Love-Shyness
- Thread starter Johnie
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Neph
Well-known member
TooShyShy
Well-known member
Ok, carlsbad...do you try with women???? You have to try!!!!!! Women do not want to do it all!!!!!!!!!!!!
If so, what have you done lately to get something going with a woman???? And if its that bad and anxiety kicks in the way you say it does, have you explored methods that can help you????
If so, what have you done lately to get something going with a woman???? And if its that bad and anxiety kicks in the way you say it does, have you explored methods that can help you????
bleach
Banned
The definition makes it sound as horrible as it is. I don't know what you're on about, acting like social disorders don't lead to even worse mental problems.
Social phobia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Note to the clueless: your experience with a disorder may differ from another person's.
Carlsbad
Active member
I have tried many, many times with women, but I never get taken seriously. They think: "ha-ha, cute!" And nothing happens after that: they completely sever all ties with me. It hurts greatly because I get really nervous and or depressed,and it takes me a very long time to build up the courage to talk to a woman I find attractive. Yet I try as hard as I can to think positively, and then I end up getting ignored and I feel ashamed of myself as a result. I always then think, what is the point? Why am I doing this!
TooShyShy
Well-known member
Uggggh! Ok, i just wish someone could explain to me WHAT IT IS ABOUT A WOMAN that scares you so much? Is it the way she looks at you, talks, walks, is it her beauty - feminine qualities, etc.???
Is it that your attraction gets the better of you...that you get so excited or turned on you can't see straight..lol???
How can you look at her from afar and want her one day and then hide from her the next?
DON'T YOU MEN NEED MORE THAN THAT FROM A WOMAN????
Is it that your attraction gets the better of you...that you get so excited or turned on you can't see straight..lol???
How can you look at her from afar and want her one day and then hide from her the next?
DON'T YOU MEN NEED MORE THAN THAT FROM A WOMAN????
SilentType
Banned
I'm incredibly love-shy... I've actually had chances with gorgeous girls but my crippling anxiety has always gotten in the way. Panic attacks have obliterated every chance I've had to bond with a female, and I'm afraid it'd going to stay that way forever. I'm only 21, and I've given up on finding a girl who would actually want to spend time with a person such as me...
Peace
Peace
Artanis
Well-known member
I'm reading through this thread and am only up to page 6 at this stage so my info may be out of date but I thought it important to respond to this:
Assuming this guy is in fact Love-Shy, then I would suggest taking the following sort of approach… ask a favour of him in a way that allows him to feel self-worth, don’t ask him to do something for you as though you are using him or he might get suspicious. As workmates this shouldn’t be terribly difficult… find out what he is interested in and use that to ask for his expertise in some sort of favour to you… as a thank you, take him to a café or something as a thank you and don’t take no for an answer (but don’t be too pushy, just be stubborn that he deserves a reward and you would feel bad not thanking him for his time and effort). Take him out for coffee and cake or something… if there is a chocolaterie or a sweet shop in the area, take him to that… chances are that if he is love-shy he is likely to have a sweet-tooth. Try and have a good time, get to know each other better, etc. If you can manage it without too much trouble, find a way to do him an important favour back by offering to help him overcome his shyness problems so that he can approach the pretty girl he likes (even if this is you)… what he needs is emotional support and the confidence and self-worth to take an active stance with his love-shyness problems. Try and make such a situation as safe for him as possible. Chances are that he has an enourmous phobia of rejection and will run away if put on the spot. Even teasing him in a friendly way has to be done carefully if at all… At this stage things have to be taken very carefully not to end up hurting the both of you.
To bring things up to the level of a close intimate relationship, one awesome tactic I saw was perfect on the first episode of a Japanese anime called ‘School Days’ – after helping this guy to finally get to know the pretty girl that he liked, another girl who had a crush on this guy asked for a favour in return at the train station as her train was approaching the platform. The guy was so grateful for this girl’s help that he was happy enough to say ‘anything’ for a return favour to her. The timing was perfect, as the train came to a stop, she moved over and kissed him – as the train doors opened, then rushed onto the train as not to miss it. No words were spoken, but they smiled at each other through the windows as they left… that looked like the perfect tactic for a girl to become involved with a very shy guy… it just so happened that the guy had a crush on someone else, but this girl not only dealt with that, but she got to know him by helping him overcome his problems and then managed to begin a close relationship with him first. The key to this interaction was to help each other with each other’s problems without either party feeling used, becoming closer, and finally the girl taking the first move for once in a tactically brilliant move on this shy guy…
jerseygrlnco said:
Assuming this guy is in fact Love-Shy, then I would suggest taking the following sort of approach… ask a favour of him in a way that allows him to feel self-worth, don’t ask him to do something for you as though you are using him or he might get suspicious. As workmates this shouldn’t be terribly difficult… find out what he is interested in and use that to ask for his expertise in some sort of favour to you… as a thank you, take him to a café or something as a thank you and don’t take no for an answer (but don’t be too pushy, just be stubborn that he deserves a reward and you would feel bad not thanking him for his time and effort). Take him out for coffee and cake or something… if there is a chocolaterie or a sweet shop in the area, take him to that… chances are that if he is love-shy he is likely to have a sweet-tooth. Try and have a good time, get to know each other better, etc. If you can manage it without too much trouble, find a way to do him an important favour back by offering to help him overcome his shyness problems so that he can approach the pretty girl he likes (even if this is you)… what he needs is emotional support and the confidence and self-worth to take an active stance with his love-shyness problems. Try and make such a situation as safe for him as possible. Chances are that he has an enourmous phobia of rejection and will run away if put on the spot. Even teasing him in a friendly way has to be done carefully if at all… At this stage things have to be taken very carefully not to end up hurting the both of you.
