Just Realised Something...

[Starry]

... I've spent the past week or so feeling really down, crying, totally miserable, doubting that people online even want to talk to me, feeling totally worthless. I've been speaking to people online, moaning about the way I feel, trying to help myself feel better by off-loading. Because I always thought that's the best thing to do: Talk about your problems and it makes them feel smaller... But in reality, although it helped in the short term, it made me worse in the long run. I ended up feeling guilty for moaning so much. I felt that people would get sick of me. It reinforced in my mind that they were problems worth worrying about, and that I should be feeling bad. It had nothing to do with what anyone said to me. In fact I did find some comfort temporarily in their words. But the act of talking it out vallidated the emotions, when in fact they were worthless to me.

But I've realised now, that talking to someone else about their problems instead of focusing on my own, makes me feel better. It pushes my problems down in significance to others'. I don't feel guilty and it helps me to snap out of the self-pity. I realise that it's helping others that's important. I can be soothed by trying to help someone else, so much more effectively than I can by complaining to people I care about.

That's not to say that it's not important to express emotions, negative or positive. It's harmful to keep them locked inside. But I tend to dwell and brood on them even after expressing them. That's my problem. I need to learn to express them once and move on, focus on others and be less selfish.

Now I just have to find a way of keeping this in mind and putting it into practice.

Forgive me if my post seems a little unstructured, it's just the meanderings of my mind at this moment in time...

 

[nimrodel]

I know exactly what you mean. I'm scared that sometimes people will think I'm weird or something for complaining about such a pathetic thing as SP (which is why I've never told anyone). But what I've realized is that there's something plaguing everyone's life. It doesn't even have to be a psychological disorder, but it's something that they're not sure what to do about. Talking about it with them makes me feel a lot better. Like I'm helping them and forgetting about myself in the process. After I realized that, I told myself I was going to go to school to become a psychologist. I want to help other people get over their problems and like this girl once told me, "It doesn't matter if you don't know what to say back, everyone just needs someone to listen". And I think people with SP are able to listen and understand and sympathize more than other people. Just focusing on someone else's problems is a nice change and can really make you feel better about yourself.

But seriously, you shouldn't be feeling worthless, because there's something unique about everyone. I'm positive that you're an amazing person - you just need to keep that in mind. It strikes as really interesting how SP can make someone so selfish, yet so completely opposite selfish at the same time.

Good luck with everything.

 

[Starry]

Thanks for the reply.

I'm not feeling so worthless now that I've realised that the way to feel better is to listen and try to help others. I'm not an "amazing person" but thank you anyway. I'm feeling much more positive now.

 

[charlieHungerford]

Starry, I am sorry to hear you have been so upset of late, but don't let things get to you, anything that crap happens just let it go over your head! I am glad to hear though that you are realising its destructive.

Totally agree that dwelling on problems and feeling unhappy and upset doesn't achieve anything, you do just feel worse and worse because you are letting the negatives get to you and focusing on them. Negative thinking is very bad! What has happened is in the past is in the past and cannot be altered, nothing will change it so don't waste any time dwelling on it. I mean I could have a really really crap day at work where everything goes wrong including SA stuff, but when I get home I can either feel upset and unhappy and feel like crap and make myself feel worthless, but I would be the only one feeling unhappy and upset, no one else will be thinking about me, so I am just upsetting myself, it achieves nothing and doesn't help in any way.

But I don't think that concentrating on someone else's problems is right. I mean you should be doing yourself a favour and be pro-active and look to help yourself and work on beating what is making you unhappy rather than avoiding the problems.

I really like your posts, you write methodically and interesting posts, you definitely have the power to make amazing progress yourself!

 

[Starry]

Thank you for your reply. Thank you for finding my posts interesting. Though I'm sure the majority have been very whiney recently...

I didn't mean I should only focus on other people's problems. I meant that I should recognise my negative feelings and then put them aside. Focusing on others' lets me put my own problems into perspective. Plus it makes me feel better to be of use to someone. That's the main point of my negative feelings; Feeling useless, worthless and pathetic. When I concentrate on others I forget all about that and feel of more worth.

Besides which it's always good to be less selfish.

If I only had social phobia to contend with I think I could make good progress, but as it is I have psychosomatic dizziness and agoraphobia which need contending with more. I can't very well work on interactions with people if I can't leave the house... But first I need to build up my confidence levels in order to deal with any of that. Which brings me back to thinking of others and not myself lol.

