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Mental Wellbeing Thread


HexMachina

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5 hours ago, Theda Baratheon said:

I never did anything like that. I think it might have been good for me. I like people & groups 

Well mine was part of a dedicated ‘program’ of therapy at a residential eating disorder unit where I lived for over half a year. As well as the individual sessions we did group sessions like mindfulness, and there were other things too like art therapy and so on (and for the U18s we had some school lessons too). I still have my fortnightly timetable in a draw upstairs.

I was surprised how effective I found group therapy as I a more The opposite to you - very introvert, hate groups and talking to others. But like I mentioned, this was a very supportive close knit group which helped a lot. Not sure how I would have found it with a group of total strangers

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Hello 

I've read a couple of pages and although I'm no through reading I can see that this has helped you folks and that makes me feel happy for you :grouphug: also sad to know that you still have struggles but I suppose it's just the nature of these issues to take time and be persistent . 

Anyway I'm not sure if what I'm feeling is an actual thing but I suppose it couldn't hurt for me to talk about it since it's been on my mind and the more I think about it the more petty and silly I seem to myself but here goes . 

I have huge difficulties making emotional connections with people . I'm not anti social or anything, on the contrary I have many social relations whom I regularly join in social activities , we invite each other to meals , go out to events , participate in sports ...etc.  friends , normal friends and I have good relationships at work with my colleagues some of which I consider friends ...which all seems fine and dandy but the issue is that I don't really feel deeply about any of them , I enjoy their company ,otherwise I wouldn't do it but I just don't really feel connected to them or that I care much ... like I know this is callous but the best way I can put it is that if they all disappeared tomorrow I wouldn't really blink . I'd be like "huh , unfortunate . " 

The deepest relationship I have outside of my parents(who I don't really count considering I see them like twice a year ) is with my dog (I'd kill for him lol ) and I really don't like this emotional isolation. It feels like I'm missing out on a huge part of life . I want to have deep and meaningful relationships with people but I don't seem to be able to do it no matter how hard I try . 

I haven't really considered professional help as a serious option because this always seemed like a trivial thing that I thought I'd get past but seeing as I'm getting older now ( I'm 27) and haven't seen much improvement( some deterioration actually) I believe I should look into it . 

I dunno what this rant really is but I'm guessing I just wanted to let off so thanks for giving me the space to do so .

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I feel with you all! Especially since I know fairly well how suffocating depression and loneliness is.

I think these last two weeks I hit a brick wall. A brick wall that I've seen coming for the last few months. Teacher training is hell and I'm wondering why the heck an antisocial idiot with a truckload of haunting trauma decided to become a teacher. Oh yes, it was to do a better job than the ones allowing my childhood to be shot to pieces. Because I thought since I'm already fucked beyond saving, I could at least dedicate these shattered remnants of a failed life to do something positive. I'm still proud of thinking like that. I still think it is a necessary crusade. But right now I'm getting terribly aware just how much my social incompetence and my total inexperience with positive human interactions harms me in my job.

Thing is, because there are so many history teacher trainees at my school, I somehow drew the short straw and unlike the others neither got a class with my actual subject, nor a teacher put aside to brief me what the hell I am supposed to be doing. I was now pretending to be a social studies teacher for the last three months and basically just stepped from one utterly failed lesson to the next. I basically scrapped my plan for the sequence after every single of these lessons and tried to approach the subject from every angle I could think of, at least until I came to the conclusion that I should have said "Fuck it, I'm doing it like one of my history lessons" right from the start.

... only that I then realized that even that would have meant jack-shit. I'm now fully behind my lesson and my examiners straight out told me that my methodical planning is perfectly fine. But I lost the class and don't think I ever had a chance to get it. Every single lesson 60% of the students had nothing better to do than loudly complaining about why they even had to do something. And I... can totally understand their position. Having lessons at 4 p.m after an 8 hour day is torture. But of course, I still have to work with them, I still have to at least try to get them involved in these topics. But no matter what I did, the complaining never subsided and just ever grew more hostile the more I tried to reason with them. Mostly because they knew there were no consequences for them, their headmaster only always wants to endlessly talk things out with them and portrayed me as the incompetent fool who doesn't know how to teach shit. All of this culminated this Monday, when I wanted to experiment with a new room structure my examiner thought would be beneficial to my presence in the room and yet all the student openly refused to comply even after I made a show of writing reprimands into the class register. If I ever had a working alliance with these kids, now it is gone. I'm ending this semester with total refusal of them to comply with even the most harmless suggestions.

