Dear noname,

I hear you – you feel that people are dismissing your problems and want to fix them, rather than hearing you compassionately and “sitting with you” in your pain. You say your therapist is good at doing that, but others, like your roommate, aren’t. It does seem to disturb you a lot, because it appears just having your therapist see you and validate you isn’t enough, but you’d need more people to do it. That’s why you need a support group too, which you’re afraid to attend to due to confidentiality issues.

Now, the practical side of me – the problem solver – would like to offer an advice to perhaps look at online support groups, rather than in-person ones, so not to compromise your anonymity in the city you live. It shouldn’t be a problem to find such a group, since I believe quite a few popped up since covid…

Perhaps you’re annoyed by this advice, and in general by people offering solutions, because there’s a part of you that doesn’t want to move on. Have you considered that? What would happen if you’d become successful in your career? Is there somewhere in you a fear of success, a fear of healing and moving beyond your past, which keeps you stuck in one place?

To Tiny Buddha fam

I’ve been following this page for a while.

I’m just wondering if anyone has had a similar experience and could shed some light on how to improve the situation.

I’ve been feeling pretty shitty since I was 12. Nothing particularly happened I just lost interest in a lot things and became pretty insecure. It got worst in high school. when I was in grade 12 (I was 17). I decided to change for the better. I’m 21 now. so much has improved. I’ve reduced so many bad habits like stress eating, maladaptive daydreaming, paranoid thinking.  I’ve implemented journaling when I’m stressed, dancing, regular exercise, balanced diet.

I have written thousands of pages unpacking my thoughts/emotions etc, letters to people etc. I’m genuinely so invested in trying to improve the quality of my life because I don’t see the point in being alive if you don’t at least try to enjoy it.

my work is in align with what I want to do. I do feel some sense of purpose and enjoyment with what I do. The difficulty level isn’t too much for me.

I have seen and felt improvements in my mood and behaviours. It is easier than it used to be.

Unfortunately about every month and a half I slump/crash. literally for 2-3 weeks. I become incapable. I can’t study, I can’t focus, I become a recluse, all the purpose and enjoyment gets sucked out of my life. Everything in my life feels like a distraction or a shitty coverup for this deep empty feeling I have.

It used to feel really physical. I was extremely fatigued, couldn’t get out of bed. It was hard to do the basic things. I implemented some healthy coping mechanism to help pull me out of the slumps. It does work, and over the years the slumps become less and less physically exhausting. They are mostly just emotionally draining. But it still interrupts my life, work, study.

I’ve tried to look online to find something to explain this but I can’t find anything. There are a lot of articles written about slumps but i couldn’t find anything about experiencing slumps extremely regularly.

Its still happens now every month or so and i just want to know what it is. I genuinely really want to address it but I just don’t know why it keep on happing all the time.

I am a girl and it does not coincide with me period. So its not hormonal I don’t think.

when I’m not in a slump i just feel mostly normal. Obviously normal for me still feel a bit grey and empty, especially when i don’t have ‘distractions’ around me but its still liveable, i still can look forward to things and have some aspirations.

I don’t know if I’m just impatient and it takes a while to overcome these feelings and improve your life. Its only been 3 years since I’ve been proactively trying to improve my life. Maybe that’s really not that long in the scheme of things.

but anyways if anyone know what it is pls share, i would love to hear your experiences

Dear anita

ahh yess, my mistake. I will do that shortly

thankyou also noname, because I related to your post and it inspired me to write my own post.

thankyou

Dear noname:

You are welcome to post anytime and keep your thread going and going. It is definitely not too long. If you look at the first page of topics, there is an ongoing thread of 144 pages. Counting the pages of all your threads (counting..) only 38 pages. So, please, keep going.

This is what I understand to have happened yesterday: you went on a group bike ride, received compliments and thought to yourself: “maybe I am actually special”. Next, your abusive inner critic, in the guise of Mr. Humility, said something like this (using some of your words): ‘you are feeling special, are you??? Well, you are not! Your idea of yourself is inflated!.

Next, your abusive inner critic proceeded to deflate you: ‘you are not special, you are cocky and an ass for thinking that you more valuable than other people!

My voice/ thoughts: 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).

The abusive inner critic took on something good (that feeling-special), and being the ass that it is, it attacked you, spewing nonsense about ego and humility, scaring you into being “very much afraid of seeing (yourself) as ‘special'”- while all along, seeing yourself as special will make you a better person!

“I’m very much afraid of seeing myself as ‘special’ because I don’t believe anyone is more valuable than another”- I agree that everyone is equally valuable: we are all equally special in our ability to think and feel, imagine and hope and desire and dream.

In addition to this basic equality of specialness, some people are better at performing certain tasks and are special in this or that area.

In our daily lives we sometimes notice/ sense the specialness of this or that other person and we don’t notice the specialness of others. That’s okay, we don’t have the time and ability to sense the specialness of each and every person that crosses our paths. Sometimes we sense our own specialness- that’s natural and healthy. It’s a good thing.

As a matter of fact, in my last post to you on April 15, I sensed your specialness and told you so. I genuinely felt it, it was an emotional conviction, a certainty. I still feel it now, as I remember having felt it on that day.

anita

Dear noname:

You are welcome. “I wonder how to allow myself to feel special, worthy, or important?”- when you get punished for feeling special by the abusive inner critic, no wonder you are afraid to feel special. Got to disarm that cruel critic and replace him with a fair, empathetic and respectful inner critic.

Regarding your concern about “helping out of a selfish need instead of a love for people”, as a therapist and otherwise, not wanting to be like your father who helped others “under the guise of being a Good Samaritan and getting an ego boost”-

(1) putting aside the term “ego”, it is okay to enjoy a positive emotional boost as a result of helping other people, it’s natural and okay.

(2) focus on communicating with the person you are helping truthfully. You don’t need to tell the person you are helping much of what you think and feel, but what you do tell him/ her, make sure it’s the truth, nothing pretentious. Better say less than more when you are in doubt about being truthful. Focusing on  what you say being truthful should help with your imposter syndrome.

(3) unlike your father who placed other people first, helping them while you and your sister were tired and hungry- place yourself first, help yourself before you help  others. Once in a while, during the day, stop and ask yourself: how can I help you now? (think of the person asking this question as the replacement inner critic I mentioned in the first paragraph of this post)

anita