldn't have gotten here if I hadn't gone to therapy and learned the skills I did there about boundaries and communication, and then gone out and made mistakes and been kind to myself when I realized I made a mistake (and was careful about sexual safety and self-education and consent- check out Sexplanations on YT/Patreon). It wasn't easy but it was pretty fun and it was really worthwhile.


What I guess I'm saying is that you're not alone in your terror. A lot of us have been there. But there is a path through it and out, and the other side of it involves hard work and healing and happiness. I made it to the other side, and I believe you can too.

Its great that you want to help her, you sound like a kind friend.

I think its important to know that she's reckoning with a big loss (loss of faith/world view, disillusionment w/ parents and other authority figures, loss of her prior sense of who she is) Loss like that means grief. Its ok if she's angry and sad and confused. Its not ok if she's drowning in those things and can't make her life work. If that's the case, she needs professional help asap.

The good news is that most of what she missed out on is now available to her. Nobody does everything in high school; everybody tries new things in college. She just may have more new things to try. Encourage her to get involved in the stuff she feels she missed out on. Join clubs, play intramural sports, sign up for newspaper, listen to music, read books and fanfic, date (responsibly), etc. Do some of these things with her; try some things new to both of you, normalize having new experiences.

Encourage her that she isn't alone in this situation. LOTS of people have had the same experience she is having. She can find them online and irl. Try out a Recovering From Religion support group or see if your campus has a Secular Student Alliance.

Check out the ~~#~~ExposeChristianHomeschooling #ExposeChristianSchools hashtags on twitter. Listen to some podcasts together: Exvangelical; Life After God; The Life After. Check out some books: Pure; Faith Unraveled; Leaving the Fold

​

However hard this time is for your friend, it will be easier because she has your support and encouragement.

​

(Source: I was a homeschooled evangelical; and then, eventually, I left the faith and found myself.)

Thanks for posting this. I love her honest introspection and humility. The author's experience is a beautiful one, though while I can easily see her point of view, my grief journey was almost the opposite of hers. I was hoping to find something a little more poignant in the comments, but the loudest ones were the non-empathetic and unaccountable "you're his wife, not his mother" ones. They were so similar to the comments of that "She divorced me because I left dishes by the sink" article that went viral a while back that it's only the husband who has to compromise in marriage. Empathy - being able to see the world through another person's eyes - isn't being extended both ways. His viewpoint, his work, his sacrifices, and his pain aren't even considered by so many people.

From a Christian perspective, the church can be pretty terrible at this as well. It's one of several reasons why men hate going to church. Instead of catering to his needs and equipping him to be a captain, he is passive-aggressively burdened with the responsibility of her happiness. It doesn't help the team by focussing on one player. A great team functions by accentuating each other's strengths and covering each other's weaknesses, like picking up after a husband who compromises on laundry to spend more time with loved ones. "He had chosen what is more important."

I think my late would-be-wife would have also adored this article. Thanks again for sharing.

edit: grammar

Ha, you're the first to get the reference. I lean psychodynamic, but a Jungian dream interpretation class was what made me change my major in undergrad. I also think the interpretation is pretty BS, but the concepts are cool.

You can graduate and practice without ever selecting a theoretical orientation (TO). An MA program will probably use the Gerald Corey (2016) book. After that one class it's up to you. Most people just read more about a theory that fits well with their worldview and apply it in practice. I should also say that you'll learn most from your practicum supervisors and they will teach you based on what they know. You don't need certifications. For example, I learned a lot of DBT last year in my prac and I've incorporated some of what I learned, and I don't plan on getting certified.

For me, I actually have a comprehensive exam where I need to orally defend that I am well-versed in one TO. I use time-limited dynamic psychotherapy (TLDP). I spent maybe two days in class learning about it. In order to pass my comps I needed to get more books and articles to understand this particular TO better. An MA will not force you to do that, but it is the same process to really learn a TO.

I love the gloria tapes :) One of her daughters wrote a really interesting book about the aftermath of the tapes http://www.amazon.co.uk/Living-Gloria-Films-Daughters-Memory/dp/1906254028

Good luck finding anyone doing RET today though. CBT is close enough though and has gained more popularity.