Damn it... summer break starts next week and I'm going into it as a frustrated wreck. I don't need a break, I just need one single fucking moment of accomplishment. I can't just shuffle from failure to failure to failure and hope that I miraculously become able to think of better things. My computer science class is fine, but it's so tiny that I cannot consider that teaching and it was missing so many lessons due to school activities, I barely saw them anyway. Therefore this social studies class is the only thing dominating my first months in the job and it's a freaking nightmare. It also doesn't help that the school has no plan whatsoever in how to deal with problem classes, leaving every teacher to fend for himself and making my insecurity of how I even can legally enforce discibline very pronounced.

But that leads me to the core problem of it all: I have absolutely no relationship to these students. Something that was never my problem. I never had that when I was jobbing as a Math tutor and never had it during my half a year of practice semester (where I already was teaching at school, a larger class of the same age even, just with my  actual subject). I know that I'm often considered distant and demanding, but friendly and supportive. But not here... with this class, I'm only distant and nothing else. I avoid them. I ignore them when they try talking to me and walk away. At first because I was horribly guilty about pretending to be a teacher of a subject that I don't know and hoped they wouldn't notice when I reduce my contact with them to only the most necessary stuff. But right now I'm still avoiding them, but mostly because I have a hard time being friendly to many of them and don't want to confront them too openly with just how frustrated and depressed I am because of my failures. Of course I am aware that whatever strain there is only my working alliance could be somewhat mended by developing a personal relationship with them. But how? I don't have personal relationships with anyone whatsoever, damn it! I never had. I always was the lone wolf fighting against everyone else, I never had anyone's support or even just a friendly hand reached out to me. I'm just that unlikeable, just that messed up. So how should I know how to reach out to them? Right now I am just incapable of understanding them. I know they are frustrated, I know I am frustrated, but they never even wanted to give me a chance, so how should I be able to reach them and show that I have only their best interest in my mind?

Tomorrow is some sport event where I have supervision duty. I know this should be the best chance to get some kind of a relationship with them. But I know very well that I will not be able to get that chance. I will avoid them again, avoid the conflict that would inevitably happen. Damn it... I really can't handle being hated this much...

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12 hours ago, Toth said:

I feel with you all! Especially since I know fairly well how suffocating depression and loneliness is.

I think these last two weeks I hit a brick wall. A brick wall that I've seen coming for the last few months. Teacher training is hell and I'm wondering why the heck an antisocial idiot with a truckload of haunting trauma decided to become a teacher. Oh yes, it was to do a better job than the ones allowing my childhood to be shot to pieces. Because I thought since I'm already fucked beyond saving, I could at least dedicate these shattered remnants of a failed life to do something positive. I'm still proud of thinking like that. I still think it is a necessary crusade. But right now I'm getting terribly aware just how much my social incompetence and my total inexperience with positive human interactions harms me in my job.

Thing is, because there are so many history teacher trainees at my school, I somehow drew the short straw and unlike the others neither got a class with my actual subject, nor a teacher put aside to brief me what the hell I am supposed to be doing. I was now pretending to be a social studies teacher for the last three months and basically just stepped from one utterly failed lesson to the next. I basically scrapped my plan for the sequence after every single of these lessons and tried to approach the subject from every angle I could think of, at least until I came to the conclusion that I should have said "Fuck it, I'm doing it like one of my history lessons" right from the start.