To bring things up to the level of a close intimate relationship, one awesome tactic I saw was perfect on the first episode of a Japanese anime called ‘School Days’ – after helping this guy to finally get to know the pretty girl that he liked, another girl who had a crush on this guy asked for a favour in return at the train station as her train was approaching the platform. The guy was so grateful for this girl’s help that he was happy enough to say ‘anything’ for a return favour to her. The timing was perfect, as the train came to a stop, she moved over and kissed him – as the train doors opened, then rushed onto the train as not to miss it. No words were spoken, but they smiled at each other through the windows as they left… that looked like the perfect tactic for a girl to become involved with a very shy guy… it just so happened that the guy had a crush on someone else, but this girl not only dealt with that, but she got to know him by helping him overcome his problems and then managed to begin a close relationship with him first. The key to this interaction was to help each other with each other’s problems without either party feeling used, becoming closer, and finally the girl taking the first move for once in a tactically brilliant move on this shy guy…
Artanis
Well-known member
catching up... another point I must make, this could be very relevant...
I this guy is anything like me, he may be terrified of becoming infatuated with you if he has become uselessly infatuated with other pretty girls in the past and suffered the traumatic emotional consequences of being unable to act normally vis-a-vis women due to a likely deficiency in social skills in informal situations. He may feel so ashamed of himself (like I do) about those infatuations that he would as a result of love-shyness and avoidance (avoidant personality disorder???) rather remain alone forever rather than risking hurting someone who he has affectionate feelings for because he views himself as socially defective and a danger to himself and to others from a lack of informal social skills. Because he has strong feelings for you, he may associate having those strong feelings with the emotional traumas experienced in adolescence. He is probably able to cope around other people quite well because his relationship with them is formal and therefore easy to understand and cope with. Because his relationship with you is more informal than formal, he may have a lot more difficulty coping socially while interacting with you... there is a constant fear of rejection and ridicule and fear that he will embarrass himself because he doesn't know how to interact properly in informal situations. That's my take on the situation...
I don't know how to get through this sort of situation because I'm in it myself and have never found a way through it. I wish you the best of luck though. Please let me know if you have any positive results...
Artanis
I this guy is anything like me, he may be terrified of becoming infatuated with you if he has become uselessly infatuated with other pretty girls in the past and suffered the traumatic emotional consequences of being unable to act normally vis-a-vis women due to a likely deficiency in social skills in informal situations. He may feel so ashamed of himself (like I do) about those infatuations that he would as a result of love-shyness and avoidance (avoidant personality disorder???) rather remain alone forever rather than risking hurting someone who he has affectionate feelings for because he views himself as socially defective and a danger to himself and to others from a lack of informal social skills. Because he has strong feelings for you, he may associate having those strong feelings with the emotional traumas experienced in adolescence. He is probably able to cope around other people quite well because his relationship with them is formal and therefore easy to understand and cope with. Because his relationship with you is more informal than formal, he may have a lot more difficulty coping socially while interacting with you... there is a constant fear of rejection and ridicule and fear that he will embarrass himself because he doesn't know how to interact properly in informal situations. That's my take on the situation...
I don't know how to get through this sort of situation because I'm in it myself and have never found a way through it. I wish you the best of luck though. Please let me know if you have any positive results...
Artanis
Neph
Well-known member
The definition makes it sound as horrible as it is. I don't know what you're on about, acting like social disorders don't lead to even worse mental problems.
Social phobia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Note to the clueless: your experience with a disorder may differ from another person's.
no matter how much i read this subject it is not fitting right with me
+ i dont like it when ppl immediatly lash out, sorry for trying to learn something
personnally i am shy around women, that is for sure, but those sort of actions/emotions that are trying to be portrayed should come naturally with that someone you love, its just awkward of you force yourself which is what happened with the last girl i was with since love was going only one way
Artanis
Well-known member
Oh Shit! This is very important... if he's often viewing you from a distance then he likely has some idealised fantasy about you... he doesn't see you yourself when he looks at you because there's the barrier between the two of you where he doesn't know you on the personality level... because he doesn't interact with you much socially he likely sees an idealized version of you who fits his desired personality traits in women... if this goes on too long then he will break and be emotionally traumatised by the simple fact that he is becoming infatuated with the image of you that he has in his mind, rather than with you yourself. He will feel horrible and ashamed at himself for doing this and will distance himself from you forever for the crime (if anything like me then he will see this action of his as horrible and insensitive and very very wrong and he will regret his affectionate feelings for the image he has of you forever)... I'm sorry... I've experienced this no less than five times personally and to this day I feel ashamed and regret for doing exactly this to the pretty girls that I liked in High School and at University...
I don't know how to fix this, I wish I did...
Artanis
Well-known member
some essential reading for love-shyness sufferers:
Love-shyness - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
very closely related to:
Avoidant personality disorder - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I've read this entire book... it's a bit out of date now and some of it refers to astrology but overall this book (available as a pdf file to download) is invaluable for love-shyness sufferers
Table of Contents---"Shyness & Love: Causes, Consequences, and Treatment" by Dr. Brian G. Gilmartin
Hopefully I will have my story posted here in the next few days... the detail is quite extensive...
Love-shyness - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
very closely related to:
Avoidant personality disorder - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I've read this entire book... it's a bit out of date now and some of it refers to astrology but overall this book (available as a pdf file to download) is invaluable for love-shyness sufferers
Table of Contents---"Shyness & Love: Causes, Consequences, and Treatment" by Dr. Brian G. Gilmartin
Hopefully I will have my story posted here in the next few days... the detail is quite extensive...
