I went hunting and found the maladaptive schema post from about 2 years ago.  http://weareone-ruth.blogspot.com/2015/05/maladaptive-schemas.html

I am curious how I am doing now….. Black is the definition, red is Roots2blossom, Judy and my comments from 2 years ago and green is now.  There is a larger explanation on the web page and I recommend looking it over.

This is the link to the original article on the Early Maladaptive Schemas http://www.schematherapy.com/id73.htm

 

1.  ABANDONMENT /  INSTABILITY –  The perceived instability or unreliability of those available for support and connection. I expect people to abandon me and unfortunately my behavior sometimes makes it a self fulfilling prophecy.  I am learning that some relations are relatively stable.  I now accept that some people are supposed to be in my life for only a season.  Relationships that end doesn’t mean I am abandoned; it may mean one of us changed and someone else will be in our life.  There is nothing wrong with change.  Sometimes a change is needed for greater stability in my life. 

5.  SOCIAL ISOLATION / ALIENATION –     The feeling that one is isolated from the rest of the world, different from other people, and/or not part of any group or community.  I have lived my life next to people, not with people. I don’t see how this can be overcome.   One of the first emotional reactions I talked to my counselor about was that I felt like I was on the outside looking in at life.  I felt like I didn’t belong anywhere.  On occasion I still struggle with this feeling.  I have friends, awesome friends.  I am learning to be a friend and enjoy friendship.  Sadly, I also learned this year when my health deteriorates it is difficult to have energy for friends.  Working on improving my health so I have energy for friends.  I also figured out this year that when feelings of shame increase, I punish myself by isolating myself from my friends.  In weird part of my brain, I feel like I don’t deserve friends so I don’t do anything with them.  Work in progress.  I am thankful for awesome friends including the ones I am related to.  🙂 

6.  DEPENDENCE / INCOMPETENCE –      Belief that one is unable to handle one’s everyday responsibilities in a competent manner, without considerable help from others. I don’t believe I could ever live alone, I keep losing jobs, can’t work full time, due to medical or mental illness.  I thought dependency was how I showed love.  I didn’t understand that it was even possible for two independent people to stand together to form a strong and loving bond.  Work in progress on this one.   I am learning to strengthen a relationship, I strengthen myself.  This is a long journey from equating love with enmeshed dependency to believing that love is built on our strengths to support each other when our weaknesses challenge us.  

Judy’s 7- 12 https://theprojectbyjudy.wordpress.com/2015/05/13/roots-to-blossom-post-2/
7.  VULNERABILITY TO HARM OR ILLNESS –     Exaggerated fear that imminent catastrophe will strike at any time and that one will be unable to prevent it. I always think the worst. In fact I see the worst played out in my mind like a horror movie. I’ve been aware of this and do what I can to counteract it, but nothing has stopped it from happening in the first place.  If DH is home late from work, in my mind I see him mangled on the freeway.  I was raised in the fear that the worst might happen at any moment.  My parents watched the news the plastered the worse from all over the world.  My mother pointed out every disaster and constructed these weird connections until I was quite convinced if I ventured from home horrible things would happen.  Horrible things did happen.  The fear and terror I faced as a child was real.  For me, the terror I live with is it will all happen again.  Hard to shake loose that nagging constant fear.  Counseling helped me to put many of these fears back into perspective of more everyday living.  I am relieved to begin to grasp that my childhood was the exception not the rule.  I now appreciate fear as a warning signal but it no longer rules my life.  Bad things happen every day to someone somewhere.  I am not saying bad things don’t happen.  This past year was a rough one at work, with my health and family struggles.  But I am learning fear in small doses sharpens my senses but after the immediate danger is over I work towards long time planning and keeping up with day to do activities.  Fear is part of my life but is no longer paralyzing. 

8.  ENMESHMENT  /  UNDEVELOPED SELF –      Excessive emotional involvement and closeness with one or more significant others (often parents), at the expense of full individuation or normal social development.  Often experienced as a feeling of emptiness and floundering, having no direction, or in extreme cases questioning one’s existence.  AF raised me as part of him, it was incredibly painful to separate from him. And when I finally did, I found out I was empty inside.  This was so true.  I had no concept of where I ended and my mother began. Fortunately, I can say this in the past tense.  I am still a work in progress but the separation was scary and painful it also gave me the room to grow.  I learned about the value of individuation.  This separateness was something I wanted for my children.  I enjoy them and like to be with them but I am happy to see that they have beautiful complete lives without me, as it should be.   These past few months taught me the separation from my mother is now complete.  She broke her hip.  I felt sad for her but I am facing the facts, I didn’t do this to her and I can’t fix what she is suffering because of her choices.  It is not my job to make her comfortable and happy.  I mourned the loss of what could have been.  For me it is a relief to know I am my own self now.  