... only that I then realized that even that would have meant jack-shit. I'm now fully behind my lesson and my examiners straight out told me that my methodical planning is perfectly fine. But I lost the class and don't think I ever had a chance to get it. Every single lesson 60% of the students had nothing better to do than loudly complaining about why they even had to do something. And I... can totally understand their position. Having lessons at 4 p.m after an 8 hour day is torture. But of course, I still have to work with them, I still have to at least try to get them involved in these topics. But no matter what I did, the complaining never subsided and just ever grew more hostile the more I tried to reason with them. Mostly because they knew there were no consequences for them, their headmaster only always wants to endlessly talk things out with them and portrayed me as the incompetent fool who doesn't know how to teach shit. All of this culminated this Monday, when I wanted to experiment with a new room structure my examiner thought would be beneficial to my presence in the room and yet all the student openly refused to comply even after I made a show of writing reprimands into the class register. If I ever had a working alliance with these kids, now it is gone. I'm ending this semester with total refusal of them to comply with even the most harmless suggestions.

Damn it... summer break starts next week and I'm going into it as a frustrated wreck. I don't need a break, I just need one single fucking moment of accomplishment. I can't just shuffle from failure to failure to failure and hope that I miraculously become able to think of better things. My computer science class is fine, but it's so tiny that I cannot consider that teaching and it was missing so many lessons due to school activities, I barely saw them anyway. Therefore this social studies class is the only thing dominating my first months in the job and it's a freaking nightmare. It also doesn't help that the school has no plan whatsoever in how to deal with problem classes, leaving every teacher to fend for himself and making my insecurity of how I even can legally enforce discibline very pronounced.

But that leads me to the core problem of it all: I have absolutely no relationship to these students. Something that was never my problem. I never had that when I was jobbing as a Math tutor and never had it during my half a year of practice semester (where I already was teaching at school, a larger class of the same age even, just with my  actual subject). I know that I'm often considered distant and demanding, but friendly and supportive. But not here... with this class, I'm only distant and nothing else. I avoid them. I ignore them when they try talking to me and walk away. At first because I was horribly guilty about pretending to be a teacher of a subject that I don't know and hoped they wouldn't notice when I reduce my contact with them to only the most necessary stuff. But right now I'm still avoiding them, but mostly because I have a hard time being friendly to many of them and don't want to confront them too openly with just how frustrated and depressed I am because of my failures. Of course I am aware that whatever strain there is only my working alliance could be somewhat mended by developing a personal relationship with them. But how? I don't have personal relationships with anyone whatsoever, damn it! I never had. I always was the lone wolf fighting against everyone else, I never had anyone's support or even just a friendly hand reached out to me. I'm just that unlikeable, just that messed up. So how should I know how to reach out to them? Right now I am just incapable of understanding them. I know they are frustrated, I know I am frustrated, but they never even wanted to give me a chance, so how should I be able to reach them and show that I have only their best interest in my mind?

Tomorrow is some sport event where I have supervision duty. I know this should be the best chance to get some kind of a relationship with them. But I know very well that I will not be able to get that chance. I will avoid them again, avoid the conflict that would inevitably happen. Damn it... I really can't handle being hated this much...

It sounds like you hate yourself more than your students ever could. Kids can be nasty and sullen and rude...but it’s part of the territory. It really sounds like you need to help yourself - meeting new people is scary, it really is but being friendly is easy. I’m depressed as heck and I can still fake being friendly - can you try meet ups or something? Go to local interest groups? Having friends and cultivating personal relationships outside of work can only help with your actual work. 

Sorry I’m probably not being helpful at all but you might not have grown up with love surrounding you but it doesn’t mean your life is doomed. You’re only in your 20s right? It’s  not too late at all...but if you have the attitude that it is...it will be.  

Despite being very friendly and polite I am INCREDIBLY solitary - I do most things alone and get very nervous meeting new people and finding it pretty hard to connect to a lot of people but building up relationships and friendships takes time. 

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On 6/21/2018 at 9:49 PM, Theda Baratheon said:

It sounds like you hate yourself more than your students ever could.

Can't exactly deny that. It's just frustrating that it has now started to affect my work... when the professional self I created to stand in front of a class is essentially the only part of me that I don't hate... and the only part of me that actually has some kind of fun (if things are going smoothly, that is).