TooShyShy
Well-known member
Artanis thanks..i had no idea it was that intense.
I thought he was just doing that bcuz he liked what he saw (and a female looking back at him) but was afraid to get to close..scared and inxperienced..he did it again today actually.
He came into the cafe and just stood there in the front, talking to a woman (older,married w/kids) but looked at me the entire time as i was sitting at my table with a coworker - we work at a school. He does this ALOT (a couple times a week) he positions his body to see me come and go....its noticeable to everyone, not just me.
I'D LOVE TO HEAR YOUR STORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I thought he was just doing that bcuz he liked what he saw (and a female looking back at him) but was afraid to get to close..scared and inxperienced..he did it again today actually.
He came into the cafe and just stood there in the front, talking to a woman (older,married w/kids) but looked at me the entire time as i was sitting at my table with a coworker - we work at a school. He does this ALOT (a couple times a week) he positions his body to see me come and go....its noticeable to everyone, not just me.
I'D LOVE TO HEAR YOUR STORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Artanis
Well-known member
sure, soon enough... I recommend finding a copy of Dr Gilmartin's book (see reference in my previous post) download it, or find a copy of the book (I once found a copy in a university library) and research the condition... the Introductory chapter is an excellent guide to understand most aspects of love-shyness... This stuff is so tragic but this guy is so lucky to have someone like you looking out for him...
Artanis
Well-known member
This is the opening post and extracts of follow-up posts of mine from another forum, some details have been updated…these posts cover a timeframe of almost a year:
There is quite a lot of crap that I need to sort through so if you can’t read the whole rant then the basic summary is that I have the following 3 personality disorders… make of my sad tale what you will, this just helps me to express myself and realize my own problems… maybe you can offer some idea of how I should proceed...
These links may help to clarify the unusual disorders that have plagued my life to this day:
Social phobia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Avoidant personality disorder - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Love-shyness - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I grew up without a stable father-figure around, so I’ve never been able to see how normal loving heterosexual relationships operate. I don’t have a father who can show me by example how to be in a healthy loving relationship with a woman. I grew up with my mother while my father lived with his family (his wife and 3 children, my half brothers and half-sister) until the age of seven when my little brother was born. I’ve never been angry with my dad about this, I never really had a constant father figure to lose so I don’t see any reason to give blame to anyone, it is simply the situation I grew up with. Importantly I grew up pretty much without any female peers that I could really get to know… I don’t recall having any female friends until I was in High school.
Through Kindergarten and Primary school and High school I was picked on, bullied, easy to tease and so on… I even have some horrible childhood memories of being publicly teased by one of my primary school teachers – I don’t know why and I no longer care. I think because I grew up without much social interaction I never really built up my social skills enough to defend myself from teasing and bullying and for more important skills later in life, I was more interested in activities that I would do alone since I was almost always alone (besides Mum) while growing up, back then it was playing with Legos and stuff… the few friends I had in primary school were often new students that I could make a good impression on since most everybody else had a poor impression of me, unfortunately most friends didn’t stay friends for long as many of them left me just as easily as the appeared in my life… In High school I had a bit more success, especially with friends in Badminton and Soccer teams and those who I played LAN computer games with at lunch times (Starcraft most of the time, fun times…) unfortunately though hitting puberty made me interested in girls but I still didn’t have anywhere near the social skills to do anything constructive about that. One after another I became infatuated with four pretty girls (Lauren, Jess, Jessica and Piri), as well as passing interests in other girls, who were decent enough to show me kindness instead of contempt… essentially my behaviour became like stalking and staring at these girls without being able to do anything constructive like ask them out or genuinely flirt with them… this frustrating and embarrassing and even irrationally shameful behaviour of mine lead to more teasing from my peers, loss of friends, depression, and lots of anxieties. At this point in my life I can confidently say that I had developed Social Anxiety Disorder and Love-Shyness. In order to stop myself completely from this behaviour of mine which I hated not being able to overcome my own limitations of, I did something disastrous… I shut down my personality and closed off my emotions when it came to anything relating to intimate relationships with girls… I stopped myself completely from going through the process of attempting to get a girlfriend. I avoided this aspect of my emotional growth, leading to my Avoidant Personality Disorder… by this time I had really started to resort to escapism to get away from my emotional problems… aside from that I was okay, I was a good B+ to A grade student – but only because I recognized that it was easier to just do the required work than it was to fight against that requirement – I never really had any serious career or life ambitions though during this time… studying hard was in its own way useful in avoiding the intimate relationship side of my life… while most of my peers were partying and exploring puberty and so on I was avoiding the whole damn thing and developed quite a lot of anxiety about relationships with girls. Anyway I went through High School okay and the combination of subjects that I was good at made a Science Engineering double degree on Photonics at Swinburne sound interesting and so that’s what I went to do at university…