 

[LittleMissMuffet]

Hi Starry,

Something really similar happened to me a month or more ago. I "came-out" as having "social anxiety" and at first, people were quite welcoming towards me in that I admitted to personal difficulties -and a 'mental illness' at that. ...Then, as I got into my more specific insecurities, barely a soul replied. And the one that did, sort of tried to put me into his boat as having Asperger's -and was quite pushy in his insistence that i had this, only to then change his mind when I finally yielded to possibly having this.

I have a few things to say about this....
one is that, this "embarassing" process, however embarrassing for me I think was more so for others. ...I ended up feeling worse for having emptied my soul of my insecurities and it was in fact like entertaining the worst of my insecurities. ...Perhaps it is because 'social anxiety' is largely about the fear of others' judgements, that when I told of my insecurities, they seemed to get bigger and more worrying when I held them up to the scrutiny of others.

How do I feel now? ....Interestingly enough, a month or more down the track I feel amasingly great.

...Has it occured to you yet that what you are doing may in fact be a part of your getting better? ...Whilst I can't at this stage say with certainty exactly why I feel confident to call my self 'normal' (and not mentally abormal) and 'acceptable' (and not 'flawed'); I do have some suspicion that in going through the scary process of letting others know of my problems and fears has actually ended-up making me no-longer think so badly of them.

I think that I really don't care so much anymore -that I can vouch for my self again -and at last- as being "normal" and "acceptable"; and that the high sensitivity that is behind my anxieties, is perfectly fine.

So, maybe facing my fears as to who you I am in the form of 'what others think of who I am', has strengthened my own perspective and image of my self. ...In fact, a person becomes sure of who they are when there is a comparison allowed between what is opposite to them -darkness, doubt, all negative things -all of which a person faces when they encounter what others think and even just what a person thinks others may think of them.

Well, this is my guess -my educated guess- but still, it is my guess.
Because over the last few weeks I am feeling wonderful. My fears aren't so dominant, my mind and emotions don't race or fall down on me like a storm taking over. ....I feel able to just be still around people again -like I did before much of this even started.
I'm not 100% better ...but, I feel so much more comfortable in my own skin.

So, whithout wanting to spoil it for you ...maybe what you are going through- your worries about who you are being magnified and compounded upon telling them to other people- maybe it is a step in you being able to see through these doubts and get confidence in the positives about you; and to be able to know what you think of who you are without being fearfully attached to what others will think of you. That this is what is necessary for you to get perspective, and once again have faith in your self and your own sense of who you are ...in order to know who you are. And this could be your way to that confidence -a way to see for your self through others' possible (negative) opinions about you.

....I included a philosophical article (that noone seems to have read) -but in it it is said that: 'all knowing contains a component of not knowing'. Just as the spiritual idea says: 'you can only know who you are when you know who you are not'. ....it is even believe that a reason why Jesus was careful in what he said and who he said it to, was because he knew that "for some, the fastest way to 'who they are' is through 'who they are not'".

 

[Starry]

Hmmm, very interesting post, LittleMissMuffet.

I'm very glad that you're feeling so much better now.

I don't think the act of telling anyone about my problems has really helped me though, I've been talking about my problems on another site for a year and a half, but it hasn't caused me to feel any differently... I'm very glad it helped you eventually though. Even though you felt worse at first.

I'm going to need more time to think upon some of the points you have raised. I do agree that a good way to start to know yourself is to know who you are not...

 

[LittleMissMuffet]

Hi Starry,

I wanted to say that I actually felt very similar to you up until only fairly recently. And talking to people -over the internet, not in person- and explaining my problems at first made me feel good just being honest and forthright, but soon as I explained more openly about them I got all insecure.

It was like explaining things to others was actually taking away the strength and confidence that I had when I thought and explained the same ideas to my self!!!! :idea: :idea:

I think in fact, that to some extent that that is in a way our entire problem: that we need and look continuosly towards others for affirmation that what we think and who we are is 'right' or acceptable. Like we are searching for the answer to "who I think I am", our self image, in the faces and views of other people- and that's a sea of possibilities and different opinions.

And similar to this, I think that 'confidence', when it is real confidence, relies on no other person's opinion other than that of the person. THis is something I learnt a while ago; that in certain situations as soon as I speak the truth of what I see, it often loses its power -and I would lose my confidence and sense of who I was. Sort of like taking revenge on someone who wrongs you, but that there is a fine line between self-defence and attacking someone.

....and it is funny, because Jung said: that 'whoever maintains the friction between polar opposites (of any conflict) for as long as possible, achieves the 3rd , transcendent opinion' ...where the '3rd' opinion is the only truly objective one, just as it is in between two opposing sides (it's also 'God's' opinion, and 'the Kingdom of Heaven').

