After years of being told to go to therapy, I’ve learned about the lasting benefits of “reparenting” – a technique that helps recognize and repair patterns of non-functional behavior in relationships. And while I’m sure this would be really good for me, I’ve thought a lot about it and realized that the best thing I can do for myself is to take the leap and reparent my own Sim instead.
Much like my own childhood, my Sim has been left alone in an empty pool for far too many days of her life, leading her to feel insecure and unworthy of love. And that’s why she’s been going downtown alone, looking for random men to woo-hoo who don’t respect her at all. But now, instead of paying a matchmaker to find a man who will finally ask her a question for once, we stop and ask, “What part of your inner child needs to make peace with the past? What can we do for ourselves today instead of woo-hooing with a total stranger?”
Obviously, none of this applies to my own life, but I’m really happy to help my Sim who is identical to me through this tough time.
And when we have some free time, sometimes we revisit parts of her childhood that were not so gah – like when she got super drunk and was crushed by a Murphy bed or was forced to live in a cube for a year for no reason. From there, my Sim can reframe the negative thoughts in her head and affirm, “Bow deserve zor than dis.”
I’m just so, so glad she’s working through this.
Obviously, therapy isn’t really for me as I’ve got everything pretty much figured out, but I’m so glad it can help the simulated people in my life that I’ve constructed from scratch and whose lives I play out as some form of catharsis that I’m unwilling to examine in myself. Anyway, it’s time for me to spend another Friday night on my laptop trying to fix the closest thing to myself that I’ve ever created!