I didn’t even make it to the second semester… this is when the depression and disorders were really bad, I really had no friends at all, I was lonely and depressed and the time spent at the train tracks every day to/from university were often spent with suicidal thoughts; I failed several subjects even though I really put a lot of effort into studying that semester. I knew that this course wasn’t for me so I withdrew from that course and did a short course at RMIT the following semester before starting an arts degree at La Trobe the next year. In the meantime I spent a lot of time with escapism and distractions of various sorts… things slowly started to get better… my pet cat was always there for me and around this time I became interested in Secular Humanist Philosophy and I made a few friends at my casual job (at the Melbourne Cricket Ground) too…
I started my arts degree at La Trobe where I was studying History and Archaeology (plus a little bit of cinema studies). These subjects were convenient because they interested me and they were a convenient way to incorporate escapism into my academic study, I made a good friend during first year, John, who I remain friends with up to today, though he has since moved overseas and a long distance friendship is not as constructive and supportive as one nearby… so my life improved a little with the combination of casual work, study and escapism, as well as the slow development of a good friendship between two social outcasts (John had some similar anxiety issues about girls back then)… I also sought professional therapy which explored much of my anxiety problems and depression and I learned about Social Anxiety Disorder and Avoidant Personality Disorder and how they have affected me. In second year, I also became friends with a very nice girl, Kendall, who was also a fellow student of History and Archaeology. I was quite fond of her, though my Love Shyness and related crap made any romantic interest in her difficult (as partly intended), and she had a boyfriend anyway and that was convenient for all… so I became friends with Kendall and by extension several other friends: 2 guys and 2 girls, one girl who was from California who I was also quite fond of, though she soon moved back to the USA soon after and I missed her somewhat… the four (or five) of us often had lunches together at university… My working through my anxiety and depression mainly involved breathing techniques and a bit of self-esteem building, things were slowly getting better when disaster struck… early in third year (I’m pretty sure it was then) after Kendall came back from Christmas/Summer Holidays we learnt that Kendall’s boyfriend has cheated on her and they had broken up. Instead of being there to support her, my anxiety went into overdrive from my small crush and my behaviour became uncontrollable and irrational again as I became infatuated with her… instead of speaking to her as a friend I admitted my feelings for her and quickly she rejected me (perhaps partly intentional on my part as a method to make sure she rejected me to drive me safely away – I don’t know) and my friendships with Kendall and the other three in this close group of friends was brutally severed. Even though this time the infatuation was over and done with rather quickly (compared to the four equally disastrous infatuations in high school), I learned several important things: This was not the first time that a guy had become infatuated with Kendall in just this way, she told me that another guy had behaved similarly to how I did when she was in High School. I learned that my therapy had failed to deal with the infatuations aspect and the disastrous repercussions of behaving in the way I did. I lost all of my friends except for John who was not a part of this small group of friends which I had lost. I learned that the sort of psychological treatment that I had been undertaking was not something that I should repeat as it would likely lead to more uncontrollable infatuations again… so I lost four good friends, and only had one left. I abandoned my therapy and decided to research my problems on my own which led me to useful information on Love Shyness and to conclude with great accuracy that this condition is what has been affecting me for years, unlike SAD and AvPD by themselves, Love Shyness took into account the infatuations, upbringing, personality type, and a host of other relevant details to my problems not included in the other two that had also been observed in many research cases I knew for certain that this is what is primarily affecting me… even though Love Shyness is not recognized as a mental disorder by the World Health Organization… regardless it is still far more accurate in terms of a diagnosis (as well as potential treatment IMO) for my condition than anything else, I just want to make that clear because last time I discussed this it was criticized as some less important research methods on physical symptoms used questionable references to Astrology (not relevant to the psychological elements of the diagnosis)… though sadly the treatment that is described and that I think shows some promise is either incredibly expensive or simply not available in Australia to the best of my knowledge and research… one possible solution was extensive group therapy for ‘practice dating’ where women of a similar age help the Love-Shy men to deal with these problems; and the other method to employ an incredibly expensive “Courtesan” to help men with intimacy problems improve…anyway I shut down my personality once more and became completely avoidant once more. On the few occasions that I saw Kendall, we never spoke and barely acknowledged one another. I was and am still ashamed of myself of how I treated her as I remain ashamed of how I also treated Lauren, Jess, Jessica and Piri years earlier… I fully understand that this shame may be irrational, but that doesn’t make it go away. The self-loathing and self-punishment is justification enough to keep my emotions and personality “under lock and key” for lack of a better metaphor… so once again I continued on with my study and escapism and avoidance, even doing 4th year Honours in History and doing quite well, playing plenty of computer games and so on… but my pet cat who was always there to comfort me has since died and also my last friend John has now moved overseas (it seems that everyone leaves me eventually…) but we still keep in touch by e-mail semi-regularly.
