Thanks very much for replying, the trouble is, while I believe my parents are well-meaning, I'm having doubts that they would understand. Many, many times, I have been told "You have x,y,z, cheer up, be happy!....." stuff that absolutely does not help me at all....I am afraid that it may end the same way this time....The fact that I have years and years of experience pretending to be "fine", really does not help either...
Patience is the key in those sorts of situations. Often minds can be changed if, over time, we can continually gently remind them that their understanding is not accurate to our experience. Even the stubbornness of generalizing someone else's experience to your own has its limits. It's worth gently reminding people that you can't simply cheer up and be happy, that it's more complicated than that.
It's difficult for us to understand that sometimes we simply can't completely understand!
In the meantime, I agree with The Wall that it's probably best to make whatever moves you can on your own.
It all comes down to four words: What's wrong with you/him?
Throughout my childhood, I was always told there was something wrong with me, not different, but wrong and I internalized it as that as a consequence, I felt like I could never fit in and didn't deserve to fit in. With my GAD at the helm, I turned it inward and shut myself out from relationships, jobs, college, pretty much the world at large and I carried it with me well into my 20s now. To me, that tendency of avoidance hurt my chances of ever having a "normal" life. Anything beyond my bubble/comfort zone/battle station/castle was subjected to admiration, but also suspicion. Think it like North Korea except instead of a nuclear arsenal, it's dirty looks and sarcasm. Just like a dictatorship too, I built a dysfunctional, rigid ideal structure wherein I scorned myself by not abiding by the markers (or milestones) that are tied to my age at the time. For example, I used to stress out about not liking alcohol and would come up with these weird hostile scenarios where my abstinence from it would result in being shamed or ostracized.
In essence, I never felt I belonged and I felt like I unintentionally stunted myself as a result. I hope that sheds some light on it.
It's valuable that you're able to identify that inward turn as well as some of its precipitating factors, FITG. The next step, it would seem, is to consider the nature of the hurt you're avoiding, why it hurts so much and how to better cope with it such that you can start to take down some of those walls.
I was very, very shut off emotionally from around age 19-21 due to various sorts of hurt I just hadn't processed. It's natural to turn inward and protect ourselves when we get hurt, but it's usually best if we find ways to open back up to the world. I'm still working on it.
I haven't made much progress. Well, I guess a little. But therapy hasn't helped for the most part.
I decided that the best way to combat my alcoholism is to do something else when the urge strikes. So I decided to start a blog. Whenever I feel like drinking, I write. I didn't give my wife the address, and the name I use is fictitious, but it's my real thoughts. I don't know if it will help, but it at least gives me an outlet for my problem.
If any of you are suffering from alcoholism, I'd be more than happy to discuss it with you all.
https://thesolodrinker.wordpress.com/
I'm so glad to hear you're channeling your struggle into a blog, Ourobolus. It sounds like a tremendously healthy and productive way to deal with difficult feelings while also breeding more understanding of what you're going through amongst others. Thanks for sharing!
Valentine's Day is coming and I'm still old ugly and single. Part of me want to tell my friend I'm not going to visit him in Japan and use the money to buy a gun and shoot myself in the head. I hate my life I hate everything about it.
I'm sitting here wondering how people like David Mira commit to suicide. I have it in me but i dont have the courage or resolve. i dont have a family or kids or any significant other so it wont matter if i am dead or alive, my job can replace me. maybe i need to get myself drunk or high or something.
I will be single this Valentine's Day as well, neojubei. Our relationships do not (and should not) define us and determine our value. My incessant need to have my self-worth reaffirmed by a significant other has tanked at least two or three relationships for me. And what value were those relationships if they still weren't filling the emptiness I felt right in the center of my emotions?
I am now trying to fill that emptiness on my own. I now know that nobody else can fill it, and it is unreasonable to expect someone else to do so. Once I am more whole myself I will be infinitely more able to have a healthy, lasting relationship.
I do often get told that people aren't really as critical of me as I am of myself, but in the absence of any (related) recognizable medical condition I have little to go on.
I see 'value' basically as 'amount of happiness I bring into the world, substracted by the harm I cause'. Even my own happiness would count if I had any. Assuming no redeeming qualities, all I am at best is waste of oxygen and other things.
Well, as you said, our own happiness is a valuable pursuit on its own, though no less subjective than any definition of value. If we accept that as valuable, though, then isn't it just as noble and worthy of a pursuit as any other, irrespective of what you feel the outside world's judgment of you is? You mention a "recognizable medical condition" - what do you mean by that and how would that enhance affect your sense of value?
For what it's worth, I disagree that at best you are a "waste of oxygen".