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It really sounds like you need to help yourself - meeting new people is scary, it really is but being friendly is easy. I’m depressed as heck and I can still fake being friendly - can you try meet ups or something? Go to local interest groups? Having friends and cultivating personal relationships outside of work can only help with your actual work. 

I actually have a whole list of reasons going through my head why it is impossible for me. Starting by the fact that I would have to build up everything from scratch, given that I obviously don't have friends and are too messed up to ever make any. There is also the way that deceiving people in order to make myself feel better doesn't sit well with me... I always feel horrible whenever I attempt to hang out with people not because I genuinely care about them, but because I'm focused on training my socializing skills. But even that I can only do when I feel fine.

If there is one thing I have learned it is that people will turn on you and kick you further down the moment you show weakness. That's where my reflex to push people away until I fix my problems stems from... and I know that it is mostly just an unfair trust issue (even though it is an expectation in which I have yet to be proven wrong...). Right now I feel utterly terrible, am just shuffling from day to day and am barely able to erase these negative thoughts out of my head. These last days I was thinking about how messed up and far beyond saving I am pretty much every single wake moment. So why should I want to burden anyone with such a person if they can live perfectly fine without? Or why should I risk exposing myself to the risk of getting betrayed again and again and again? These are the questions that make it utterly impossible for me to develop any kind of relationship.

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Sorry I’m probably not being helpful at all but you might not have grown up with love surrounding you but it doesn’t mean your life is doomed. You’re only in your 20s right? It’s  not too late at all...but if you have the attitude that it is...it will be.  

It's more like I'm already 25. That's pretty doomed if you ask me. Or rather, if I'd ask anyone else. I wasted my school life being outcast and bullied by an entire shithole village and my college years caring for my mother struggling from a ridiculously messy divorce. My life had been such a shit-show that I've sometimes wondered whether I'm in some kind of sadistic version of the 'Truman Show' where the producers want to see how long they have to push me into the dirt until I break. All the experiences you are supposed to do in these years went straight past me, not to mention the severe trust issues and plethora of other quirks that make me weird and distant. If I'd ever trust anyone enough to make them see this side of me, they wouldn't touch me with a 10-foot-pole. Not that it is much better right now anyway.

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Despite being very friendly and polite I am INCREDIBLY solitary - I do most things alone and get very nervous meeting new people and finding it pretty hard to connect to a lot of people but building up relationships and friendships takes time. 

I see what you mean... and think I understand your own take on things. But... well, this is time I barely ever have. I guess I could make use of the summer break to make experiments, but I honestly have absolutely no idea how I would go about it and how I could stop myself from letting any relationships just die of neglect right away. Because this is always how my experiments go: I make some kind of acquaintance, but they only hold for as long as you see yourself eye-to-eye and afterwards just fizzle out the moment I stop putting energy into them. Because obviously I can't expect other people to care enough to for once put energy into it themselves.

Ugh... I know, I am just so ridiculously contradictory. I want to trust people, but always expect them to betray me right away. I want to feel appreciated, but can't make myself to love people in return. And most of all, I want to make friends, but can only give misery. That's the main reason why I feel wretched and selfish. Whenever I start to care about a person, I feel all the more certain that they don't deserve being burdened with me.

... and I'm deeply sorry. You have your own issues to deal with and now I've come and vomitted this nonsense into the board. I'll probably come back and delete it later on anyway...

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On 6/22/2018 at 3:12 PM, Toth said:

I actually have a whole list of reasons going through my head why it is impossible for me.

It's only impossible because you insist it is.

On 6/22/2018 at 3:12 PM, Toth said:

Starting by the fact that I would have to build up everything from scratch, given that I obviously don't have friends and are too messed up to ever make any.

Starting from scratch isn't the end of the world.  In fact, it can be a benefit, since you can begin exactly where you want.  But the idea that you are "too messed up" is false and that you insistently adhere to that line of thought is what actually holds you back, not any problem you may or may not have.  The very fact that you reach out to people here proves that you are capable.  That you throw yourself back into a cycle of negative emotion and negative thinking keeps you in the same place though.

