[moonlite]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

Since you and I have never met, our relationship (as you perceive it) exists entirely in your mind. Consequently, who's mind are you actually diagnosing? The most valid answer is that you're diagnosing the contents of your own mind. That's the only mind you have direct access to.

Since you and me have never met for me our relationship is almost nonexistent. Almost - as now some sort of communication is occurring. I want to stress again - I'm NOT diagnosing - I put forward some hypothesis. And yes, I am using my mind not some other. But your inference that I have access to the contents of my own mind only is rather weird, as I'm not enclosed in some box without any input.

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

The solution in this case is to consider how you've been repressing your own BPD aspects, denying their existence, and decliining to accept them. By labeling someone you've never met with such a disorder (and a meaningless one at that), you're striving to distance yourself from those aspects... as a method of denial.This practice, however, isn't aligned with Truth, so it's pointing you away from positive growth instead of toward it.

I understand that you need to get rid of my hypothesis. Leave it in a box.
OK, let's say that it's entirely part of my mind and has nothing to do with you. It's possible. There still remains some problem though - it's really hard to distance yourself from BPD aspects and if it would be enough to write on some forum and then read your response to solve this issue my profession would be completely needless.

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

Try to accept that you're perfectly fine as you are. It's okay not to be normal. That's a false ideal you don't have to live up to. You just have to become comfortable in your own skin. Accept yourself as you are without worrying so much about how others perceive you.

well, there is a sort of joke among my colleagues that to become psychotherapist one even shouldn't be normal Again - as it is not well-defined what does it mean to be normal anybody would really get in trouble setting up this kind of ideal. My struggle with worries about how others perceive me has ended in my late adolescence. But anyway thanks for support.

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

As a means of realigning yourself with Truth, you can consider the symptoms of BPD and notice how you're been suppressing them in your own life. Given your training, this shouldn't be that difficult if you don't resist the process. Since you mentioned NPD earlier as well, you might want to do the same exercise for NPD as well, although I suspect that's not much of an issue for you.

Here I must disagree with you - I have a strong narcissistic tone in my personality which is rather obvious for anyone who reads me. I'm a bit pretentious too. I try to put some restraint on it as I think that too much of it would make me boring even for myself, but anyway it's still there, that's the truth.

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

Your initial reaction may be to defend yourself or to reassert your earlier diagnosis of me, but there's no need to defend anything because you aren't being attacked. Rather, consider that your request for help has been received and is being responded to.

You mean my unconscious request for help, obviously... I try to be honest with myself so I sat for a long while and considered your words. No, I don't feel attacked. I feel rather that you try to be my therapist.

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

Posting your diagnosis publicly instead of sending it privately is a rather obvious clue that you're seeking help. Trained professionals who are genuinely concerned for my psychological health don't diagnose me as having a mental disorder in a public forum for non-professionals, inviting others to discuss the issue right in front of me. What reputatable psychologist or psychiatrist would ever do such a thing? If you give it some thought, hopefully your logical mind can recognize the absurdity of this. At the very least, you must admit that such behavior would be rather unprofessional.

I don't write here under my real name so my reputation remains intact. Yes, it's unfair - but it's you who is really exposed. But you chose it, didn't you?
Also - unprofessional sounds here almost like unethical - but what if it was the only effective way to pose some questions? I doubt there are any professionals that will offer you diagnose or mere hypothesis through an email or when you sip a juice with them at the party. They usually do not offer their help for free Anyway it seems to me that you put too much of weight on my opinion. Why bother? Why don't you simply ignore it? After all - who knows maybe I'm not even a psychotherapist? it's Internet - everybody can claim that he is a G-d himself. Does it make him more aligned with the Truth?

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

In truth you're using these forums to help you process some aspects of your shadow self. This allows those aspects to come to the surface where you can deal with them a little more consciously. I get the feeling, however, that you may not be congruent in your desire to resolve these issues. Part of you wants them resolved, but another part would prefer to continue repressing them.

I'm using these forum to learn. I love to discuss with people. "these issues" are really too difficult to be solved in this way (assuming that there are some)

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

There are a few other steps you can take, but I'd rather not discuss them with you publicly, as it can get rather personal, and a public forum isn't the right place for it if you're a fairly private person. So if you want help with the rest, feel free to PM me. But I think you get the basic idea. In essence all you really need to do to get started is to run yourself through a mirror exercise.

I really appreciate your concern and I'm not sarcastic. I know that you are a person who is genuinely interested in helping people. Thank you for your invitation but if I will need another therapist I will find one here where I live.

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

If you'd like to suggest that I do the same, the answer is that I already have. I do it quite often in fact. Whenever I'm inclined to diagnose others with some sort of disorder, including RDD, I interpret it as a self-diagnosis to see what comes up. In this case it points to an issue that I've known about for some time but which I'm still working to change. To put it simply, I want to be helping more people face-to-face and on a deeper level as opposed to working with people remotely over the Internet. From years of giving and receiving remote diagnoses, I've seen just how inaccurate they tend to be unless there's been a tremendous about of one-on-one communication.

I can understand your frustration perfectly as I really love my job and wouldn't change it ever.

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

In particular, plain text doesn't convey emotion. It isn't an emotionally expressive medium compared to audio or video. When people read a lot of text, they fill in the emotional void with their own emotions, and these emotions are different for everyone. Consequently, when such people form an opinion of the writer based on their impressions of the text, they're largely evaluating their own emotions, as they have no access to the writer's true emotions and motives. All they can do is make assumptions, which are frequently inaccurate. In such cases the best I can do is to keep nudging people back towards Truth.

I must disagree again - text does convey emotions. Of course nonverbal communication is important and nothing compares to real life contact but it's not true that text is a clean slate on which you can project anything you want. Or you can say exactly the same about face-to-face contact when the person with a strong projective identification mechanism can see hostility in the most innocent and helpful other. But the majority of people is not like that. Some people even are not that prone to projection as a defense - it's a rather low level defense anyway. So again - it depends on who reads. It's very important to be aware how biased and prejudiced someone can be but still sometimes one can guess right. From my point of view - the main problem with the text is that it's only substitute - and communication through writing doesn't seem real. Being aware of it makes it more like an intellectual game - emotions are still involved but distance is too big to build relationship that profoundly changes both parties.