You think they would make great parents, but it's not a proven point-- even leftist social science types concede that they don't have enough data to really conclude that boys and girls do just as well without mothers or fathers. I'll stipulate that there are gay people who could provide better homes for growing children than state facilities. This doesn't then mean that marriage needs to be redefined. Allowing gay people to adopt might be a reasonable policy choice in certain circumstaces, but that doesn't mean we should pretend it's no different if kids are raised by a mother and a father vs. a man and his boyfriend or a woman and her girlfriend. I know people like to think that adoption is great and that blood ties don't matter, but the sad fact is that people generally bond better to their own children than to adopted ones. The Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child

You are already sending the right messages and saying the right things, but if he feels like he has let you as his wife down they may not be quite getting through. A lot of men do tie up their sense of self worth with their ability to be a provider and the example set by his relative is not a good influence here as you right say. Does he have any friends who've gone through similar experiences or who could just spend some time with him? That might help to reset his sense of self worth. While he looks for a new job, maybe he could do some volunteer work out of the house: that will deliver a) fresh air b) an outlet for his energies and c) a sense of value, all good antidepressants. Finally, in relation to possible therapy or support services, I would try and point him towards something that is specifically geared towards men if you can find something along those lines in whichever part of the world you live in. Here in the UK, there a few such services. The reason I say this is that a lot of conventional therapy and psychology is focused on the female approach to traumas (in the broad sense of that term) and men don't necessarily process these in the same way. This book is primarily about grief but the principles apply to other traumas in life such as job loss https://www.amazon.co.uk/Way-Men-Heal-Thomas-Golden-ebook/dp/B00B0OKZ3W

Recommending the second edition of The Heart & Soul of Change which takes a look at the common factors which seem to underlie therapeutic change and growth. I'm still in the process of reading but it's already changed my perspective on what's most important in our work. Some of the common factors they identify as important and universal to successful psychotherapy are the therapeutic-alliance/relationship, the therapist's continual elicitation of client feedback, and the therapist's genuineness - their argument is intuitive to me and they are sure to sight research backing their claims.

​

In terms of who I find influential, my first thoughts are of Carl Rogers and Karen Horney!

Just because adoption is right for you doesn't mean it's right for everyone else. Personally, I'm glad I was raised by people who wanted to adopt me instead of people who adopted only as a last resort and would rather have their own biological child.

I also highly recommend this book since you're planning to adopt. It has some great insight as to how a lot of adoptees feel and what our experiences are like.

I believe my stepdaughter (now 20) has bpd. She wasn't particularly bratty as a teen, but I think part of the reason for that was because I worked with seriously troubled teens and my stepkids knew not to tangle with me. You are right, being a brat is a normal part of being a teen. Couple this with an unstable birth mother, a stepparent, and the "I can just go to my other parent's house" and your stepdaughter probably has it much worse than others.

The behaviors that I noticed that led me to believe that my stepdaughter has bpd wasn't being a brat and talking back. Instead, this is what I saw. We started noticing these things when she was around 10 years old, but there is no telling when they each actually began.

1. She was unable to see/understand normal boundaries between people. At age 10 she described an elderly woman who lived next to her bus stop and sometimes said a few words to her in the morning as her best friend. And she had friends her own age, so it wasn't like she was desperately trying to have a friend. She literally did not understand that the woman was not her friend because of the age difference and the lack of really meaningful interactions. While this can be attributed to her being young, it was the first sign that she would have relationships that just didn't seem right. When she was in high school, there were at least two teachers that she was, in my opinion, too close too. Teachers should not be talking to students like friends - confiding things about their marriages and personal problems. She would also be too close to the parents of her friends. One parent even told my daughter that she had cancer before she told her own son.
   