On 6/22/2018 at 3:12 PM, Toth said:

If there is one thing I have learned it is that people will turn on you and kick you further down the moment you show weakness.

Some people will.  Most people won't.  Do people here do that?

That some people are shitty people is not a reflection on you.  Let me say it again, people's shit behavior is not a reflection of your worth.

On 6/22/2018 at 3:12 PM, Toth said:

So why should I want to burden anyone with such a person if they can live perfectly fine without?

Because it isn't a burden.  Human beings are social animals.  The only thing that makes you a burden is interacting with people in a manner indicative of being one.  And the only reason you are interacting like that is because you imagine yourself as such.  It isn't a fact, it's your perception and like all perception it is biased and limited.

On 6/22/2018 at 3:12 PM, Toth said:

Or why should I risk exposing myself to the risk of getting betrayed again and again and again?

Because you can't let other people's poor behavior inform your own.  It is terrible that people have betrayed you.  It isn't fair and it isn't just.  But the world is such that these kinds of things can and do happen, just.  And worse, they happen to good and decent people.  That's not the tragedy though, that is just a fact, existence is difficult.  It is fret with injustice.  The tragedy is that you've allowed bad people to corrupt you.  If you walked out of your house and someone just came up and punched you in the face, would you then say, "well, why risk leaving the house now?"  No, you'd say, I did nothing wrong, the perpetrator is wrong, the perpetrator is evil.  And you go right back to leaving your house, because that is the right thing to do.

That people might betray you is their flaw.  It isn't a flaw of you to have trusted.  To trust is a virtue.  Sometimes it hurts to be virtuous though.  But the alternative is to be just like the evil ones who betray.  Which way do you choose?

On 6/22/2018 at 3:12 PM, Toth said:

That's the main reason why I feel wretched and selfish. Whenever I start to care about a person, I feel all the more certain that they don't deserve being burdened with me.

Let me share a quote from a recent book with you:

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Humanity, in toto, and those who compose it as identifiable people deserve some sympathy for the appalling burden under which the human individual genuinely staggers; some sympathy for subjugation to mortal vulnerability, tyranny of the state, and the depredations of nature. It is an existential situation that no mere animal encounters or endures, and one of severity such that it would take a God to fully bear it. It is this sympathy that should be the proper medicament for self-conscious self-contempt, which has its justification, but is only half the full and proper story. Hatred for self and mankind must be balanced with gratefulness for tradition and the state and astonishment at what normal, everyday people accomplish—to say nothing of the staggering achievements of the truly remarkable.

We deserve some respect. You deserve some respect. You are important to other people, as much as to yourself. You have some vital role to play in the unfolding destiny of the world. You are, therefore, morally obliged to take care of yourself. You should take care of, help and be good to yourself the same way you would take care of, help and be good to someone you loved and valued. You may therefore have to conduct yourself habitually in a manner that allows you some respect for your own Being—and fair enough. But every person is deeply flawed. Everyone falls short of the glory of God. If that stark fact meant, however, that we had no responsibility to care, for ourselves as much as others, everyone would be brutally punished all the time. That would not be good. That would make the shortcomings of the world, which can make everyone who thinks honestly question the very propriety of the world, worse in every way. That simply cannot be the proper path forward.

From Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life.  I'd highly suggest reading it.

On 6/22/2018 at 3:12 PM, Toth said:

It's more like I'm already 25. That's pretty doomed if you ask me. Or rather, if I'd ask anyone else.

Not if you ask anyone who has a good sense of the state of the world right now.  And honestly, right now, you don't and anyone who would look down on you doesn't either.

At 25 I still lived in my mom's house.  At 29 I still did.  Now, at 36, I own a house, am married and have a bunch of kids.

You don't know.  You never know.  You imagine you do.  I did too.  You're wrong, just like I was.

