Alex,

I too am drawn to others who have mental health conditions similar to mine. People who “get it” are really nice to have around: I can be of help to them, they can be of help to me. But yes, to an extent only; I can’t make someone quit drinking, for example. That has to come from the drinker.

I rarely regret trying (positive) things that are out of my comfort zone. In fact, it is necessary for my treatment that I do such things on a regular basis. I’m very familiar with Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, and DBT skills have been very helpful. One of the parts about extreme emotion, when it’s not justified, is to act opposite to it. In other words, if I’m afraid of dating yet want to do it, I need to do it. I’ve had an almost complete dearth of positive feedback on dating websites. Admittedly, most people look at the pic(s) and judge based mostly on that. Given the format of dating websites, people are supposed to list age, sex, job etc. Since I don’t have a job, that’s another thing that can easily turn women off to the idea of a relationship.

But, ideally, I’d like to meet in person. Maybe I can go back to the dating site and use that as a springboard to meeting in person. However, I think women see the lack of job and my being overweight (I don’t lie about such things :)), and they move on. If I were to meet a woman solely in person (say, by happenstance at a bar or something), they’d see me and see how I look, but they’d also notice my personality, and I think that’s the best part of me.

DBT also helps with unwanted, obsessive thoughts. I work a lot to lessen them, though it doesn’t always work out like I want. I sort out what I can control and what I can’t, and the things I can have some level of control over (lessening the occurrence/impact of negative thoughts) I do all sorts of exercises for. The “what ifs”, I think, will always be with me. Logically see most of the “what ifs” as pre-judgments and probably not likely to happen at all; that doesn’t mean that my mind doesn’t believe the “what ifs”.

Growing up in a household where I had to be hypervigilant and scan for threats, and protect myself by hiding from them, means that I spent my entire childhood “what iffing”. “What if Dad comes home and has a fight with my sister?” This particular “what if” actually happened many, many times. It was the norm rather than the exception. My worries about life at that time were justified, and I protected myself as best I could. Nowadays, I don’t need to protect myself like that, and yet I do anyway. Old coping mechanisms that don’t work for my life now. So I act opposite in a lot of ways, and I have success with that (particularly in the exercise realm), but the idea of relationships scares me though I want it so much.

The work thing: last job I had was 7 years ago I think. Without going into lots of detail (this post is already very long as it is), I started to have panic symptoms because I wasn’t able to complete the work in a timely and accurate fashion. It was a flood of worry that felt like it it was blinding me. Indeed, I started to dissociate, and the world seems swimmy and dreamlike and ungrounded. Of note also is that prior to this job I would hold onto tons of resentment about every job I had before it. I despise authority figures (makes sense given the Dad stuff), and have told supervisors/managers to eff themselves at least twice.

But, to distill, I’m afraid because I believe I’m not good enough for any job, because I loathe the meaningless (or so I perceived at the time), mindless nature of jobs I have experience with (retail), and I’m afraid I’ll become emotionally compromised and get mad and get fired again.