 
9.  FAILURE TO ACHIEVE –      The belief that one has failed,  will inevitably fail, or is fundamentally inadequate relative to one’s peers, in areas of achievement (school, career, sports, etc.).  I did fail in school.  I struggled with reading and spelling and yea…junior high was a bit of a disaster.  But between junior high and high school I decided to fight back.  I learned to do well in school.  I worked hard.  I still struggle with feeling like a failure but I have learned to work and work hard with a determination that helped me survive against the odds. Anyone looking at my life would not write me up as a great achiever.  I don’t need to be.  I am doing things to help others.  I am happy and that works for me.  I recognize that my parents are kind of intellectual snobs.  They judge people by their level of education and what type of job they do.  I no longer feel a need to ‘prove’ myself to them.  What I do in my work or anything else is not about them.  I am was disappointed to realize that teaching drains me so completely I can barely function but I made it through to the end of the year.  I am relieved to be the teacher assistant and quite happy if I never need to substitute ever again.    

10.  ENTITLEMENT / GRANDIOSITY  –      The belief that one is superior to other people; entitled to special rights and privileges; or not bound by the rules of reciprocity that guide normal social interaction.  I didn’t think this was me.  I thought this is one I missed.  Then there was this little nudge in my mind as I prayed about this post…..’don’t you feel entitled to your mother’s love?  Didn’t you at the grand age of 17 have the grandiose idea that you could win her love if you just did something big enough and important enough?  Didn’t you tear into college on a scholarship she arranged to prove how magnificent your are?  What about all the grandiose plans made that would take several life times to accomplish?’ …well sh**** Damn is there not one of these I can skip? Fortunately, my counselor helped me understand that my mother’s fears and insecurities are not about me.  I was just a target not the cause.  I am accepting she can not be a mother to me and embrace her fears at the same time.  I am sad for what is lost but I can’t fix it.  I don’t need to.  Funny thing about humility, as soon as you think you got it, it is lost.  I am getting much better at realistically tackling projects in my life.  I can still make plans bigger than I can accomplish, hazards of dreaming big.  I learned along the way that gratitude and recognizing the value of other people keeps feelings of entitlement at bay.  

 
11. INSUFFICIENT SELF-CONTROL / SELF-DISCIPLINE –     Pervasive difficulty or refusal to exercise sufficient self-control and frustration tolerance to achieve one’s personal goals, or to restrain the excessive expression of one’s emotions and impulses.  In its milder form,  patient presents with an exaggerated emphasis on discomfort-avoidance:  avoiding pain, conflict, confrontation, responsibility, or overexertion—at the expense of personal fulfillment, commitment,  or integrity. I would avoid everything if possible  I can resist anything except temptation.  Yea…I hear that chocolate calling my name.  I also learned the habit of avoiding conflict at all cost.  I learned the hard way that the mind set will cost me everything.  I think part of what I like about karate is the emphasis on self control.  I am also learning from Froglogic to embrace the suck.  If I am not uncomfortable I must not be working hard enough. This I am seeing a lot of changes….but I’ll still have another piece of chocolate.  🙂 I am making strides in this area but then I struggle again.  I also noticed that self-discipline takes energy.  When I am feeling sick and tired it is much harder to stay on task moving forward.  I am learning to embrace the suck still working on putting down the second or third piece of chocolate.

12.  SUBJUGATION  –    Excessive surrendering of control to others because one feels coerced – – usually to avoid anger, retaliation, or abandonment. I learned to give up, that I didn’t matter, that nothing really mattered  This was drilled into me both at home and the pedophile.  My counselor chewed me out numerous times for giving away my power.  I was totally stunned; I didn’t even know I had any.  Spent many counseling sessions on what rights and responsibilities I had as a human being with power.  It is kind of cool actually. I make choices everyday to listen to someone else and follow instructions out of choice.  I retain my personal power.  I work hard at remembering that the power is mine and no one can take that from me.  I can only give my power away.  I have some people close to me that remind me when I forget to keep my power.  I have the power to say “no or yes” as I see fit. 

14.  APPROVAL-SEEKING  /  RECOGNITION-SEEKING  –      Excessive emphasis on gaining approval, recognition, or attention from other people, or fitting in, at the expense of developing a secure and true sense of self.  Yes and yes, that is where the self-sacrificing thing comes into lethal play…..sacrificing self to please others is a dangerous road and can be easily twisted out of all proportion. I tell my fashion students that I reached the age when I can wear whatever I want.  I appreciate approval but it isn’t required.  Feels good to define myself instead of always looking to someone else to define me for me. 