You've gone through unfortunate suffering and yet here you are.  The world has been cruel and unfair and yet here you are.  So give yourself the credit for having made it through.  Give yourself the benefit of the doubt, as you would give anyone else at how the circumstances dictated less than ideal strategies to cope.  And now, give yourself permission to be flawed, as we all are, and try to do better.  How much better could you life be, if you didn't add to your own suffering with such an unnecessarily negative and pessimistically skewed self-image?  The world is already tough enough, why make it tougher?  It isn't any more true to view yourself like that, because we are all flawed, we all struggle, we are all shackled with more than we can bear.

It's what we do with the suffering that marks us.  Do we wallow in it?  Do we fall to nihilism?  Or do we bear it?  Triumph over it?  Suffering doesn't define us.  It's how we deal with the suffering that defines who we are and who we will become.

Seriously though, find yourself a good clinical psychologist and talk this out.  You don't need drugs, you need to change your frame of mind.  Apologies if I came across to blunt or too preachy though.

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I could not have said it better than H myself, Toth.

the problem isn’t your inherent self; the problem is your belief that you’re worth nothing and that your life is doomed. It’s not. My god - you’re ONLY 25 and you have higher education and decent work experience under your belt!!!! You’ve done way more than a lot of people already. 

You have SO MUCH TIME to ‘start over’ to meet people, make friends. Why do you feel so guilty that you socialise mostly for yourself? Everyone does. Humans are social creatures. You don’t just INSTANTLY magically have a well of love for your friends and would do anything for them - getting to KNOW people and trust them and care about them takes TIME. Time you have. PLEASE don’t think you’re doomed. You’re really not. 

People reinvent themselves all the time -people in their 70s and 80s and even 90s gain new hobbies and cultivate new skills and meet new people. 

The only thing holding you back is yourself - it truly is. You need someone to help you realise that - it’s  all internal. The world isn’t against you. Shitty things have happened to you and I’m sorry and you’ve taken it upon yourself to assume those bad things were your fault and I’m sorry. 

But they aren’t. 25 is still young as hell. I’m 24 - finishing my MA, living with parents, learning to drive and often I feel the same as you - I think oh my god how am I not in a brilliantly job right now when I was a kid I thought 20 year olds were all real proper adults and I’m already 24!!! Then I realise what B.S that is - that’s kids thinking. To think a 25 year old is old and not just beginning their life.

please realise the problems aren’t outside of your control - and the biggest one is what you think of yourself. When you work on that and alter that everything else will follow. 

Youre in a tough job but you’re there doing it. I admire it. 

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I was going to write a long response to you post, Toth, but Theda and H beat me to it. My daughter is a teacher and while doing her degree in  Edinburgh had a class from hell just as you did. My wife was a teacher and had one also. Every teacher has a class like that at times during their career. 

As for friends, right now you have three people offering you support. You are not alone. :grouphug:

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1 hour ago, Theda Baratheon said:

The only thing holding you back is yourself - it truly is.

Well, a minor nitpick, but I think it might be important to come to the proper state of mind to overcome things: the world might well be holding you back.  The crux of it though is that if the world conspires, in it's arbitrary and capricious way, you can overcome it.  You can work and sacrifice and better yourself; you can gain allies and set up circumstances in your favor.  When you hold yourself back though, you can't overcome anything, because you are yourself the source of your own detriment.  You sabotage yourself, then blame "the world" for all of your problems.  Be your own ally, you've got enough things working against you, you don't need yourself to be another one.

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Thanks, I guess. By now I am feeling somewhat better. Not quite out of the slump, but certainly not anymore in a position where I am constantly absorbed by negative thoughts. Distracting myself with stuff certainly helped. I'm also thankful to the responses. Sorry if I am not able to reply with similarly detailed thoughts.

17 hours ago, .H. said:

It's what we do with the suffering that marks us.  Do we wallow in it?  Do we fall to nihilism?  Or do we bear it?  Triumph over it?  Suffering doesn't define us.  It's how we deal with the suffering that defines who we are and who we will become.

