Goals for therapy

Since I plan on starting officially with my therapy tomorrow, I wanted to cross-post a list I wrote out last Thursday after making my appointment.  They are things I want to work with the therapist on, in the hopes of improving myself for my own sake and the sake of those around me.  None of these are 'easy' or 'quick' fixes; with time I will improve.  Stand with me.

So, here goes:

~Breaking down unneeded self-preservation behaviors.  I have a lot of behaviors that I'm ashamed to say are still lingering.  (Yes, this includes my lying.)  As much as I've tried to dispel them on my own, they're persistent behaviors that I need help to get rid of.

~Improving my communication skills with others.  I'm not sure whether it's pride, intimidation, or a combination of factors causing this one.  But when I need something, I find I get scared of asking people for fear of what their reaction will be.  (This will be a topic all its own in time.)  I'd really like to no longer have that hurdle in the way of my asking for help.

~Work on my coping skills/emotional responses.  Justin has mentioned to me several times that I tend to overreact emotionally to things, or make a big deal out of a minor disappointment.  This is something I've struggled with for some time with limited success, but I want this go-around to be different.  I want to better emotionally handle when life throws me a screwball, no matter what the size.

~Get past the 'old garbage' in my life.  The feeling that I'm punishing myself and those around me for what I've gone through prior to now came to me.  That's totally not fair on my part, so I'm going to fix it once and for all.

~Be more emotionally/mentally independant.  Continuing with one of my posts from yesterday, I really need to learn to stand on my own.  Justin is right, I need to learn not to rely on him so much for my day-to-day functioning.

~Fix my wonky motivation.  I've noticed that I have super-high 'I can do anything!!!!!!!!!!' motivation when I'm at school and doing school-related things, but when it comes to other aspects in my life (namely, my ongoing job-hunt) my motivation is flagging.  This is totally unacceptable for me -especially in light of the promise I made to Cindy-, and I'm going to work on repairing it.

None of this will be easy, but I'm going to say right here that I'm going to put 155% effort into every appointment.  I'm going to work as hard as I can to improve myself, no matter what.  I swear it.