Anita

thanks for your response. You are correct when I’m in relationships I do feel that anxiety and anger along with the love or attachment.

I like the idea of visualizing love, I will try this tonight. I feel like my dreams have been doing this a lot for me lately. Dreams of love and connection seem to be the only ones I have or can remember. Sometimes upon waking up it can be tough realizing the connection I felt was in a dream. I have a harder time with pleasant dreams like those when I feel bad about myself, luckily the few I’ve had over the past weeks have felt comforting.

“The meaning/ benefit is in your child-like cognitive understanding of your pain, of its origin, of where it’s coming from.”

Yeah I think this makes sense to me. If I understand, you mean the benefit could be less suffering from the child like understandings of “I’m not good enough to be loved” and other beliefs and judgements like that…not necessarily complete alleviation from the pain of being alone?

I was reading some of the Dhammapada last night and there was a line that caught my attention that read;

“it is hard to leave the world and and hard to live in it, painful to live with the worldly and painful to be a wanderer. Reach the goal and you will wander and suffer no more”

There was also a section on selfish desire and it’s relation to suffering. I’m not trying to overthink this and I believe I am starting to grasp the point you’ve been making to me over and over for years now. What I feel is that it seems like there really is no escape from pain, maybe some escape from the added suffering we put on ourselves through desire. I think I can take the pain and avoid the suffering if I can avoid the selfish desires to escape through women, drugs, and other thrills I chase. Am I starting to understand? Or am I still missing the point

“accept, radically accept, as the term goes, thoroughly accept that there is no one else there with you to solve your problem of loneliness, no one to see you cry and help you.” -This is sort of what i tried last night, my roommate was home and claims I can talk to her but is rarely present with me so i’ve given up on that relationship as a source of comfort. Which left me to be sad by myself.

So your saying a possible solution is to just be sad? this makes sense to me because we don’t really control whether or not an emotion is triggered within us, rather controlling how we respond to the emotion.  My response to sadness 90% of the time is coupled with negative beliefs about why i deserve to suffer. I tried not to go there last night, knowing that could mean another severe depressive episode which i can’t afford. I tried to comfort myself by reaffirming my worth through self-talk, even though i barely believe it, I don’t feel like I have any other options right now but to fake love for myself until it feels real.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by noname.

Anita,

thank you for your reply, this part couldn’t have been more accurate “when you felt special, prior to being attacked by the abusive inner critic, you didn’t feel anything that was wrong to feel. It is fine for any person to feel special from time to time. When people feel special they tend to be kind to themselves and to other people (it is when people feel less-than that they tend to be unkind to themselves and to others)”

I wonder how to allow myself to feel special, worthy, or important?

I know we’ve discussed this to no end, and I have been trying very hard lately to be kind to myself. Recognizing I will be 30 next year, I’m really trying to take some pressure off my achievement=self-worth dynamic.

I fear I may turn into a caretaker like my father because of my lack of self-worth. One of my friends runs a non-profit bike repair shop, and was in need of mechanics, so I’m going to be volunteering there and teaching people how to fix bikes a couple days a week. I got excited at the idea of being able to help someone and see tangible results (unlike therapy where positive results may not be so easy to see in the present) I could see my ego getting inflated by feeling needed by others something I watch closely for in my therapeutic relationships. Also this is exactly how my dad is with being a mechanic. I can’t tell you how many people he would stop for on the side of the road growing up even if me and my sister were hungry and tired and just wanted to go home. We would watch him TAKE CARE from people under the guise of being a Good Samaritan and getting an ego boost. I fear that may be what I become as a therapist or through volunteering. Helping out of a selfish need instead of a love for people…

Any tips on how to give care rather than taking it? It’s something I’m not sure if I’m currently doing or not

Anita,

I wanted your thoughts on something i’ve been thinking about with myself and the way my mind works. My birthday passed in the past couple weeks since i posted. Normally i’m pretty bummed out on my birthday because of “self reflection” and looking at my number of years on this planet and my perceived lack of growth.

This year i was intent on trying to accept where i’m at with life and lay off the criticism. The problem i run into with being compassionate or non-critical with myself is humility. I don’t like to think of myself as better than anyone else, but i notice my mind oscillates between feeling cocky, and more frequently feeling worthless. I’m looking at this as the problem of EGO and who i think i am (for better or worse).

When i mentally review some of the interactions with my parents i could see how their EGO’s rubbed off on me. One of the downsides to being a high performing person in pretty much anything I’ve tried (except self love) is that I was constantly being compared to others growing up and i still struggle with it.

This came to me yesterday when i went on a group bike ride with about 40people yesterday, of which i had some friends who know me personally or from when i used to race bikes. What i noticed is

1. Other people will brag on me and my accomplishments to other people and i dont really have to.

2.When i receive those compliments my mind filters it one of two ways; either i tell myself “i’m really not as great as you think i am” or i think something cocky like “maybe i am actually special” or something self inflated like that.

This inner criticism vs. inner flattery is really an interesting dichotomy that i’m trying to solve within myself. I want to feel good about self, but i also dont want to be an ass either. I’ve always valued humility in success or failure. I’m very much afraid of seeing myself as “special” because i don’t believe anyone is more valuable than another.  This also contributes to my imposter syndrome as a therapist. Obviously i lean more towards the inner criticism side of things because of my conditioning and highly competitive parents that used me as their golden child to hide their own insecurities.

Having not been social in a long time, i kept talking to myself when someone would say something nice about me saying “stay out of your ego you are not special” because i can feel the cockiness being triggered. In summary i feel like the issue of my ego and who i think i am is what aile’s me on a daily basis more than anything. I also think this is the role substances have played in my life, they have allowed me to artificially relax my ego, and just not worry about how i’m coming off to other people. I got about 4 hours of sleep last night because i was having trouble ruminating on whether or not i rubbed anyone the wrong way.

Any words of wisdom on seeing oneself clearly and without distortion would be helpful. Thanks in advance!

Anita

I’m not explicitly told it’s my fault but it is implied. When I attempt to vent to my roommate she frequently cuts me off and offers suggestions which I hear as “your wounds are invalid and is your fault, if you just thought these thoughts or did this self care thing you wouldn’t feel that way” this is the response I get often from friends, and my supervisor. My therapist is probably the only person who actually hears me (validates) then offers suggestions after making sure I feel understood. Most people don’t listen very well they want to fix. I used to get caught in this trap being from a math/science/mechanics kind of mindstate where all problems can be fixed and have concrete solutions. Not saying they’re aren’t concrete solutions to people problems, just that the process is not as simple as replacing a component or adjusting a chemical in my brain, been there done that. People need compassion, especially highly self critical people like myself. It’s so rare for someone to listen without offering up their egotistical self-help style advice. That’s all my heart wants is to be validated again not told it’s my fault for being wounded. I’m also not trying to absolve myself of responsibility if anything I probably place too much of the blame of myself already

Thank you for your responses. I’m not religious. I gravitate towards the Buddhist philosophy if anything…

I’m pretty sure I’m just reaching a breaking point with my lifestyle. I feel the need for another, not necessarily a partner just another person or people to hold space for my grief. The isolation is my biggest enemy. And I’m tired of being told it’s my fault I feel this way, i just need to change my perspective or do this or that. There is nothing more I can do.

Thank you Anita,

Believe me I’ve given up hope, the suffering is the frustration i feel at attempting to get my needs met and failing over and over. Maybe that is me hoping for a life where i dont cry myself to sleep, and wake up screaming at myself to get out of bed. I canceled my day today and just feel overwhelmed with work, and the fact that it feels hopeless for me to have any outlet for my grief.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by noname.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by noname.