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GaiaParticipant
I’m glad that my interactions with you got softer and more pleasant for you. Unfortunately my inner self is still extreme and harsh but I’m dedicated to have a different attitude towards it, let’s see where it will take me.
“there’s a bad link in my mind that only gets stronger with time
In my mind, social interactions is linked to bad feelings and unpleasant experiences, an association that gets harder to change or shake as time passes
GaiaParticipantI noticed how much progress you made in regard to your mental health over time, as I read your words, and that pleased me a lot.
I definitely know I’m making some progress on perspective and I’m changing internally, even if it’s not clear on the outside. May I ask what kind of change have you noticed, especially on regard of mental health?
Your cringiness is most acute in social situations, while interacting with others, not connected to physical touching others, or being touched by others, but overall social interactions with others. This is why you like to be alone. You feel very heavy because issues and negative feelings that are magnified, are bigger and therefore heavier
I like your new found principle on myself, the Magnifying Glass, because it’s accurate about my experience with my mother, a least it is a significant amount of the time. I’d like to add something on my social situation: my sense of cringiness or uncomfortableness is also due to how much social situation and interpersonal connections are linked to something bad and feeling bad, in my mind. I’ve felt all kinds of shitty feelings, I’ve experienced all kinds of unpleasing situations, while with others, I’ve felt like nothing, or like shit, while with others, so there’s a bad link in my mind that only gets stronger with time.
learn emotional regulation skills. This is a well known and developed concept in psychotherapy. Because everyone magnifies issues and negative feelings from time to time, if not a lot of the time. (You happen to be on the more extreme part of the spectrum, magnifying a whole lot, more than most, seems to me
It’s strange, because on the outside you wouldn’t say I am on the extreme part of emotional spectrum. People would say I’m the stoic one, I’ve also beaten myself a lot of time for not considering myself to be caring, or sensitive, or emotionally expressive enough like certain people, but definitely ERS is something I’m going to look up and tell you if and how it works for me, just like the skill of showing myself empathy instead of hatred when I fall into my habits.
GaiaParticipantDid you feel cringy when you gave your crush a kiss on the cheek?
Nope even if the situation itself was a bit uncomfortable
Did you feel cringy when hugging and kissing other guys in the past?
In those cases, it wasn’t so much the cringiness of the physical act but what was around it, the interaction, as I said. This summer I kissed a guy I had a very light crush on as a teen but then I definitely tried to block this memory because nothing came out of it, our interactions didn’t deepen, the chemistry we may have felt as teen was pretty much disappeared, I just felt uncomfortable on how much unfitting we were for each other. I guess the unfitting part is what makes me cringe everytime. I remember seeing him flirt and play around with a friend of mine this summer, and thinking that that could be us if I was a little bit different, a bit like her, that doesn’t make interacting with someone a uncomfortable thing.
Do you feel cringy when you fantasize about physical contact with guys?
Nope, it feels good. I make up stories and characters around it. It gets cringey when I imagine people totally out of my league and I have to unavoidably clash with what I am really, that is inexperienced and unaccomplished as a person on so many levels, maybe pretty but nothing more, intelligent but not always and things like these. Otherwise it doesn’t feel bad
Do you feel cringy when you fantasize about “interactions as a whole” with people?
Yes. It’s really distressing. In the sense that I can feel my whole muscles tense up and that’s what I mean for physically painful. My body isn’t relaxed and loose but it’s like I shrink. I doesn’t always look bothered, it’s not that I can’t make the first step towards others or that I hide away when I see someone, it’s not that I look like a coward, you could say there’s nothing wrong but I truly only relax when I’m alone
– is fantasy a cringe-free zone?
Yes if I want it to be. In fantasy I can push away everytime that makes me uncomfortable of real life and real events and pretend they don’t exist
Who are the people who you are “really used to them”?
When I was a teen, it was a friend I was always with and always talked with. We’re no longer that close though. It could also be my most close relatives and other kinds of close friends. Or even someone who is naturally a friendly and talkative person that just wants to get along with everyone.
GaiaParticipantDear Anita
I figure you don’t feel cringy when you fantasize about physical contact with him because the cringe doesn’t get attached to fantasy, only to real- life physical contact
It’s not that much the physical contact that makes me cringe, but the interaction as a whole, and by cringe I also mean intense unbearable uncomfortableness or even shame, just interacting with someone else in my life is greatly distressing to me unless I’m really used to them
GaiaParticipantYes i can relate, especially when it comes to physical touch or closeness. Sometimes I feel guilty about it, when my mom show genuine desire for physical closeness or show acts of care and sometimes I react in a annoyed, harsh way. It make me feel like shit afterwards. There’s especially 1 person I crave most physical contact with and is my crush, corny as it sounds
GaiaParticipantDear Anita
I definitely connect to spending a lot of time with people I didn’t want to be around, my teen self knew that feeling very well, that experience
It’s also true that my cringiness is completely a personal inner problem, that is… It’s not others who cause it but it’s me who feel like this whenever I’m around others, even with people I like, in fact for a lot of time I’ve blocked from remembering those times I texted with my crush or that one time I gave him a check kiss cause it just makes me feel really uncomfortable.
