This is my first time posting here, but I'm on week 4 of the program. Since it's week 4, it's also the last chance to send it back for a full refund. I feel like I'm in between a rock and a hard place. My mother bought this for me without my asking her to, which she thought I'd be angry about but I was actually curious to try this. I should explain that I live with my mother as an agoraphobic and I'm 35 years old. 'Nuff said about that I guess.

Anyway, every week my mother asks me the same question. "Are you doing those tapes? I'd hate to think I spent $360 on that if you're not going to use it." She asks me this because she of course sees no change in me. Each time I tell her that I am doing the tapes, and she finds it hard to believe that I'm only supposed to do one a week. She tends to always believe the testimonials on infomercials, so I think she had the unrealistic expectation that this program would work miracles. So now I feel the pressure of her results-oriented thinking. Do I tell her to send it back so I won't have to deal with the guilt if it doesn't work? Then she'll get mad as usual and give me that disappointed look. Do I hang onto it and risk wasting her money and getting that same disappointed look in a couple of months? Sure, it might have some positive effects on me, but somehow I don't think it's going to give her the results she's expecting. The infomercials kept using the phrase "changed my life" and that's what she's looking for.

How do we deal with other people's unrealistic expectations? I really would like to finish the program, but I can't stand this pressure and feeling that I'm going to disappoint her and the rest of my family yet again (plus cost her a lot of money she can't afford to throw away). I just wish I'd had the money to buy it myself so she wouldn't have any claims on me.

I can relate to you so well on this, in fact I could have taken the words right off this page and posted them as my own a year ago.
First, remember that your mother does this because she cares about you and wants you to be better. This program does work, this will help you. Is it worth being nagged a little (okay, a lot) to feel much better?
In fact, this program will help you cope with feelings of guilt, and so questions like these don't get caught so often between a rock and a hard place. You're worth it. You're mother thinks so, I think so, now you're just got to believe it and you will in time.
What helped me with this situation was understanding that there was nothing I could do. Without giving you an entire backstory about my relationship with my mother, she nags me like crazy and pushes me and has a life all set out for me that I'm not living, but boy oh boy does she ever need to remind me.
But the thing is, thats her. I can't fix that about her or make her change. I can only react to it diffrently.
So I try and think why is she doing this? Has she had a bad day, is she worried about something? Is she trying some kind of tough love approach?
Is it REALLY worth ME getting upset over?
As for the program, keep it, work it, and when you're over this agoraphobia and working again, pay her back : )
I wish you the best of luck, e-mail me anytime (Defenseoflove@aol.com) and you will make it : )

Thank you for your replies.

I did get the I'll Be There For You CD, but I never gave it to her to listen to because it seemed more appropriate for a husband than for a controlling mother. Some parts of it I felt would make things more unbearable if she heard them.

Besides that my mother would assume the role of partner, and I don't want her to be that. That probably sounds weird, but you have to know my mother. I love her, but she's one of those people who always has to be right and in control. She even wanted to listen to the CD's and watch the DVD's with me, but I told her that the program does say not to do this.

Someday when I do have my own money again, I will pay my parents back for all the money they spent on me. I tell myself that with all 3 of my siblings dealing with various forms of panic disorder, this program would have to be good for at least one of us. When I'm done with it maybe I can pass it on. Ironically, I know my mother could benefit from hearing it because she is the one who taught us negative thinking from childhood and she continues to do this to herself. But I don't want her in on it until I'm done because she tends to want to put her two cents in and that would just turn me off the program entirely.