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  • January 8, 2022 at 11:56 pm in reply to: I want to be normal #390900
    samy
    Participant

    Hi anita,

    I was able to come up with a plan sooner than I thought. Do give me your feedback on it.

    I have written out how I will handle emotions with questions at the bottom. A prerequisite for that is that I am not dismissive about genuine fears/flaws that I want to work on, in order to distinguish between things I can control and can’t. So first, a couple of things I need to work on:

    I’ve created one year goals and broken them down where possible –
    • Physical Health: I did lose weight in 2020 but gained some back. My 1 year goal will be to lose 10-12 kg. This will be 1 kg/month. Which is doable. This will involve diet and exercise. Gather courage to go to doctors about asthma and other issues. This will take longer but adding it to a checklist is a first step.
    • Mental health: I watched a video about daily routines for stress and anxiety. Suggestions include exercise to burn off stress physically. Having a checklist everyday for a todo list. Reducing caffeine. Not running away from anxiety i.e., ignoring it or going harder at whatever the anxiety points to. In my case it would be doing nothing about health or my job, or overdoing weight loss or interview preparation. I need to instead slow down. My questions might help with this.
    • Job: It is time for me to change my job. I have looked at other people’s interview experiences and there are tons of blogs highlighting what to prepare and practice. I need to factor in rejections as well. I will need to set a 3 month deadline for a major chunk of my prep. And start interviewing from month 4-5. Also, an update I never gave you. I was promoted once in 2020. And this year will go to a senior developer role. It is harder to switch at this level but not impossible.
    • Mom: My daily checklist will factor in ways in which I can help my mom out in the house as I feel guilty about not doing anything.
    • Finance: I need to look at investing to generate passive income and feel more financially secure. I will use a major portion of this year to learn. Job search will also contribute to this goal.

    My daily checklist will involve –
    • Exercise
    • Achieving/working towards one task my job requires
    • Interview preparation has multiple components. So I will have one checklist item for each of them
    • Helping my mom out – Lunch/dinner/laundry/cleaning the house
    • Stepping out of the house for groceries or other small tasks – I need to reinforce my confidence in social interactions and it helps to have small doable things on the checklist
    • Dedicated time to acknowledge that the day was good.

    Now, coming to how I will handle emotions:
    My triggers are typically –
    1. Feeling judged by someone else when I do something, like cause a problem or fail at some task. I could be the one judging myself. My questions will be
    • Question 1. What do I think or what does this person think I am? I will name it A. A could be I am not smart enough for a senior, I am silly, ugly, boring, etc.
    • Question 2. Why do I not want to be A? I will name it B. This is usually – I will get fired and won’t find another job. I won’t have good friends. I won’t find love, etc.
    So A is a cause and B is an effect. I recognize that it is the effect that is the trigger for me. If someone thought I was incompetent but I knew I won’t lose my job, I would be okay with being incompetent. Also being competent wouldn’t guarantee that I won’t lose my job. So I need to address the possibility of losing my job. I need to address B. Accept B is possible and create a plan if needed. So, accept I could lose my job at any time and prepare to be interview ready. Accept I may never find another job. And just accept it, there is nothing I can do if nobody wants to hire me. Even my inner voice found that possibility silly. If I am interview ready, it is likely that someone will hire me. Other things include accept I may not find love and so on. And decide, if there is no love, then what, what shall I do now? Socialize without the stress of finding love and live my life 🙂
    • Question 3: Am I doing something to address B. If yes, we are good. Take a deep breath and resolve the sensations. I am looking into grounding techniques for this.

    2. Untriggered ruminations over financial insecurity, my mom’s health, etc.
    I have guilt over whether we did everything we could to give her the best chance at beating C long term. And with finances, exaggerated fears over losing all my money.
    • Question 1: Can I do something about this now? Give my mom a hug. Help her out with something. Look at my bank balance. Take a deep breath and decide – Today, we are okay. We will see about tomorrow.
    • Question 2: Can I do something long term. If there is something it will go into my checklist. I need to then resolve the emotions physically. Like I mentioned earlier, I am looking at grounding for this.

    This is what I have for now.
     

    January 8, 2022 at 9:21 pm in reply to: I want to be normal #390899
    samy
    Participant

    Hi anita,

    I will share it tonight, that’s Sunday morning for you, I think

    Girija

    January 8, 2022 at 5:35 pm in reply to: I want to be normal #390893
    samy
    Participant

    Hi anita,

    Thank you for appreciating me.

    I will create a mechanical series of steps or questions that I must go through when I feel emotions. This might help. I will formulate these questions after more research.