15. NEGATIVITY  /  PESSIMISM  –      A pervasive, lifelong focus on the negative aspects of life (pain, death, loss, disappointment, conflict, guilt, resentment, unsolved problems, potential mistakes, betrayal, things that could go wrong, etc.) while minimizing or neglecting the positive or optimistic aspects. Usually includes an exaggerated expectation– in a wide range of work, financial, or interpersonal situations — that things will eventually go seriously wrong, or that aspects of one’s life that seem to be going well will ultimately fall apart. I also apply this to the world at large, that humanity itself is a terrible mistake of nature and that nothing can be done. I can’t save the world, I don’t even want to try any more.  One of the hazards of really bad stuff happening is you see the bad stuff happening everywhere.  I’ve worked hard to notice the good things in life.  I found gratitude a great antidote, but I need to apply daily to keep me from drowning in negativity.  I am noticing I am getting much better at the gratitude part.  I am starting to recognize the value of fleas in my life. Yup, fleas, irritations, and problems make up the fabric of my life.  The dark and the light create my pictures.  Gratitude for all things enrich my life.  My last trip to the hospital brought to light that one of my health issues was not what I was told.  Without the hospital visit I would not know that I need to change what I am eating to protect my health.  Manure helps the flowers grow.  🙂

16.  EMOTIONAL INHIBITION  –      The excessive inhibition of spontaneous action, feeling, or communication — usually to avoid disapproval by others, feelings of shame, or losing control of one’s impulses. I’m not sure I’ve ever had much of a spontaneous feeling. My feelings were never my own and had to be controlled. I think before I feel. And usually I don’t ever feel.   Feelings….what feelings?  Teaching me to feel was the pet project of my first counselor, he started with anger because it is the easiest to illicit….yea, he had a tough time some sessions.  I could make any emotion disappear.  I still tend to hide my feelings…I’m working on it.  I can usually feel my feelings but I don’t always know why they are there.  I learned that is kind of a human thing, feelings are sometimes just there.  Now that I am feeling them I am working at how to express them appropriately.  Not an easy task to learn as an adult when others expect you to act like an adult and I feel more like a 2 year old with an intense desire to lay down and kick my feet and scream….I love art, I can express these outrageous feelings and call it art.  Yea.  More work to do here. Major progress this year in this area.  I thought I was spiraling back into depression.  Then several sharp events let me know that my emotions cover a wide range and degree.  My body is tired and depressed but my emotions are functioning actively.  Working on healing my body so my body will feel as lively as my emotions. 

17.  UNRELENTING STANDARDS /  HYPERCRITICALNESS   –     The underlying belief that one must strive to meet very high internalized standards of behavior and performance, usually to avoid criticism. Typically results in feelings of pressure or difficulty slowing down; and in hypercriticalness toward oneself and others.  Unrelenting standards typically present as:  (a) perfectionism, inordinate attention to detail, or an underestimate of how good one’s own performance is relative to the norm;  (b) rigid rulesand “shoulds” in many areas of life, including unrealistically high moral, ethical, cultural, or religious precepts; or (c) preoccupation with time and efficiency, so that more can be accomplished. This one is huge for me. Goes along with unrealistic expectations and leads to pessimism, reinforces that the world is crap when no one, including myself, measures up to my impossible standards.  Yes, yes, and hell yes…..this stuff was hammered into me. Heavy sigh, I am my own worse enemy…my first counselor talked to me about firing my mean boss the one that expects me to get to work 15 minutes early, stay a half hour late, skip my breaks so I can keep working, I thought about my boss at work and was puzzled, he wasn’t like this.  Then my counselor pointed out that I am my own mean boss.  Fire her.  Show myself the same compassion I would show my children or a friend. Still a work in progress.  I still tend to be very critical but I am also learning to recognize my strengths.  I am teaching students how to view their strengths and weaknesses and how to turn their weaknesses into strengths.  It works.  I am learning as I teach it.  I still keep high standards for myself but I am softening…got to crawl before I can walk. 

18.  PUNITIVENESS   –    The belief that people should be harshly punished for making mistakes.  Involves the tendency to be angry, intolerant,  punitive, and impatient with those people (including oneself) who do not meet one’s expectations or standards.  Usually includes difficulty forgiving mistakes in oneself or others, because of a reluctance to consider extenuating circumstances, allow for human imperfection, or empathize with feelings. Goes right along with 17. I judge everyone harshly, not humanly.   Clean sweep, I’ve got them all. The interesting thing about counseling, I learned things about myself that I didn’t realize I was doing.  I learned I could override this tendency.  I have to work hard at it but it is possible.  All these are a part of my life.  All these are changeable.  As I learn new ways of living and apply principles of kindness, compassion, understanding, self-control, individuation and the healthy forms of these, I am liking the person I am becoming.  I’m not perfect; I’m human and enjoying it. Sometimes I walk into another room to keep from unleashing my frustration on some poor unfortunate soul that had no idea what I was expecting of them.  As I learn to accept mercy for myself, it is easier to except mercy for others.  I’m still not perfect and I enjoy being human. 

Progress not perfection.