Oh, I agree with pretty much all you've said. And am well aware that it's mostly in my head. But here is the thing: No matter what I do, my past is a part of myself. I do regret that it still regularly comes back to drag me down, but I am unable to just shrug it off and pretend it never happened. Therefore whether the suffering itself or the dealing with it is the defining factor, it doesn't make much of a difference to me. In many ways my past drives me. It drives me to be better than those who hurt me or let it happen, it drives me to leave a positive mark on other people's lives to make up for it. The downside is that this usually happens in a very self-sacrificial way. I will crusade for the future of others and only for others. Selfishness only distracts from that goal. And if I were succeeding, I would actually be fine with this. Because getting closer to my goal is pretty much the only thing that makes me happy (even though I do have some trouble appreciating the steps in between because I always regard them as nothing but necessities).

When it comes to getting professional help... well, I'm a teacher trainee. Seeking help has dire monetary consequences when the public medical officer sees my medical history and says I'm unfit for the job.

17 hours ago, Theda Baratheon said:

the problem isn’t your inherent self; the problem is your belief that you’re worth nothing and that your life is doomed. It’s not. My god - you’re ONLY 25 and you have higher education and decent work experience under your belt!!!! You’ve done way more than a lot of people already.  

Well, I never said my life is doomed. My social life is. I was just frustrated that this was for once bleeding into my professional life. Something that shouldn't be happening at all cost and which threw me out of whack quite a bit.

I should also mention that I don't blame myself for the shitty things that have happened. I know fairly well that there is no point in it. I do however blame myself for not making any progress whatsoever when it comes to socializing and that it has mostly become too late. I will try to work on myself this summer break, trying to get out more, trying to reawake some of the acquaintances I've had, but I'm also well aware that I won't be able to do anything more than baby steps. And that everything I do is unlikely to have any lasting impact.

17 hours ago, Theda Baratheon said:

People reinvent themselves all the time -people in their 70s and 80s and even 90s gain new hobbies and cultivate new skills and meet new people.  

The thing is, if I have to pretend to be a totally different person just to make friends, I am fairly certain that I don't need any.

Argh, my answers are now again so negative, but that's what it is. I will just keep on moving forward, whether I succeed with anything or not.

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I don’t think Theda means pretend to be someone you aren’t, just that it’s always possible to change yourself, do new things, gain new skills, have new hobbies, start a new career etc. no matter what your age. If that’s what’s you want

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Yeah; I don’t mean you should reinvent yourself; I’m just saying 25 is like super super young. Peopl in their 90s are gaining skills and meeting people and embracing life. In your 20s life is about figuring everything out. Most people are struggling and self loathing. 

 

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And you say you don’t want to try and make new friendships but then you’re sad you don’t have any...it takes time. Nothing is easy. I struggle all the time and sometimes my friends irritate me and I might not care about every single thing they’re doing but because of years of getting to know and love them I’ve built strong friendships that will last because ive commited to working on them. Even with my best friends it’s a commitment to maintain strong friendships and means you have to work at it. 

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4 minutes ago, Theda Baratheon said:

And you say you don’t want to try and make new friendships but then you’re sad you don’t have any...it takes time. Nothing is easy. I struggle all the time and sometimes my friends irritate me and I might not care about every single thing they’re doing but because of years of getting to know and love them I’ve built strong friendships that will last because ive commited to working on them. Even with my best friends it’s a commitment to maintain strong friendships and means you have to work at it. 

This resonates so much with me. I know some truly wonderful people who obviously care a great deal for me. I care a great deal for them, and find it easy to maintain our friendship at a distance (many of them live some distance away, my uni friends for example). But when they are friends who live close, it takes a really effort on my part to maintain the relationship. Not because I don't like them, but it just takes so much effort for me to feel comfortable going out and seeing/socialising with them. Some days I'm totally up for it, other days I make a conscious and difficult decision not to cancel long arranged plans last minute. Most of these are what I would term work friends, who I haven't know for too long and don't know so much about me and my issues. Made a big step recently though and told one of them the truth. She was really supportive and continues to be. Making the decision to tell her didn't come easily, don't get me wrong. Perhaps ironically, I did so when I was feeling especially low after I had lost out on the job because of my issues. Sort of a depths of despair confession over the phone. (I think the fact I had phoned her clued her in something was up in any case :P I don't do phone calls) 

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6 hours ago, Toth said:

But here is the thing: No matter what I do, my past is a part of myself. I do regret that it still regularly comes back to drag me down, but I am unable to just shrug it off and pretend it never happened.