However since I finished my Honours year things have not improved much for me mental-health wise… I struggled to find full-time work for a while, I had no friends outside of work (the casual job, and those at work are more friendly colleagues rather than friends that I see outside of work), back then I didn’t really have any real ambitions or hopes or dreams (one price of many for keeping my personality locked up) and I resorted to escapism as a path once more, working in book stores during the day while escaping through books, games, TV and so on at night… I’ve yet to experience any form of romantic intimacy, I’ve never even been kissed… While I think I now have the social skills to get over the Social Anxiety Disorder, I definitely don’t have the capability to overcome Avoidant Personality Disorder and Love Shyness… I tried one last time to seek professional psychological help for these problems of mine just over a year ago but again it is more of the same breathing techniques and self-esteem basics without dealing with the main problem that is the infatuations and my lack of social skills necessary to capably participate in an intimate relationships and so on… So instead of walking into another infatuation of whichever pretty girl it is that will next show me kindness, I’ve decided to abandon this line of unhelpful behavioural therapy and have shut down my personality as usual and this time I may have thrown away the key… I can barely remember how (on an emotional level) to even try to engage in a close relationship with a young woman my own age anymore. I’m lost and without much hope anymore, even if tomorrow a girl asked me out on a date (though this has never happened before) I wouldn’t be able to go through with the process itself without enormous stress and difficulty…
This is my current situation: I work at a bookstore during the week and work usually as a supervisor or second-in-charge at a local football stadium during sporting events. I have no local friends except for my work colleagues who I don’t see outside of work. I am well and truly addicted to escapism: Books, Audio Books, Comics, Manga, Anime, TV, Movies, DVDs, Computer Games, Internet, History Research, etc… I am 25 years old and have yet to experience the simplest pleasures of adolescence. I generally don’t drink alcohol as it just makes it difficult to control my self-discipline and doesn’t lower my inhibitions no matter how drunk I get. I also probably have a yeast allergy that makes Beer feel awful to drink. I don’t take any drugs and don’t smoke. My anxiety makes it easy to absorb lots of information through my senses at the expense of limiting my creativity and expressionism. Sacrificing much of my personality has compromised much of my sense of humour, I am perhaps too serious and too tidy and I certainly have no life to speak of. While I am a polite, educated, hard-working and considerate individual, I am cursed by my own limitations and self-loathing. I am motivated not by success but by escapism and avoidance from my problems as well as motivated against negative evaluation, to which I am hypersensitive. Negative criticism and rejection do much more emotional damage to me than they would to most people – which is why I work so hard to prevent such situations… unfortunately this means that any of my own career goals and aspirations of my own have become secondary considerations to these. I have obviously not given potential romantic / intimate relationships the attention they should deserve and this has fortunately reduced my anxiety about such things, but only so far as avoiding them can, they are clearly not gone forever and I’m still depressed from loneliness… My shame and guilt about how I behaved towards Lauren, Jess, Jessica, Piri and Kendall as well as my embarrassment and perhaps failure as a human-being in this regard has motivated me to seek a redemption which I can never earn no matter how much regret and self-loathing I feed into it… and I see this as a personal moral issue. I would rather die than let myself become embarrassingly and uselessly infatuated with another pretty girl that I care about. I would rather be dead than be such an embarrassing inconvenience as I have been in examples thus far. I don’t care how irrational by beliefs about my actions are. I see what I did and how I behaved as unforgivable to those girls that I genuinely cared about.
Since then I’ve started working in another bookstore where I’m invaluable and told so regularly, I’ve moved out of my Mum’s place and am living by myself in Suburban Melbourne. I’m fairly comfortable, but still fairly lonely.
A side note: Aside from never being brought up in any religious faith and having common sense, one of the main reasons that I dislike Christianity in particular (and other sexually repressive dogmas) is because of its claim that celibacy is a virtue. I know from personal experience that I would not wish this ‘virtue’ on my worst enemy (hypothetical… I don’t think I actually have a worst enemy per se.). My lifestyle is very depressive and nearly devoid of hope for experiencing meaningful human affection for another. A curse on any entity that suggests that this sort of depressive personal suffering is a virtue!
ADDITIONAL (my own statements from follow up discussions/posts):
it is debilitating and it is silent, but I don't believe that my level of suffering is very high... possibly because I can easily escape from it with enough distractions... but distractions can only last for so long of course...
Re: Travelling abroad:
I know that I'm far to introverted and unmotivated to go through with it and I know from past experiences travelling overseas in strange new places (ie went to China for a few weeks in high school) that I don't really have fun when I'm alone like that (alone without close friends, only class peers and teachers). However I do know that I could enjoy such situations locally and abroad if I had a close companion to take my hand and make sure that I make the most of and enjoy those sorts of situations. A small fantasy of mine is to have a pretty enthusiastic girlfriend take my hand and drag me forward to do something fun and interesting because I can never seem to find that enthusiasm for life alone...
I’ve recognized my own limitations are self imposed and that even conceptualizing my life outside of this emotional/behavioural prison is extraordinarily difficult.
I have difficulty making independent decisions, and I have lots of anxieties about unknown situations and about how people react to me. And I see no purpose in travelling anywhere without an actual reason to do so… [edit] and personal life experience doesn't count as a good reason for me, sad but true...
what I'm so upset about much of the time is missing out on experiencing these things as a teenager - with my fellow teenagers... I'm not attracted to older women anywhere as much as I am to women my own age or younger... This may be because I feel so bad about missing out on these things as a teenager.
…
That really only works if I have access to places where I can meet young women, areas most of which I have too much anxiety to go to alone and no friends to go there with… I can’t even summon the courage to even go to a pub by myself to meet new people without prior knowledge of how they will behave towards me (I re-emphasize that I have enormous anxiety and hypersensitivity towards negative evaluation – an anxiety made all the more extreme towards the young women that I’m attracted to. If I were to be rejected after displaying an interest to a girl I like I don’t know how I would react, but I know it won’t be pretty)
I don't know what to do with my life now besides my usual distractions. I haven't got the willpower or motivation to go out and socialize and make friends all that much, at least not good friends... my colleagues at my last job were very friendly and I had fun with; but I didn't know them as friends outside of work... that's usually the case for my social life.
It turns out that I have just over $17,000 AUD saved up (apparently I'm quite frugal even when I have a decent income), but travelling and seeing the world just isn't fun for me without anyone with me to make sure that I do have fun in any given situation...
There's not much to say about my life at the moment, there's no one special in my life, I've closed myself off from most of society even though I go shopping and/or window browsing regularly in the city, occasionally see a movie... anxieties and personality disorders aside, I don't know why I'm so damn indifferent or ambivalent or uncaring about my own life... I'm lost, I don't know how to make my life better or motivate myself, I don't have strong enough beliefs in much of anything to motivate me to do anything truly good in the world...
Travelling is pretty much out of the question, but is there anything else that is good at "character-building" and would help me to interact with people my own age (being a camp-counsellor is also out of the question)... even as a retail supervisor I usually just go through the motions of that work and am often feeling lonely in a position of authority and responsibility over the staff that I'm supervising...