2. Lying to maintain and control relationships. For me, this is the most painful one. As far as I can tell, my stepdaughter is constantly lying. Not the normal lying that people do to stay out of trouble - "No, I didn't eat your cookies." - but lying about who she is, what she believes and what she likes. She is *always* pretending to be the person that the person she is talking to wants her to be. She is always wearing a mask. If she says "good morning" to you, it is basically a lie because it is just part of her role. People with bpd don't really know who they are, they don't have a fixed identity. So, while this is *very* frustrating to me as a parent, I also try to have sympathy for my stepdaughter. When she was 10 my husband's uncle pulled my husband aside and told him that he didn't believe the lies that my stepdaughter was telling him. He wouldn't say what the lies were. When my husband and I confronted my stepdaughter, we didn't even get to the part where we mentioned the uncle's name. She immediately broke down and yelled, "I don't hate you guys!" This is when we found out that she was telling lies about us to everyone. As most women know, an easy way to make a friend is to trash talk someone else. My daughter was using these lies about us to get sympathy from others and to manipulate them. She's 20 now. I don't think she is lying about us right now, but that is because she wants to portray "perfect family" to others. As soon as she sees more benefit from telling people horrible lies about us, she will.
   
3. An inability to maintain relationships. I call this crush and crash. There are technical terms, but I don't remember them. She would find a new friend who was her best friend ever, or a group of friends. This friendship would involve a lot of pretending as she tried to keep up the role. She would also be trying to manipulate and control the other person. These friendships worked better on teens who were on the fringes - it really didn't work well with popular kids. As my mother-in-law says, "She's always picking up strays." People with difficult lives seem to be easier for her to control. More than relationships would end up crashing. It wasn't like she would just lose a friend or two. Instead, she would feel the need to run away from all the lies that she built up. Twice this resulted in her being homeschooled - once for a year, once for a semester. And twice it ended with her moving several states away to live with her birth mother. Now that she is 20, this is what I've seen. She started working at the factory where my husband works while she was pregnant. She was very popular, playing the young mother-to-be and perfect couple with her boyfriend who also got a job at the factory. She lost her job late in her pregnancy because she was sick too much and missed too many days. About 6 months after she had her baby, she went back to work at the factory. This time around a large group of her coworkers hated her - the very same group of people that loved her before. It has toned down now since it's been a year. But for a long time she was constantly complaining about how poorly the other women at work were treating her.
   
4. Paranoia. I don't think all people with bpd are paranoid, but some of them are. This is something that she tries to hide to an extent. I only have one detailed memory of an incident. My stepdaughter and my niece were staying at my mother's for a week during the summer. My mother took them and dropped them off at the local pool to spend the afternoon. My daughter called not too long afterwards and asked for them to be picked up. Apparently there was an older girl there (around 18?) who was giving my stepdaughter really mean looks, talking about her, making comments towards her... So, it isn't out of the realm of possibility that some random stranger was behaving this way, but chances are that this did not happen at all. It was all just my stepdaughter's paranoia. I don't remember any other specific incidents - but they are mostly similar to this, my stepdaughter interpreting someone's behavior in a very paranoid manner. I think that she may also hallucinate with her paranoia. I wasn't home at the time, but we used to live in a house with a large bush right next to the front porch. Apparently, my stepdaughter was sitting on the front porch and talking on the phone. She looked over and saw a man hiding in the bush next to the porch watching her. She ran inside and got my husband, but by the time he got out there the guy was gone. Now, it's possible that there was a guy there. But we were living in the country, so it isn't like we were in a neighborhood with lots of people. It would be pretty random for someone to be out there near our house. And our dog was on the porch with our daughter. The chances that our dog was there and didn't notice a stranger and start barking like crazy? Very slim.
   
   Being a brat as a teenager is normal. I hope that you read this stuff and say, "Wow, my stepdaughter is just a brat. This is great." Even with that...parenting a teen can be super hard. I worked with seriously troubled teens for 15 years, and I basically consider that I failed in parenting my stepchildren through their teens. Well, that is being really hard on myself. But my stepdaughter ended up on drugs, dropped out of school 3 months before graduation and got pregnant at 18 - she was living with her birth mother at the time, but still I raised her not to do those things. My stepson, 18, was grounded for the majority of his high school years. He has a genius IQ, but he is working at a factory now because his grades were too low to go to college. But...my stepdaughter is pretty stable now. She's got a new boyfriend who is a good person. She's pregnant again, but it's because an IUD failed, not because she was being irresponsible. She's kept her job for a year. She's uBPD, everything is likely to come crashing down eventually, but right now things are good for her. My stepson is doing very well at his job, we weren't sure that would happen, and he's saving for college.
   
