People in therapy are often in therapy to deal with the people in their lives who won't go to therapy.

My name is Andrea and this is Adult Child.

Welcome back to Adult Child, where we take a deep dive into the impact of growing up in a dysfunctional family.

And today, you all are in for a real damn treat.

As I am diving deep with my former therapist, Dr. Melissa Fenton,

you know, I feel incredibly blessed for the therapist I've had the pleasure of working with

who have just had an insurmountable impact to my life, both my current therapist and Melissa.

So I started working with Melissa at 20 years old and four years sober.

It was right after the demise of my relationship with Mr. Looks Perfect on paper,

which I talked about in episode five, which was the first episode that I did on BPS Broken Picker Syndrome,

but just for a little refresh.

So I met Mr. Looks Perfect on paper.

I think I called him George. I met George at a 12-step meeting.

He was from New York City, but he was living in Jacksonville temporarily for work.

And as his nickname suggests, he was perfect on paper.

He was quite the upgrade from the guys I had previously dated in sobriety.

He was well-educated. He had a great job. He came from good pedigree.

He was 10-year sober. He was tall. He was attractive.

But unfortunately, for me, the six months that we dated was quite a miserable, emotionally-distregulated hellhole.

I would say, I don't know, 10 to 15% of the time was pure bliss.

And the rest of the time, I was in a hyper-vigilant, painful trauma response,

not having any idea that I was having a trauma response,

...