I have faulty thinking...

I do. I've been realizing this over the past couple of months. It's very difficult to change. Over the past several years, there was an individual (not a family member) that I held in very high regards. I deeply respected and trusted this individual. Their words of advice and correction I always took to heart. But then something changed in their attitude towards me. I'm not quite sure why. Suddenly, this person was calling me in for lectures. I was getting overly harsh criticisms. They were constantly reminding me of my past mistakes. They were condemning. They began to get unnecessarily blamed for situations out of my control. They began to overstep their boundaries to make an attempt to interfere with my marriage, and that's when Joel and I drew the line. The thing is, that I held such a high regard for this person for so long, that when everything started turning negative, I continued to take the things they said to heart, even though I felt deeply wounded. But it seemed like the more I tried to be better for this person, the more I failed, which resulted in more condemning lectures. They always had reasons to justify tearing me down. Always. They refused to try to understand things from my side. They made excuses when their false accusations were disproved by Joel and I. But no matter what, they always had a reason to show me why I was wrong. And after several years of this, I have to admit, their eagerness to point out my faults has really messed with my head. The idea that I am a very bad person has been fixed into my head for some time now. I feel like when something bad happens to me, that I deserve it. When someone is nice to me, I wonder why. It's hard for me to understand why they're being so nice, especially since I'm such an awful person. I'm in a constant state of paranoia when it comes to dealing with this person. I always have feelings of fear and panic when this person comes, hoping that I'm not in "trouble" for something else.

Over the last couple of months, I've come to realize my faulty way of thinking. I catch myself thinking about how terrible I am. I catch myself thinking that I deserve to have a series of bad things happen to me. I know this isn't true. I know that I am accepted in Christ, and that he truly has made me worthy, but it's so hard to change the way you've been thinking, especially after a several years of taking overly harsh criticisms to heart. I'm currently struggling with this issue. It's taken me so long to realize this person was wrong. I have several years worth of deep wounds to overcome. But I have learned to believe very little that comes out of this person's mouth, no matter what.