   My point is that the teen years can be really hard, but if you parent well enough things will stabilize when they get past their teens. You just need to keep them alive, in school and out of trouble with the law. The things that you try to teach them now are going to bounce right off of them. I can't tell you how many times I have heard, "Mom told me." "Mom tried to tell me." "Mom warned me." All of those things I said didn't help much when they were in their teens, but they remember them now that they are older. When I worked with seriously troubled teens we would say that we were planting seeds. You teach teens things, they don't accept them, they don't use them...but when they are older they will remember and use what you taught them (hopefully).
   
   You may take at look at a book called The Parent's Handbook: Systematic Training for Effective Parenting it's the parenting method that was taught to parents when I worked with troubled teens. There is also a free parenting course on Coursera. It is mainly focused on younger children, but then at the end tells you how to tweak things for teens. You can take the course for free by auditing it, no need to pay, do quizzes or assignments. I'd also recommend skipping the recommended readings as they are not necessary.

I've worked in child care for 14 years and have two kids. I use S.T.E.P. in the classroom and at home. If you can take the class, awesome. If you can't, the book is cheap, short and self explanatory. Good luck

I heard this therapist on the Shrink Rap Radio podcast the other day who wrote a book called, "[I'm Working On It In Therapy] (http://www.amazon.com/Im-Working-It-Therapy-Psychotherapy/dp/1632204487)". It's about how patients can get the most out of their psychotherapy but also goes a long way in answering your question.

tl;dr: The best thing you can do in therapy is to be open, engaged and willing to change i.e. commit to the process.

Biological Psychology by James Kalat is really good. I know it's a textbook, but it's really not boring. If you have an okay background already, this ought to balance accessibility with a bit of depth pretty well.

(Also, a used and/or older edition would suffice.)

If you have any interest in therapy, I unequivocally recommend The Gift of Therapy by Irvin Yalom. In fact, I recommend any of Yalom's books.

My Intro to Lit Study course was taught with the Norton Intro to Poetry. It has a great assortment of poetry (from Shakespeare to modern/contemporary stuff) and does a good job of introducing the different aspects of poetry and how to appreciate it.

Hey OP
There is a great book called Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity

It helped me understand a number of things.
I think you would like it.

I do a lot of counseling in my profession.
If you would like to talk to an anonymous person so you can decide if you want to talk face to face with a therapist or counselor . . .
send me a note.

p.s. I have the book in e-pub format if you read e-books.

e: The Story of a Number was pretty good.

I also enjoyed Ian Stewart's Letters to a Young Mathematician.

Rather than debating about the utility of a metric, consider using motivational interviewing to collaborate with people to focus on the big picture. http://www.nova.edu/gsc/forms/mi_rationale_techniques.pdf

This is a good book. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1593856121/

Good luck!

There’s a book about the psychology of children who were adored at birth that would be helpful.

The Primal Wound

Easy read and insightful for abandonment issues in general as well

Edit: adored should be adopted

• How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff is a quick and fun read that will sharpen your ability to identify fraudulent claims.
  
  
• My favorite stats book for people who are not math-geeks is Statistical Methods for Psychology by David Howell
  
  
• The particular technique used in the paper is somewhat beyond beginner level. A third good book to read might be Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models by Andrew Gelman

If that is what the user means I would **Highly*** suggest reading The heart and soul of change https://www.amazon.com/Heart-Soul-Change-Delivering-Therapy/dp/1433807092
It will challenge the widely held idea that a specific intervention or therapy is better for a specific disorder. It once again highlights the importance of the relationship. Check it out!

I used Cognitive Behavior Therapy. I couldn't afford a therapist at the time, so I read a book about deprogramming from cults called 'Leaving the Fold' and it seriously helped.

The point of the book is that religious indoctrination works by imprinting certain messages on your mind that often bypass reason and go straight into your emotional core. They're hard to shake, but with time and attention they can be left behind. You start by recognizing

1. the Event that precipitates one of the messages
   
   
2. what the Message is
   
   
3. then, replacing it with a contrary message
   
   An example:
   The Event is that a guy asks me to have sex. I feel guilt and shame, but also obligated to respond in the affirmative because I caused him to desire me.
   
