Hi abc,
I was wondering how old you were. I remember having felt like you at times; that in looking on my life it seems as if I'm sleep-walking because I'm too uptight and afraid to join -in and so I end-up missing out on so much. And I'd be sort of caught-up in my high standards and desires to connect and be happy with others and a fear and anxiety of this not happening ...I'd end-up feeling like I had some form of 'social impotence'. You know how a man with sexual impotence gets too excited too quickly and peaks too early so that the actual joy of the event is never attained. And then the next time he's anxiety is even greater and his desire to connect with someone, so that it just happens more and more often. He's not only left with the lack of fulfilment and sense of isolation, but he feels like a failure because he cannot do what he sets out to do.
...that's a way of describing my social anxiety. It sometimes is a pretty accurate description of me. ...not very flatterring, but accurate. You might be a bit different, but anxiety is a kind of vicious circle one way or another.
The only thing I really wanted to say to you, other than tell you that I think I understand your feelings and your regrets, is that sometimes a person cannot get to where they want to be unless they pass through being where they don't want to be. Sometimes the quickest way of getting over what stops a person from living life to the full, is actually experiencing not living life to the full. BEcause whatever deepseated ideas and beliefs you have that keep putting standards on you that you struggle to reach, because they are so deeply engrained they are hard to change (simply because they're so automatic and deep in a person), sometimes the quickest way to your losing these and choosing to go about life in a way that would make you happy, is to experience going through life according to these beliefs and seeing and experiencing how they don't make you happy. ...If you're eager and refuse to give-up, this will also help you figure-out what these values and beliefs causing you repeated pain and disappointment are. If they are deep, they are harder to see and to therefore change.
I think that those who suffer anxiety are highly sensitive individuals. When you're sensitive, you have a lot on your shoulders: there is a lot of emotion to get control and perspective over. And I think that when a person is going through tough times where they feel 'socially impotent' (my word!) that this is when your personality is forming. That all that frustration, disappointment and sorrow is going in to form a person with a great deal of emotional depth and appreciation for people. Socially anxious people already care a great deal for others; but having control over emotions is much harder to achieve and especially the more emotion there is to control in the first place. ....Yet, by the same token, imagine that you had this and how interesting and wonderful a person you would be. ....Now, step back and see how even before that person has fully blossomed into being, how they're already on their way to being that. ...even just your regrets, can actually be really positive, since they can serve as reminders later on for how you wish to be instead; and the sufferring you experience not being connected with others can give you a great deal of appreciation for a wider range of people and their situations, and can allow you to have a real depth of understanding and empathy for different people and the emotions they go through. It's like how everything in nature changes and cycles. "Happy you who are hungry now, you will be filled later" and "Happy you that cry, later you will laugh".
Now is the time when who you are and what you are about is undergoing a reshaping and remodelling.