    January 8, 2022 at 5:29 pm in reply to: I am lost! #390892
    samy
    Participant

    Hi Care,

    Let me know if this sounds familiar. This is my real life experience. I am developer, and for that I received no training in college. My degree should ideally be enough but it does not train you for the skills you need to be a developer. Some kids in college did side projects, I was so terrified of not finding a job, that I would constantly wonder if I would be a terrible developer, so much so that I did not even try to test or hone my skills.

    Once I started on the job, I would be paralyzed from doing work. There is a term for it in my profession, although it is not self-esteem related. “Analysis paralysis”, where you go over all the ways things could go wrong and keep evaluating options in terms of which solution to use or tool, etc, but never fix on an option and get to work. But, I was forced to choose an option since there were always looming deadlines. This was a lot of pressure for me. I was a perfectionist and not confident. I wanted to quit so many times but couldn’t because I had to earn. It was this helplessness that triggered feelings of resentment and how if only my situation was different, I would not have had go through this.

    I believe you feel betrayed because every time something upsetting happens at your job, you think about how your situation forced you into this job and you wouldn’t have had to take it had your family had enough money, etc. So the external situation betrayed you and stopped you from following your passion.

    There are 2 independent parts to your problem.

    1) You don’t want to do this job.

    2) You don’t think you are good enough to do it

    And just so you know, 2) is independent of 1). Had you been pursuing your passion, 2) would still have plagued you but you wouldn’t have had the resentment about being forced to pursue that career, but you still would have started hating your passion. There is a saying  in my mother tongue, I have heard it in English as well, “make your passion your hobby and not your job, otherwise you will hate your passion”.

    Some of the reasons for 2) are external to you:

    Global reasons:

    All around the world people are faced with financial insecurity. Money defines your quality of life. You could be denied basic needs like food, shelter and healthcare. Healthcare is in fact tied to the job. So it is natural to want to do well out of fear of getting fired and losing your basic human rights and needs, and fear not being good enough.

    Individual reasons:

    If you have a tendency to internalize your failures, you will always blame yourself and believe you are someone who can’t do well. In my example, it was wrong to expect college students to know coding at all. Your first job should train you. It took me a long time to realize my work conditions did not enable my best performance.

    You asked how you should start taking care of yourself:

    Short term( 1 day – 1 week)

    1. Feign arrogance and be okay with being a bad teacher. This is a temporary break for your brain.

    2. Use your mornings to set an intention that you will do your best and mistakes are ok.

    3. Build a routine with small tasks – drink water, soak in some sun. Checking things off is amazing for the brain.

    4. Affirmations – this used to work initially, so it is good for short term, it will alter your state to a pleasant one.

    Long-term (1 year)

    1. Identify if you need to change jobs within the same profession – for better pay and conditions.

    2. When you are happy at your job, you are likely not going to be reminded of your passion at all. Also, you need to plan your future from a place of happiness. So 1. is important. When you are content with your current situation, think of all your possibilities not just being a teacher vs your passion. All the other possibilities that you can venture into for a job – remember this is mainly for money, so aim as high as possible and be creative.

    3. Start planning on how to save money to work on the career that is right for you. You may not need money, just a plan to switch, work on that.

    4. Create a daily routine that factors in a healthy lifestyle. Socialize and build hobbies.

    Planning for super long term

    This will assume a healthy sense of self-esteem

    1. Be objective about everything. If you are unhappy or not doing well enough, evaluate if it is just you, or what needs to changes and with whom.

    2. You have a goal that will meet your financial needs and you are not just getting by – break this career/goal into small steps and check-in every year to see where you are at.

    3. Your passion can be your hobby if not your career – give it some time and love.

    The hole will go away when you are happy with yourself, which means if something is not right with work, it is just work and not you. It will take time to get to this, but you can do it.

     

     

    January 8, 2022 at 9:09 am in reply to: I want to be normal #390876
    samy
    Participant

    Also, I forgot to respond to your last paragraph, anita – I will gladly continue communicating with you, it helps me a lot. Thank you.

    January 8, 2022 at 8:57 am in reply to: I want to be normal #390874
    samy
    Participant

    Hi anita,
    You are right, I do need to regulate my emotions. If I get to a calm state, my life experience will definitely improve. And this will need both making some life changes and working on myself. My only problem is I don’t think I realize my emotional state when I am in the moment. I will work on this.

