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The first homework assignment for d.v. group was to psychoanalyze each relationship Ive been in. Lucky for me Ive only had 8 boyfriends, some of the girls were like "holy shit ALL OF THEM?!?!" lol we had to categorize them into positive and negative relationships. We had these lists of healthy and unhealthy behaviors, and we were supposed to score our partners accordingly. In doing that exercise I noticed that the relationships that I listed as positive, where the guy "passed the test" on the healthy side and showed little unhealthy behaviors, well with those I took the assignment further and scored myself, with those guys I noticed that I fit the unhealthy side, not so much physically abusive but anyway... in a round-about way I was the abuser in those relationships. When I talked about this she said I was skipping ahead to week 4 and the other girls were confused cuz they hadnt figured it all out yet. so it was eye-opening to think that EVERY relationship Ive been in has been unhealthy and abusive one way or another. I asked her if it was common for women of abuse to flip the roles like that, "so even if I do find a good guy, Im going to subconsciously try to turn him into a beater?" the thought disgusts me. my counselor said that there are two goals for the domestic violence counseling, one is to learn how to spot an abuser/how to pick decent guys (and understand why we pick them etc) and the second goal is to recognize our own negative behaviors, understand where they come from, and find ways to change them, so that when we do find a good guy we wont fuck it up.

I got super depressed Saturday. The isolation is killing me. and it seems like a serious uphill battle fixing my brain. Last night though, I was writing and figured that I thought the same things about my weight, I never thought I could be healthy or pretty. So that gave me something to go on, if I can lose 200 pounds in two years, repeatedly fight off cancer etc (presently I do 300 situps a day plus my yoga and power walking) then i can surely get my brain healthy too. During the weight loss I thought of myself as being in a caccoon, and coming out a butterfly. Im gonna think of my brain the same way.

Always remember to quit while you're ahead.

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