Over the last few months I've taken note of a few possibilities of things to do in the outside world in my spare time but I haven't been able to motivate myself and summon the courage to actually get involved in any of these things; and even on free Friday nights when the science-fiction club meets I've neglected to attend. Same with an anxiety support group that meets on Monday nights... I've attended a few times over the years but I've found it not very helpful overall as most people there are much older than I am, I can only use that for an occasional few ears to rant to and I've never been able to get much help from that group because I've trapped myself in a situation that is incredibly difficult to escape from.
I flicked through a psychology book a few weeks ago about how self-esteem building isn't as productive in cognitive therapy as building self-acceptance is instead. To me I'm not sure what exactly the difference is but if I were to concentrate on self-acceptance I would probably remain in this depressive state as it has now become my natural state. It is easier to cope with my own depression than it is to risk really hurting myself (and possibly others) by trying to overcome my depression... It is easier to just accept my situation and do nothing about it.
There is quite a lot of crap that I need to sort through so if you can’t read the whole rant then the basic summary is that I have the following 3 personality disorders… make of my sad tale what you will, this just helps me to express myself and realize my own problems… maybe you can offer some idea of how I should proceed...
These links may help to clarify the unusual disorders that have plagued my life to this day:
Social phobia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Avoidant personality disorder - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Love-shyness - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I grew up without a stable father-figure around, so I’ve never been able to see how normal loving heterosexual relationships operate. I don’t have a father who can show me by example how to be in a healthy loving relationship with a woman. I grew up with my mother while my father lived with his family (his wife and 3 children, my half brothers and half-sister) until the age of seven when my little brother was born. I’ve never been angry with my dad about this, I never really had a constant father figure to lose so I don’t see any reason to give blame to anyone, it is simply the situation I grew up with. Importantly I grew up pretty much without any female peers that I could really get to know… I don’t recall having any female friends until I was in High school.
Through Kindergarten and Primary school and High school I was picked on, bullied, easy to tease and so on… I even have some horrible childhood memories of being publicly teased by one of my primary school teachers – I don’t know why and I no longer care. I think because I grew up without much social interaction I never really built up my social skills enough to defend myself from teasing and bullying and for more important skills later in life, I was more interested in activities that I would do alone since I was almost always alone (besides Mum) while growing up, back then it was playing with Legos and stuff… the few friends I had in primary school were often new students that I could make a good impression on since most everybody else had a poor impression of me, unfortunately most friends didn’t stay friends for long as many of them left me just as easily as the appeared in my life… In High school I had a bit more success, especially with friends in Badminton and Soccer teams and those who I played LAN computer games with at lunch times (Starcraft most of the time, fun times…) unfortunately though hitting puberty made me interested in girls but I still didn’t have anywhere near the social skills to do anything constructive about that. One after another I became infatuated with four pretty girls (Lauren, Jess, Jessica and Piri), as well as passing interests in other girls, who were decent enough to show me kindness instead of contempt… essentially my behaviour became like stalking and staring at these girls without being able to do anything constructive like ask them out or genuinely flirt with them… this frustrating and embarrassing and even irrationally shameful behaviour of mine lead to more teasing from my peers, loss of friends, depression, and lots of anxieties. At this point in my life I can confidently say that I had developed Social Anxiety Disorder and Love-Shyness. In order to stop myself completely from this behaviour of mine which I hated not being able to overcome my own limitations of, I did something disastrous… I shut down my personality and closed off my emotions when it came to anything relating to intimate relationships with girls… I stopped myself completely from going through the process of attempting to get a girlfriend. I avoided this aspect of my emotional growth, leading to my Avoidant Personality Disorder… by this time I had really started to resort to escapism to get away from my emotional problems… aside from that I was okay, I was a good B+ to A grade student – but only because I recognized that it was easier to just do the required work than it was to fight against that requirement – I never really had any serious career or life ambitions though during this time… studying hard was in its own way useful in avoiding the intimate relationship side of my life… while most of my peers were partying and exploring puberty and so on I was avoiding the whole damn thing and developed quite a lot of anxiety about relationships with girls. Anyway I went through High School okay and the combination of subjects that I was good at made a Science Engineering double degree on Photonics at Swinburne sound interesting and so that’s what I went to do at university…
I didn’t even make it to the second semester… this is when the depression and disorders were really bad, I really had no friends at all, I was lonely and depressed and the time spent at the train tracks every day to/from university were often spent with suicidal thoughts; I failed several subjects even though I really put a lot of effort into studying that semester. I knew that this course wasn’t for me so I withdrew from that course and did a short course at RMIT the following semester before starting an arts degree at La Trobe the next year. In the meantime I spent a lot of time with escapism and distractions of various sorts… things slowly started to get better… my pet cat was always there for me and around this time I became interested in Secular Humanist Philosophy and I made a few friends at my casual job (at the Melbourne Cricket Ground) too…
I started my arts degree at La Trobe where I was studying History and Archaeology (plus a little bit of cinema studies). These subjects were convenient because they interested me and they were a convenient way to incorporate escapism into my academic study, I made a good friend during first year, John, who I remain friends with up to today, though he has since moved overseas and a long distance friendship is not as constructive and supportive as one nearby… so my life improved a little with the combination of casual work, study and escapism, as well as the slow development of a good friendship between two social outcasts (John had some similar anxiety issues about girls back then)… I also sought professional therapy which explored much of my anxiety problems and depression and I learned about Social Anxiety Disorder and Avoidant Personality Disorder and how they have affected me. In second year, I also became friends with a very nice girl, Kendall, who was also a fellow student of History and Archaeology. I was quite fond of her, though my Love Shyness and related crap made any romantic interest in her difficult (as partly intended), and she had a boyfriend anyway and that was convenient for all… so I became friends with Kendall and by extension several other friends: 2 guys and 2 girls, one girl who was from California who I was also quite fond of, though she soon moved back to the USA soon after and I missed her somewhat… the four (or five) of us often had lunches together at university… My working through my anxiety and depression mainly involved breathing techniques and a bit of self-esteem building, things