    (Typing this after I finished the post, this paragraph is chaotic, you may ignore it, I am leaving it in to come back to it some time) I do realize I can work on my appearance. There is some resistance there. I just thought about it so this may not be the real reason but I wonder if it is fear of what will happen after I fix what I can. Maybe I think it won’t be enough. I am afraid I will be devastated if I put energy into getting better in the hope of finding love only for it to not work. This is hard. What if I become enough and what I get is bad for me. I don’t want to think about this. It is confusing. I am not sure what is wrong here. Why I simply can’t figure out why I won’t do something about this. I am leaving this paragraph here, maybe I can come back to it.

    • This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by samy.
    January 8, 2022 at 8:09 am in reply to: I am lost! #390872
    samy
    Participant

    Hi Care,

    Could you make a list of your insecurities or fears? Not being a good enough teacher is one. Add more to that list.

    Imagine another person with all those qualities being true, being a bad teacher, etc. While there is room for improvement or let’s say there are qualities that can’t be changed, that person still deserves to have good experiences and experience joy, no? Give yourself space to separate your weaknesses from who you are. The sooner you realize you are no less or more than anyone else, the faster you can get to addressing the hole. You will feel enough.

    Self-esteem is that to me, it is not to be perfect or expect to become perfect, but to accept yourself as you are and do your best in life. When you decide you are worthy, your mind will follow suit.

    You may have some things to improve on, let the need to improve come from a place of love and feeling secure. You can then create goals for yourself and work on them.

    I feel you are split into 2. You feel suppressed being forced to take these responsibilities and doing this job but at the same time you want to do well at this job and feel you are not enough. Write out what you want to be as a teacher and who you would be if you weren’t a teacher. If there is something else you want to do, plan a long term for achieving that and factor in your current job and how you want to function as a teacher in your short term. This will energize you. Also, investigate why you want to do well in your job. The answer to what you are hoping to get from doing well, might be what you feel is missing, what the hole signifies.

     

     

    January 8, 2022 at 6:39 am in reply to: Need help i feel someone is inside of me #390866
    samy
    Participant

    Hi Renz Han,

    My father has auditory hallucinations. They don’t happen consistently, he has had them since 16 till now, he is in his mid 50s. He was able to stay employed for 2 decades despite this. You don’t have to think that you are unemployable. I would however suggest you take a break from work for a short period and stay on your medication. You will have highs and lows but with the right treatment you can have a good life.

    Please work with your doctor on a plan to handle stress and come up with a lifestyle that would best suit you. This will include setting expectations for career and relationships. The calmer you stay, the easier it is to go through this.

    You can do this! Don’t worry about the normal days. They will come back too if you commit to working on your mental health. The farther you stay from being negative and down, the easier it will be to keep the demon away.  All you need to plan for is the days when the hallucinations are back. Have you informed your family yet? They can help manage this during the bad days. You will need to trust someone to take care of your medicines, to ensure you are taking them at all times. Good news for you is you are taking action to take care of this, and it will work out. Good luck!

    • This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by samy.
    January 7, 2022 at 9:43 pm in reply to: I am lost! #390864
    samy
    Participant

    Hi Care,

    I have been where you were at – I had to take responsibility for my family’s finances and my mom’s happiness at roughly the same age as you. My father never left, but he was never there. He is sitting maybe a metre away from me as I type but he might as well be on another planet.

    I have felt what you are feeling and still do. I’ll present a possibility to you below for why you might be feeling this way. And you let me know if that doesn’t feel right for you and we can go from there.

    I went over your previous post and you mentioned you were good at studies. Is being a teacher the peak of your potential? I am not looking down on teachers but where I am from teachers are overworked and underpaid and it is not intellectually stimulating. You seem to have taken this job to take care of others but in that process you may have suppressed your own potential. And the depression and anxiety could be stemming from this – depression because you feel you don’t have the safety net to shoot for the stars and are locked in to this profession and feel trapped? – thereby restricted by the highs and mostly lows it offers. And the anxiety from feeling financially insecure. If your job triggers stress, you feel you have to endure it and the consequences of not doing well are devastating for you, so it causes anxiety. You might have been an overachiever in the past, but this might be the opposite end of that spectrum for you.

    Regarding the hole you describe every few years – I think the hole is always there, you just feel it’s presence more strongly when the outside world is backing you into isolation. Could this be possible? Is it absorbing the good things or simply temporarily outshining them. Do the good things in you reappear?

    Can you describe to me this hole? What are you feeling in your body? Does the hole signify something missing? What do you think is missing in your life? From your previous post – you seemed to have spiralled into feeling insecure after someone rejected you – which is common for all of us. But, is there a part of you that knows what is missing and is strongly seeking it out? You seem to point to self-confidence and lacking boundaries as causing this hole – why is that?