GaiaParticipantHe’s just.. interesting, intriguing. For a long time we’ve shared similar interests and I always found him charismatic and intelligent, I remember thinking one day that he was the type of person whose opinion and consideration I’d care of. We stopped talking a long time ago cause he only liked me whenever the mood striked him but sometimes lately I’ve been deluding myself into thinking that he truly cares deep down even if he doesn’t.
GaiaParticipantDear Anita
Today I finally realized my crush isn’t really into me. Well, I had already plenty of proofs but somewhat my mind always managed to hope or consider otherwise even if I tried to talk myself out of it. I never talk to my friends about this crush cause I barely know him and it makes me cringe, especially given how much I suffer about it. It’s already difficult for me to talk about this here but I realized I needed to express it somewhere because even though I tried to show empathy to myself and all it still hurts inside and i find it very difficult not to check his profile or checks his views on mine or fantasize about him. I tried so many times and I failed, I try to make peace with this but I can’t easily shake the hurt away
GaiaParticipantDear Anita
Yes I see the difference and I’ll definitely try to feel empathetic towards my patterns and my motivations for them existing. You definitely have me an insight today and I’m curious to see where it will lead me
GaiaParticipantIt’s strange, I always was hard on myself for these habits but never really stopped considering I should feel sympathy for myself for performing these. I’m familiar with the concept of accepting them before trying to do anything else but you suggesting I should feel empathy for how much I suffer internally that I need them hit me differently
I don’t like to pity myself for awful my life is at the moment and I don’t want others such as future partners and friends to pity me neither, that’s why I react like this
GaiaParticipantDear Anita
Some of the habits I’d like to change are: stop daydreaming and stalking my crush, splitting my hair, stop daydreaming over imaginary couples I made up when I was 9. I tried a lot of time to change, stop, mold, work over these habits and many others I’m not very comfortable saying now, but I often fail. These are the only things that give me joy or positive emotions on a daily basis, I find it physically painful or annoying to not indulge in them after a while, they’re better to deal with than reality
GaiaParticipantDear Anita
Yes! I’d be really happy about you sharing what worked for you in changing certain habits and subconscious patterns
Because, you know, it’s true I’ve made what looks like a powerful statement but I often say it and then betray myself or maybe, to put it more fairly, my mind runs on patterns that then manifest as it’s like I’m consciously betraying myself
I know what is like to be prisoner of your patterns and of your habits, that’s why I would be so enthusiast of you sharing what helped you in your personal journey
GaiaParticipantDear Anita
Yes, we are alive today and may be dead tomorrow, just like you wrote. It makes me less afraid to really understand this. Let this reality encourage you to live with less fear.
For now I only feel fear but I hope this fear may turn into inspiration one day. I’m sick of fearing, suffering, grieving and raging, sick of obsessing, longing and not feeling nothing. I only welcome positive experiences and uplifting thoughts from now, I really deserve it
GaiaParticipantDear Anita
I’m from Italy and yes people here are heartbroken over Kobe loss
My uncle died of leukemia while he was curing himself, his heart just stopped.
It really disturbed me, seeing someone you’re always used to see alive just dead and put in a coffin is very disturbing. It made me think of fragile life is and how unpredictable it is, you may be alive now and dead tomorrow. Illness is real, death is real. I was pretty nonchalant over death and physical illness in my teen years, maybe it was part of dissociation, now it hit me how real they are
I’m sorry for you fainting and hurting yourself. How are things going now?
GaiaParticipantDear Anita
These days my life has been rough again. Here another loss of relative, since my grandma passed two months ago. Now the one gone is my uncle. Ever since knowing about his death I’m reacting especially with physical anxiety more than tears, I feel nauseous and anxious.
I also heard about the sudden passing of a famous basket player and his 13 years old daughter, nothing that affects me personally but seeing how death stricks suddenly and unexpectedly these days has left me very anxious
I’m also getting a bit hypochondriac, generally my anxiety was always about existential stuff but lately I’ve been worrying about dying too. Sometimes I feel a stabbing pain in my chest, like last night, and I’m growing concerned that I may be having an heart attack (even though I’m only 21 years old) last night I couldn’t fall asleep because I feared I was having an heart attack and I would be passing in my sleep like my uncle. Today I also felt like my left arm is numb and this increases my fear that I will have a heart attack sooner or later
I’m sick of sudden new of relatives dying. I’ve seen important family figures passing away and I feel like the good part of my family has gone forever. Hope I won’t have to give you any bad news one day
- This reply was modified 4 years, 11 months ago by Gaia.
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