And I think that maybe if you note that when you tell others of your problems, that this actually sucks away at your reserve of strength and confidence. ...Telling others of ones weakness is an act of strength -since it shows the person has little shame, and lessens a degree of shame. But then saying too much -and too much is even often simply the smallest bit more- can just make a person feel exposed and weaker than others. Just as, paying that little bit more attention to a problem, instead of putting it into a more accurate and smaller perspective, instead will make it bigger.

Basically I think that getting balance with anxiety is very delicate.

And I think that you are smart in choosing and thinking about others and their situations.


Last but not least, you can look up the thread I started called "A philosophy on Anxiety" ...it is an article by a philosophy professor. If you are interested in an idea like 'knowing who you are not' also gives knowing 'who you are' -then you will like this article. She goes into her ideas, and says them pretty clearly.
I found it pretty interesting.

 

[Screwdriver1020]

fdsafafawefasefasd

 

[LittleMissMuffet]

Screwdriver:
Those people you talk to sound pretty cool to me. Most people, I think, would hide whatever similar insecurities they had and instead make-out that only you had them. ...I think that this is because big differences (on the outside) are much smaller differences (on the inside); and probably a lot of the time, this scares people so they pretend that only you have that problem.

Obviously you have some people who are more understanding.

Although, on the other hand, it isn't completely helpful to deny someone the extent to which they suffer a problem that others also have. Since this, again, can be like saying: "you're lesser than us because we all deal with anxiety, but we can get over it".

...so, I suppose that it needs to be somewhere in between acknowledging that someone has a problem but that it is a problem that others share, only for the person it is a bit bigger.

And I really do figure that little differences on an inner emotional level, make all the big differences we see on the outside; this is why people have prejudice, in order to make the 'little' differences 'big' by focussing on how things appear and seem rather than what is going on within themselves. And I also figure that for a person sufferring because of such a dynamic (having a small difference make them appear freakish) that they need time to no-longer be afraid but instead to be encouraged by the fact that life is this way. -That way they no-longer feel shame about how they are different: knowing that such a 'big' difference comes from a much smaller one. And that this way they can look past how things appear, not being effected negatively by what others think and how things look.
Sort of like taking a 'mountain' and making it into a 'molehill'. ...They say that spiritual masters can make a big ordeal into a small ordeal by how they think and what they pay attention to.
....anyhow :!:

 

[Starry]

Hi Starry,

I wanted to say that I actually felt very similar to you up until only fairly recently. And talking to people -over the internet, not in person- and explaining my problems at first made me feel good just being honest and forthright, but soon as I explained more openly about them I got all insecure.

It was like explaining things to others was actually taking away the strength and confidence that I had when I thought and explained the same ideas to my self!!!! :idea: :idea:

I think in fact, that to some extent that that is in a way our entire problem: that we need and look continuosly towards others for affirmation that what we think and who we are is 'right' or acceptable. Like we are searching for the answer to "who I think I am", our self image, in the faces and views of other people- and that's a sea of possibilities and different opinions.

And similar to this, I think that 'confidence', when it is real confidence, relies on no other person's opinion other than that of the person. THis is something I learnt a while ago; that in certain situations as soon as I speak the truth of what I see, it often loses its power -and I would lose my confidence and sense of who I was. Sort of like taking revenge on someone who wrongs you, but that there is a fine line between self-defence and attacking someone.

....and it is funny, because Jung said: that 'whoever maintains the friction between polar opposites (of any conflict) for as long as possible, achieves the 3rd , transcendent opinion' ...where the '3rd' opinion is the only truly objective one, just as it is in between two opposing sides (it's also 'God's' opinion, and 'the Kingdom of Heaven').

And I think that maybe if you note that when you tell others of your problems, that this actually sucks away at your reserve of strength and confidence. ...Telling others of ones weakness is an act of strength -since it shows the person has little shame, and lessens a degree of shame. But then saying too much -and too much is even often simply the smallest bit more- can just make a person feel exposed and weaker than others. Just as, paying that little bit more attention to a problem, instead of putting it into a more accurate and smaller perspective, instead will make it bigger.

Basically I think that getting balance with anxiety is very delicate.

And I think that you are smart in choosing and thinking about others and their situations.


Last but not least, you can look up the thread I started called "A philosophy on Anxiety" ...it is an article by a philosophy professor. If you are interested in an idea like 'knowing who you are not' also gives knowing 'who you are' -then you will like this article. She goes into her ideas, and says them pretty clearly.
I found it pretty interesting.

Thanks for that, I'll look up the thread.

I agree with a lot of what you've said, it certainly makes sense to me.