    Lying to your therapist can be fixed easily – decide if your therapist can’t handle it or if they don’t like you, then you will find a new one. That can help with being brave and honesty.

    January 7, 2022 at 9:02 pm in reply to: I want to be normal #390863
    samy
    Participant

    Hi anita,

    I see in your last paragraph that you have thinning hair: is that because of lack of healthy nutrition, or is it because of stress? And regarding being overweight: can you tell me, and you are welcome to not answer this question: how tall are you and how much you weigh (I want to calculate your BMI)? – Thinning hair might be a combination of both. I calculated my BMI, it’s 26.6

    you are very intelligent, I like how you use words.- Thank you. It is nice to hear that. People aren’t very receptive to the way I speak. So that feels good.

    I wonder if being in this gas state is also part genetics. Maybe my composition is more volatile, so I transformed into a gas earlier. If my cooling temperature is too low, it would take more effort to turn to liquid or gas. Do you think the external temperature needs to change or that I can change my composition itself? You later paragraphs seem to suggest that you managed to change yourself to be less affected by the temperature, but I want to make sure I understood that correctly.

    I hope you are sleeping well – Once I fall asleep, the quality of sleep is good, but it takes a while. My mind and body feel restless and active for a long time in bed.

    I hope everything is well with you. I notice all my threads are me and my problems. Should you need support, I am here for you. I recall from previous conversations you mentioned you were older than me but I still think I can be there for you and be a good listener. I am good at helping other people with their problems.

    January 7, 2022 at 12:13 pm in reply to: I want to be normal #390842
    samy
    Participant

    Hi anita,

    She seems calm to me.

    The bedrooms system is the same. Not having my aunt here is great. She never felt like family, was always selfish and treated us as less than.

    didn’t know that your figurative tail often wags outside of the context of daydreaming. In what circumstances does your tail wag? How does your excitement looks/ sounds like?  – I seem to be desperate for connection. I open up to people when I first meet them, easily joking, having fun conversations and readily discussing problems. This is what I mean by tail wagging. Although I seem to trust some people and not others whem I first meet them. It will take more observation to figure out why that might be. My excitement to me used to feel genuine and open. Now, I feel it is chaotic. Just desperate and needy.

    I can imagine lots of people figuratively wagging their tails because of being around you. I bet that you imagined it many times, while daydreaming, imagining that this or that person, a boyfriend perhaps, was as happy to see you as you are happy to see him. Did you? – My daydreams are complicated. I am never able to imagine the long term of the relationship. It seems off. But in the beginning, I would feel loved but it would not help me see what that relationship grows to be. Like what is happily ever after for a married couple. I just know how I wanted to be talked to or treated but not how the long term would be. And it makes me sad. And who I am in those daydreams often changes. And it is strange but I’ve realized I mimic other people, even in real life. Someone else’s confidence – how they behave that I think is confident. Someone else’s kindness and so on. I do know I am a kind person. But if another person’s behaviour seems more expressive, I mimic that. And I think my daydreams are confusing because of that. I don’t know that I am that person.

    Can you describe to me a situation/ circumstance in which you were excitedly anticipating a real-life interaction with another person: how did your excitement show, and what was the other person’s behavior during the anticipated interaction?  – My colleagues. We would joke together, discuss our lives. I used to feel the excitement, which I wonder now might have been needy, wanting to joke and laugh. But they would be rude, out of nowhere. It feels like a punch to the stomach. I still go through this with them. Even when I see evidence that this is not where the connection is at, I still go through that cycle.

    Imagine that you are assigned with writing an academic essay, a one-page (or shorter) essay, describing this “self” that you are referring to. You are welcome to post such an essay here. – ( I am going to use “she”). She seems disturbed to me. Always ready to go into a frenzy. Not sure she has ever felt true peace. She believes that bad things will happen to her, so she is always looking out for it. She is also super scared so she is constantly seeking out to be protected. No amount of life experience seems to build her strength. She just gets through one thing at a time and it does not contribute to long lasting good qualities. She is very weak. Every negative possibility bothers her. She has to ruminate over it, worry about how to deal with it, know she is not cut out to deal with it, desperate for it to not happen. She does this with everything. She morphs into what she believes will keep her safe but it just comes off as desperate and she is always left alone. She knows she will not have anyone but still tries. Everybody is above her. She has never been in a situation where she felt right, in the few situations that she started feeling good, other people have torn her down, whether it was their intention or not. Everybody’s tone matters, expressions matter, opinions matter. She has never gone a day where she had to face something and she knew what she was doing. She doesn’t trust anyone including herself. So she is putting herself in situations she doesn’t want to be in. I don’t think she wants to be in any of this. She wants peace but won’t find it. So she is letting life whiz past her. Never feeling like she has finally arrived.