   The Message is stuff like "If you cause a man to lust, you've incited him" and also guilt-inducing stuff like "Why buy the cow when the milk is free?"
   
   Messages that can replace that are things like, "It is okay to have sexual desires. That's normal and healthy." and also "Wait. Take a moment to get in touch with your true feelings. Do you desire this person?" and "You are not obligated to have sex with people you don't desire. Their desire is their problem. You didn't create it and you aren't obliged to solve it."
   
   It takes a lot of time and attention to ferret these things out. However, it really really helped me--like, within a few months I was doing so much better.
   
   The worst thing about fundamentalism is how it divorces you from your natural feelings and instincts--you aren't "allowed" to feel your feelings and so you suppress a lot of stuff. It still takes me some time to register what I'm feeling (esp negative emotions) but it is so much better now.
   
   Anyway--sorry for the long reply. I enjoy talking about this with others who are going through similar!

This is more a textbook than a light read, but it's by far the best "intro" sort of neuroscience text I've come across. Very readable, and strikes a good balance between simplicity and complexity.
http://www.amazon.com/Biological-Psychology-James-W-Kalat/dp/0495603007/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1302796831&sr=1-2

Most of what I know has come from short courses run by or for the UK National Health Service (past employee), texts like the ones below, as well as personal experience (medical professional, relapsing addict, friend/ partner of other addicts). These are both excellent, turned my thinking and approach to my clients on its head.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Health-Behavior-Change-Mason-MSocSc/dp/0702031534/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Motivational-Interviewing-Health-Care-Applications/dp/1593856121/

There is a cr@pton of research in smoking cessation, weight management and drug addiction if you have access to health journals (I don't and am on an ancient netbook). Read up on the transtheoretical model/ stages of change, the psychology of entrenched behaviours if you are interested.

Edited for wrong version of a book, duh.

My Stroke of Insight by Jill Taylor: A neuroscientist has a stroke and learns to walk, talk, eat, write, or recall her memories.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks: Interesting case studies of patients who suffered from extreme/rare neurological disorders.

Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon: Not necessarily speech-language pathology specific, but it includes chapters identity, self-perception, social perception of people with autism, Down syndrome, and Deaf culture. I read this book recently, and it's absolutely brilliant.

I'm reading Far From The Tree. It's summer reading for school but it's a genuinely great book.

>Gloria apparently found the one with Fritz Perls to be the most helpful.

I always found that surprising, given the way he rips into her, but then I tend to prefer a less confrontational approach (I'm a big fan of Rogers).

I just discovered that there's a book by her daughter. The blurb and comments suggest that the videos are actually a breach of her confidentiality, in that she was told they were for teaching purposes only but they were — obviously — made more widely available. Hopefully the other YouTube/Vimeo videos were obtained more ethically.

Man, I could have written every word of this myself. At some point I found this book and it was somewhat helpful. Not earth shattering, but still illuminating. It helped me put into words and really pinpoint some of lasting effects on my mental and emotional health. Mostly it was comforting to read that what I was experiencing was, in many ways, a totally predictable reaction to that kind of environment.

Just realized I'm a little over ten years out now, too. I think I've come to find a comfort in the "doubt." I've managed to build something of a new framework -- just without religion. For me it's not about right and wrong...it's about our nature as social creatures. There are things that build up those social connections, and things that break them. That we all have an ever-evolving set of standards that help us live with each other. That being together is our animal nature, and without that we're bound to feel miserable.

IDK, just thinking out loud here. You're not alone though.

There is a lot of literature out there including on Wikipedia, but the best resource is probably the memoir written by her daughter, detailing how hard it was to live with stigma against her mom, etc: https://www.amazon.com/Living-Gloria-Films-daughters-memory/dp/1906254028

Try looking at this reading list, there are different sections: from historical to readable text books. I would also recommend letters to a young mathematician.

Try these for math puzzles, there are different levels: junior, intermediate and senior. Find your level and have fun!

