Shameful, like I don't have a rightful place in the world

[Blueberry]

Thank you PeTe. You have the exact same right too 

[PeTe]

It's strange that it's easier to say that to someone else...

[ah]

ah - If you'd like, I've got a suggestion for how you could change what you're visualizing (not sure if it'd work, though).

Yes please, thanks 

[DecimalRocket]

Pete, I think you have a right to exist. Sometimes I have the same fear too when I'm in an EF. But I think all of us here do. We're not really doing anything gravely wrong as a human being, and the mistakes we make aren't on purpose, but is an effect of our trauma.

[PeTe]

ah, I've been away on holiday, so late reply  I think most people in here have suffered from a lack of care from others. When you're imagining, maybe the people you imagine could care for you, maybe just in a small way to start with. Of course, you should only try it if it feels right for you to do so. A whole other way of imagining that is used by psychologists, is to really exaggerate something negative we say to ourselves, until it becomes so absurd we stop believing it. Like when I feel I don't have a rightful place in the world, I could go on to imagine that I have to transcend into another dimension and conjuring up images of that - something completely unbelievable. It makes me believe less in the negative thoughts.

DecimalRocket - I guess one of the effects of being mistreated is that we think there's a reason for it, and it's easy to jump to the conclusion that we don't deserve what we're denied or that we for some reason deserve to be treated badly. Taken to the extreme, I guess that feeling is that we don't deserve a place in this world, or perhaps that we deserve a really * place in this world. At the same time we think others have the right to whatever we're not getting. In a hunter-gatherer society that probably was a good evolutionary development, as staying with the group and adapting to it increased chances of survival and passing on genes.