    Can you share specific details about some of the features of your looks that you consider “ugly by societal standards”? – I have a giant forehead, nose, lazy eye, thinning hair, crooked teeth and I am fat.

     

     

    January 7, 2022 at 9:26 am in reply to: I want to be normal #390837
    samy
    Participant

    Hi Peggy,

    Thank you for the advice. I will try affirmations and feeling love. It is hard for me to give myself support but I will try. I am keen on retraining my brain.

    I don’t want to call myself courageous but maybe I am courageous 10 percent of the time and it is so exhausting. I wish I could get rid of fear itself, I know it is unrealistic but wish it could happen.

    What you say about people finding love regardless of looks or that I will find love, is hard for me to believe right now. I hope it happens someday though.

    January 6, 2022 at 8:46 pm in reply to: I want to be normal #390834
    samy
    Participant

    Dear anita,

    Yes, my mother is c- free! I don’t want to jinx it. She has check ups every 6 months. The next is coming up. I am very nervous. I will keep praying for everything to be fine.

    Thank you for taking the time to read the other thread again. I will be 27 this year. My grandmother is staying with my aunt, she went a couple of weeks back. She will stay there for a couple of months. There was no helper since the pandemic started.

    You are right, my childhood has affected my brain. But I am afraid I won’t find people for the healthy supportive social interactions. You are right, my “tail” wags often but I quickly realize the other person does not care. I don’t think I will meet a dog with it’s tail wagging. I am not saying I’m special but people don’t function like me. It’s mostly just superficial fun or give-and-take. I find myself more drained after social interactions. With even some wonderful people I met at work who I still keep in touch with and we go for walks often. All my new interactions and experiences are built on top of my underlying (I don’t know how to describe it) “self”. I hate that self now. I’ve had enough of always being anxious and scared and unfulfilled. I want to wipe it out and start fresh. I feel exhausted.

    I am not fishing for sympathy but I am ugly by societal standards and I won’t easily find love. Most people are not looking to love or find love. They have other standards I won’t meet. In this reality, where I will not find love and most relationships are superficial, I’m afraid I can’t rely on others for healing. But at the same time, I don’t know how to heal which is why I am asking for a miracle that someone comes along and wipes everything out and loves me.

    Coming back to this thread, I am feeling really slow and dysfunctional. I am never able to reach the “finish line” and I know I’ve clearly answered that question for myself in my previous replies for why it happened. But I want to know how to fix this. How to be normal. Every new thing I do sucks because of how abnormal my brain is. I want to change that.

    • This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by samy.
    January 5, 2022 at 7:45 pm in reply to: Advice for the lost and weary #390805
    samy
    Participant

    Hi anita,

    It’s me again. I am sorry for leaving this thread without saying a thanks or bye. I was an idiot.

    Girija

    January 5, 2022 at 7:44 pm in reply to: I want to be normal #390804
    samy
    Participant

    Hi anita!

    It’s so good to talk to you again. You probably won’t remember me but I gave you my name back then so I will use it. This is Girija. I hope you are doing well. The threads are still there, I found them. I show up as Anonymous, inactive. I used the same email to create both the accounts, I don’t see an option to reactivate my old account. Would you know where to get that option? Or maybe I could reply on that with the new account?

    I am ashamed of that thread for how it ended. I disappeared without saying anything, but you were so helpful there and I am grateful for that. My conclusion that my problems are beyond the external came from my interactions with you and my own introspections after I left tinybuddha. I couldn’t handle exploring my problems then and simply quit. I am very sorry for doing that. I couldn’t handle it. I left without saying bye or a thanks, I’m very sorry about that. I read that thread now and see how resistant I was to look at the source of my problems. I feel terrible about it.

    You are right I don’t want to take the pain anymore. Honestly, I am not sure if I can either, I am worried I’ll get a heart attack or stroke.

    I’ll bring back the thread with the new account, if you are ok with that, it’s called “Advice for the lost and weary”.  When I do, I am worried you will see who I am and not reply and I can understand that. I am sorry again. I will reply on it with this account. I will own up to my mistake. And I know, I can’t expect you to forgive me, so I won’t but please know I am sorry. Thank you for helping a stranger. You were there on the thread to talk to even through my mother’s surgery. Thank you!

    I’ve been to counselling but it did not work out. I needed a space where I did not want somebody saying everyone has good and bad. I already know that and acknowledge it but knowing someone is also good does not help with this pain, it makes me feel guilty or wrong for feeling this way.

    Girija

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