If you fancy learning code, I would suggest going for python. It's a nice high level language, that gets things done easily.

p.s. GEB I found to be a real struggle - don't get me wrong it's a great book, but it's not an easy one.

Definitely recommend this book for a really useful guide to the interpersonal approach for beginning clinicians. It's expensive but it's worth it.

I’ve been going to group therapy and they differentiate the skills groups and the process groups, and to me the process groups is where most of the work happens. I think of processing as the self discovery and “why” part of healing. But for it to work you kind of have to be proactive and form an authentic connection with your therapist (or group). I totally recommend this book, as a guide on what to do in therapy.

You can visit the [Secular Therapy Project] (https://seculartherapy.org/) for potential help. The book ["Leaving the Fold"] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BD5ILAW/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1) could also be helpful for you.

Congratulations! It's ok to grieve for the child you thought you were having, make no mistake. But you are going to love the heck out of this baby. You are in for so much joy that you could not have even imagined before this.
I recommend this book, it will make you feel much less alone.

There are psychologists who specialize in religious trauma.
I can't afford therapy, but I've found this book quite helpful- Leaving the Fold

This one is solid. Earlier editions are good, too

Here are some books that helped me starting out:

https://www.amazon.com/Therapy-101-Modern-Psychotherapy-Techniques/dp/1572245689/ref=nodl_


https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Counseling-Techniques-Beginning-Therapists/dp/1403383278


https://www.amazon.com/Techniques-Every-Counselor-Should-Know/dp/0134694899/ref=pd_aw_sbs_14_2/140-3603070-6736458?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0134694899&pd_rd_r=6244c735-a8ca-477d-b6da-c7479d997978&pd_rd_w=ApuBS&pd_rd_wg=P7EIR&pf_rd_p=1c5a26b5-ed76-40f7-b20c-b5d5bd4bc6be&pf_rd_r=CB0QXMR53WBGJ8149ZZ5&psc=1&refRID=CB0QXMR53WBGJ8149ZZ5


https://www.amazon.com/Gift-Therapy-Generation-Therapists-Patients/dp/0061719617/ref=pd_aw_fbt_14_img_3/140-3603070-6736458_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0061719617&pd_rd_r=87c54203-1b24-4fc2-a300-c79a7561e18c&pd_rd_w=F5pJ4&pd_rd_wg=m066p&pf_rd_p=6e6afc8a-fbbd-4649-97cf-4e08f5113612&pf_rd_r=DXCB9181CMTWCT0EEPTM&psc=1&refRID=DXCB9181CMTWCT0EEPTM

Echoing the recs of exchristian.net and Dr. Marlene Winell, particularly her book Leaving the Fold, which is accompanied by a workbook full of personal assessments and writing prompts. I've read it a couple times over the handful of years since my deconversion, and I'm only now working through the exercises (about to complete Chapter 4 to review with my therapist this weekend). Check it out!

See this book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Living-Gloria-Films-Daughters-Memory-x/dp/1906254028

Anybody who thinks that this a good thing or that the US should have a higher rate of termination, check out Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon:

NYT review

Amazon

First step is know the triggers, no need to mention them only you need to know them. Next stay busy, focus on something that can better you. Working out, long walks, biking, if you don't know a trade learn one, go to community college and pick up a program that you might make into a hobby (for instance my local college offers car repairs and a two year program cost next to nothing).

You need to reprogram your mind, so taking on a challenge that pushes you is key. Now comes the hard part know what to do with those triggers, find out why those triggers do what they do and fix it. I know it sounds silly to say FIX It, but the power is in your hands.

Just remember men heal differently than what society knows. People will say all kinds of feminine bullshit they've been told to get to the bottom of issues. The simple fact is those means are weak and make you weak. Those means make you reliant on others, never allowing a man to heal the proper way. It works great for women because they are able to push issues on to others and disassociate due to being a catered to class. Don't heal like a women.

The Way Men Heal was a book I was lucky enough to find as I started my own journey. It was priceless and I bought a ton of copies...all of which I've given out and all the recipients came to understand.

The view is that separating the infant from its biological mother/the womb the child was in is traumatic to the infant. There's also a book that I think they have some adoptive parents read, called "The Primal Wound" that discusses it more in-depth.