Thanks, Piano. People (family) refer to it as the saddest house, because there's constantly PSWs in and disabled family members need a lot of help.
If I left, I feel I'd be abandoning them.
What am I living for? Honestly, my family. I don't know what else.
Surely one must be able to develop further purpose or aspects to live for, no?
I ask this as someone who is deeply afraid of my post-parents life. I still believe it, though.
Had a party yesterday, this girl I like came.
We've been crazy close for a couple of weeks, chatting and talking every day. We have so many things in common, we confide in each other and she's opened up to me in ways she hasn't to anyone else.
Then at the party, another guy started making moves on her. I just pulled her aside to my bedroom, and told her how I feel. She almost started crying when she told me that currently, she's too broken to feel love and that she can't be with me because of it. I said it was okay because she can't force her feelings.
Then I went out, came back after 15 minutes and she and the dude were gone, the bathroom door was locked. I told my friend about this, when I mid sentence realize she's interested in the guy. She gets furious and starts banging on the bathroom-door. They both come out and hell breaks loose.
She swears to me that nothing happened, I tell her that I believe and trust her, because I did.
Later in the night, the two girls talk, hell breaks loose again as it turned out they kissed in the bathroom.
Yet again, I tell this girl that it's okay. She's devastated and panicking because she feels awful for the way she treated me. I wasn't sad or sorry really, I know it's awful to try and control others and tell them what they can and can't feel.
But today when I woke up, I just feel so numb, like I've had this experience one time too many and that I've just lost all hope.
What do I do? Just let time heal me?
Time and space. Run into the feelings rather than away from them. Love and romance are a roller coaster, and sometimes all we can concentrate on is keeping our hands on the handlebars as everything whizzes by around us.
I hope you're able to find some solace, Fudgepuppy.
Anyone have any tips for coping when your ex starts dating your best friend? Feeling pretty insecure about the whole thing and are just wondering how others have handled the situation. Can't help but feel like they're now closer than I ever was with either of them while simultaneously feeling that my friend is succeeding where I failed miserably. And she's even living with us now so it's like staring at all my insecurities in the face every morning. It's been pretty emotionally exhausting trying to force myself not to care or think about it.
That sounds like a tremendously difficult situation to deal with, Ezduo. Did your best friend talk to you about any of this before it got this serious?
Also, I decided to get into the whole getting a girlfriend/boyfriend thing again a while ago and it's not going so well... I had a date yesterday and it was super awkward and I ended up just leaving after what felt like hours and then I realized it had only been about 15 minutes.
I already get uncomfertable around people as it is (I barely leave my house because reasons) and the extra pressure of trying to get someone to like me is just too much.
Plus I get overly self conscious about not really having anything to offer due to not having a job and probably never getting one, my physical/mental issues, etc.
I probably shouldn't bother trying.
I usually try to shrug this off but being alone a lot feels pretty bad to be honest. Unfortunately being around people usually doesn't feel too good either... It's frustrating because when I'm alone I get lonely and when I'm with someone I go into panick mode and all I'll want is to be left alone.
Can you make sense of what made you so uncomfortable at the date, Octavianus?
Dating is difficult. It's okay to feel bad about it sometimes, but it's important to see it as an iterative process - we meet someone, we learn something about ourselves, we grow a bit, and then we try again. We wouldn't grow nearly as much if everything stuck on the first try.
I'm pretty sure I'm a fucking moron. A godamned bumbling fool.
I'm college my friends nicknamed me n00bsauce because I wasn't that good at anything. They were all way more legit than I am and are all note having careers now that make 2x more than me.
Speaking of my career it has been brought to my attention that alp my coworkers think I suck at my job. They say I put in alot of effort, but that in pretty bad at what I do. Apparently I've become a sort of punch line.
When I try to improve I still fuck up and no one even notices because the perception is there. Plus in my industry no one really notices when you get it right. Only when you get it wrong.
I just don't see what's the point of even trying any more. I'll never be good enough.
To me, megalosaro, I hear several disparate factors and I don't agree that they lead to the conclusion that you'll never be good enough.
As I've said before, friends who treat you like that don't sound like good friends to me. Ideally friends are those who understand and can be supportive of their friends. Does that mean they think you're perfect? No, of course not - and none of us are. But in my mind it doesn't leave space for mean nicknames or excessive joking at someone's expense. It all seems so middle school, to be honest.
If your coworkers are looking down on your performance, especially in light of you making improvements, then, again, that is their problem and ultimately their judgment is coming out of some need for them to make themselves feel superior to another person.
Ideally we're able to define our own value (somewhat) independently of others and thus keep a more stable level even when external factors challenge it. It's not that easy, of course, but it's worth considering.
<3