were slowly getting better when disaster struck… early in third year (I’m pretty sure it was then) after Kendall came back from Christmas/Summer Holidays we learnt that Kendall’s boyfriend has cheated on her and they had broken up. Instead of being there to support her, my anxiety went into overdrive from my small crush and my behaviour became uncontrollable and irrational again as I became infatuated with her… instead of speaking to her as a friend I admitted my feelings for her and quickly she rejected me (perhaps partly intentional on my part as a method to make sure she rejected me to drive me safely away – I don’t know) and my friendships with Kendall and the other three in this close group of friends was brutally severed. Even though this time the infatuation was over and done with rather quickly (compared to the four equally disastrous infatuations in high school), I learned several important things: This was not the first time that a guy had become infatuated with Kendall in just this way, she told me that another guy had behaved similarly to how I did when she was in High School. I learned that my therapy had failed to deal with the infatuations aspect and the disastrous repercussions of behaving in the way I did. I lost all of my friends except for John who was not a part of this small group of friends which I had lost. I learned that the sort of psychological treatment that I had been undertaking was not something that I should repeat as it would likely lead to more uncontrollable infatuations again… so I lost four good friends, and only had one left. I abandoned my therapy and decided to research my problems on my own which led me to useful information on Love Shyness and to conclude with great accuracy that this condition is what has been affecting me for years, unlike SAD and AvPD by themselves, Love Shyness took into account the infatuations, upbringing, personality type, and a host of other relevant details to my problems not included in the other two that had also been observed in many research cases I knew for certain that this is what is primarily affecting me… even though Love Shyness is not recognized as a mental disorder by the World Health Organization… regardless it is still far more accurate in terms of a diagnosis (as well as potential treatment IMO) for my condition than anything else, I just want to make that clear because last time I discussed this it was criticized as some less important research methods on physical symptoms used questionable references to Astrology (not relevant to the psychological elements of the diagnosis)… though sadly the treatment that is described and that I think shows some promise is either incredibly expensive or simply not available in Australia to the best of my knowledge and research… one possible solution was extensive group therapy for ‘practice dating’ where women of a similar age help the Love-Shy men to deal with these problems; and the other method to employ an incredibly expensive “Courtesan” to help men with intimacy problems improve…anyway I shut down my personality once more and became completely avoidant once more. On the few occasions that I saw Kendall, we never spoke and barely acknowledged one another. I was and am still ashamed of myself of how I treated her as I remain ashamed of how I also treated Lauren, Jess, Jessica and Piri years earlier… I fully understand that this shame may be irrational, but that doesn’t make it go away. The self-loathing and self-punishment is justification enough to keep my emotions and personality “under lock and key” for lack of a better metaphor… so once again I continued on with my study and escapism and avoidance, even doing 4th year Honours in History and doing quite well, playing plenty of computer games and so on… but my pet cat who was always there to comfort me has since died and also my last friend John has now moved overseas (it seems that everyone leaves me eventually…) but we still keep in touch by e-mail semi-regularly.
However since I finished my Honours year things have not improved much for me mental-health wise… I struggled to find full-time work for a while, I had no friends outside of work (the casual job, and those at work are more friendly colleagues rather than friends that I see outside of work), back then I didn’t really have any real ambitions or hopes or dreams (one price of many for keeping my personality locked up) and I resorted to escapism as a path once more, working in book stores during the day while escaping through books, games, TV and so on at night… I’ve yet to experience any form of romantic intimacy, I’ve never even been kissed… While I think I now have the social skills to get over the Social Anxiety Disorder, I definitely don’t have the capability to overcome Avoidant Personality Disorder and Love Shyness… I tried one last time to seek professional psychological help for these problems of mine just over a year ago but again it is more of the same breathing techniques and self-esteem basics without dealing with the main problem that is the infatuations and my lack of social skills necessary to capably participate in an intimate relationships and so on… So instead of walking into another infatuation of whichever pretty girl it is that will next show me kindness, I’ve decided to abandon this line of unhelpful behavioural therapy and have shut down my personality as usual and this time I may have thrown away the key… I can barely remember how (on an emotional level) to even try to engage in a close relationship with a young woman my own age anymore. I’m lost and without much hope anymore, even if tomorrow a girl asked me out on a date (though this has never happened before) I wouldn’t be able to go through with the process itself without enormous stress and difficulty…
This is my current situation: I work at a bookstore during the week and work usually as a supervisor or second-in-charge at a local football stadium during sporting events. I have no local friends except for my work colleagues who I don’t see outside of work. I am well and truly addicted to escapism: Books, Audio Books, Comics, Manga, Anime, TV, Movies, DVDs, Computer Games, Internet, History Research, etc… I am 25 years old and have yet to experience the simplest pleasures of adolescence. I generally don’t drink alcohol as it just makes it difficult to control my self-discipline and doesn’t lower my inhibitions no matter how drunk I get. I also probably have a yeast allergy that makes Beer feel awful to drink. I don’t take any drugs and don’t smoke. My anxiety makes it easy to absorb lots of information through my senses at the expense of limiting my creativity and expressionism. Sacrificing much of my personality has compromised much of my sense of humour, I am perhaps too serious and too tidy and I certainly have no life to speak of. While I am a polite, educated, hard-working and considerate individual, I am cursed by my own limitations and self-loathing. I am motivated not by success but by escapism and avoidance from my problems as well as motivated against negative evaluation, to which I am hypersensitive. Negative criticism and rejection do much more emotional damage to me than they would to most people – which is why I work so hard to prevent such situations… unfortunately this means that any of my own career goals and aspirations of my own have become secondary considerations to these. I have obviously not given potential romantic / intimate relationships the attention they should deserve and this has fortunately reduced my anxiety about such things, but only so far as avoiding them can, they are clearly not gone forever and I’m still depressed from loneliness… My shame and guilt about how I behaved towards Lauren, Jess, Jessica, Piri and Kendall as well as my embarrassment and perhaps failure as a human-being in this regard has motivated me to seek a redemption which I can never earn no matter how much regret and self-loathing I feed into it… and I see this as a personal moral issue. I would rather die than let myself become embarrassingly and uselessly infatuated with another pretty girl that I care about. I would rather be dead than be such an embarrassing inconvenience as I have been in examples thus far. I don’t care how irrational by beliefs about my actions are. I see what I did and how I behaved as unforgivable to those girls that I genuinely cared about.
