u/Anxious_Strength6546

Hi all. In therapy lately, I've been exploring the cognition that "if I get close to people, they will realize I'm a bad person" with my therapist, and we've decided to work on reprocessing some relevant early memories. The memories I want to work with are moments from my childhood where I lashed out in response to bullies, or punched down when I felt threatened.

I can look back at these events and say, well, hurt people hurt people and I'm not really like that anymore, but I can't deny there were some occasions where I really had meanness and anger in my heart.

I still struggle with self esteem and feeling good enough to deserve love and care, so I am concerned that reprocessing these kinds of things might really mess me up for a few days. Sometimes EMDR reprocessing sends me into deep spirals of self loathing, so I am feeling extra cautious about approaching this kind of material.

Do any of you have experience working through memories where you treated others badly?