Since then I’ve started working in another bookstore where I’m invaluable and told so regularly, I’ve moved out of my Mum’s place and am living by myself in Suburban Melbourne. I’m fairly comfortable, but still fairly lonely.
A side note: Aside from never being brought up in any religious faith and having common sense, one of the main reasons that I dislike Christianity in particular (and other sexually repressive dogmas) is because of its claim that celibacy is a virtue. I know from personal experience that I would not wish this ‘virtue’ on my worst enemy (hypothetical… I don’t think I actually have a worst enemy per se.). My lifestyle is very depressive and nearly devoid of hope for experiencing meaningful human affection for another. A curse on any entity that suggests that this sort of depressive personal suffering is a virtue!
ADDITIONAL (my own statements from follow up discussions/posts):
it is debilitating and it is silent, but I don't believe that my level of suffering is very high... possibly because I can easily escape from it with enough distractions... but distractions can only last for so long of course...
Re: Travelling abroad:
I know that I'm far to introverted and unmotivated to go through with it and I know from past experiences travelling overseas in strange new places (ie went to China for a few weeks in high school) that I don't really have fun when I'm alone like that (alone without close friends, only class peers and teachers). However I do know that I could enjoy such situations locally and abroad if I had a close companion to take my hand and make sure that I make the most of and enjoy those sorts of situations. A small fantasy of mine is to have a pretty enthusiastic girlfriend take my hand and drag me forward to do something fun and interesting because I can never seem to find that enthusiasm for life alone...
I’ve recognized my own limitations are self imposed and that even conceptualizing my life outside of this emotional/behavioural prison is extraordinarily difficult.
I have difficulty making independent decisions, and I have lots of anxieties about unknown situations and about how people react to me. And I see no purpose in travelling anywhere without an actual reason to do so… [edit] and personal life experience doesn't count as a good reason for me, sad but true...
what I'm so upset about much of the time is missing out on experiencing these things as a teenager - with my fellow teenagers... I'm not attracted to older women anywhere as much as I am to women my own age or younger... This may be because I feel so bad about missing out on these things as a teenager.
…
That really only works if I have access to places where I can meet young women, areas most of which I have too much anxiety to go to alone and no friends to go there with… I can’t even summon the courage to even go to a pub by myself to meet new people without prior knowledge of how they will behave towards me (I re-emphasize that I have enormous anxiety and hypersensitivity towards negative evaluation – an anxiety made all the more extreme towards the young women that I’m attracted to. If I were to be rejected after displaying an interest to a girl I like I don’t know how I would react, but I know it won’t be pretty)
I don't know what to do with my life now besides my usual distractions. I haven't got the willpower or motivation to go out and socialize and make friends all that much, at least not good friends... my colleagues at my last job were very friendly and I had fun with; but I didn't know them as friends outside of work... that's usually the case for my social life.
It turns out that I have just over $17,000 AUD saved up (apparently I'm quite frugal even when I have a decent income), but travelling and seeing the world just isn't fun for me without anyone with me to make sure that I do have fun in any given situation...
There's not much to say about my life at the moment, there's no one special in my life, I've closed myself off from most of society even though I go shopping and/or window browsing regularly in the city, occasionally see a movie... anxieties and personality disorders aside, I don't know why I'm so damn indifferent or ambivalent or uncaring about my own life... I'm lost, I don't know how to make my life better or motivate myself, I don't have strong enough beliefs in much of anything to motivate me to do anything truly good in the world...
Travelling is pretty much out of the question, but is there anything else that is good at "character-building" and would help me to interact with people my own age (being a camp-counsellor is also out of the question)... even as a retail supervisor I usually just go through the motions of that work and am often feeling lonely in a position of authority and responsibility over the staff that I'm supervising...
Over the last few months I've taken note of a few possibilities of things to do in the outside world in my spare time but I haven't been able to motivate myself and summon the courage to actually get involved in any of these things; and even on free Friday nights when the science-fiction club meets I've neglected to attend. Same with an anxiety support group that meets on Monday nights... I've attended a few times over the years but I've found it not very helpful overall as most people there are much older than I am, I can only use that for an occasional few ears to rant to and I've never been able to get much help from that group because I've trapped myself in a situation that is incredibly difficult to escape from.
I flicked through a psychology book a few weeks ago about how self-esteem building isn't as productive in cognitive therapy as building self-acceptance is instead. To me I'm not sure what exactly the difference is but if I were to concentrate on self-acceptance I would probably remain in this depressive state as it has now become my natural state. It is easier to cope with my own depression than it is to risk really hurting myself (and possibly others) by trying to overcome my depression... It is easier to just accept my situation and do nothing about it.
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