No one with any sense would suggest that you just shrug it off and pretend it didn't happen.  It did happen.  It did, and still does, have an effect.  The question is, what effect do we allow it to continue to have?  Your very words belie what that effect is, that of dragging you down.  That is what you don't want.  You haven't come to terms with it, you haven't processed it in a way that allows it to be moved on from.  You can't make a journey to anywhere, if where you started just pulls you right back to it.  A circle doesn't get you anywhere.

6 hours ago, Toth said:

It drives me to be better than those who hurt me or let it happen, it drives me to leave a positive mark on other people's lives to make up for it. The downside is that this usually happens in a very self-sacrificial way. I will crusade for the future of others and only for others. Selfishness only distracts from that goal.

And so then, what of your own future?  Selfishness, in the correct proportion, is not a distraction from the goal of helping others.  And that correct proportion is absolutely not zero.  If you lose your self, what is left to help those others?  If there is no you, then what of your goal?  You are not literally Jesus.  You cannot give literally all of yourself and still help anyone.

It isn't selfish to consider yourself with care.  It isn't selfishness to extend to yourself the same clemency you'd grant anyone else.  It isn't selfish to have needs.  It isn't selfish to have desires.  It isn't selfish to consider your own interests before those of others.  It isn't selfish to actually use the same amount of concern, conscientiousness and consideration as you would anyone else.

Honestly consider, how would feel if another person treating someone you care about in the same manner that you treat yourself?

You would never treat someone else with the same contempt with which you treat yourself.  That isn't self-sacrifice.  That is self-annihilation.  It's not a virtue, it's a vice.

If you give others everything of yourself, then there is no you and there is no one to help them.  Help yourself and you will help others.  Lift yourself up and you will lift others.  If you throw yourself in the dirt, you can't help anyone.

6 hours ago, Toth said:

And if I were succeeding, I would actually be fine with this. Because getting closer to my goal is pretty much the only thing that makes me happy (even though I do have some trouble appreciating the steps in between because I always regard them as nothing but necessities).

And this is exactly why I say above what I do.  You admit that this "destroy myself in the service of others" mentality isn't working.  Being happy when helping others is good and noble.  It's a great way to find meaning.  But to annihilate yourself in the process is absolutely, 100%, no doubt, counterproductive.  Not only from the sense of working toward the actual goal of helping people and doing so meaningfully, but from a literal self-preservation goal.  If you destroy yourself, who will help them then?  If there is no you, who will help them?  Then, what have you accomplished besides your own ruin?  Like I said before, you aren't Jesus, no one needs you to die for them.  They need you to live for them.  And to do that, you need to actually actively foster your own well-being.  Starting by respecting your own right to be.

Since I am not actually a therapist, I can deign to be blunt and for it, I apologize.  But your mentality is 100% bullshit.  You shouldn't accept the treatment of you by yourself.  Since you do, you type all that out about how we should accept that you are damaged and deserve your own unjust treatment.  You don't.  And you expect that somehow, we should accept your poor rationale for why such biased treatment is just.  We don't.  We won't.  I won't.

Your view and treatment of yourself, and further rationale for your own self-destructive behavior isn't acceptable.  I won't accept it, mostly because it is absolutely false, based on faulty premises and biased perception.  I wish this was a clinical setting, because this runs deep.  It isn't though, so I have to try to make due with what crude methods I can.

I'm not going to accept your treatment of yourself and if you won't take a stand for yourself, then I will.

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I need to get this off my chest. My loved ones like to think that they know what's best for me and how to treat my mental health. I know they mean well, but they've never been in my shoes. They've never had social phobia and mild depression. "Oh just get out there and do this and that". Yeah well, it's fucking easy for them to say that. I just need them to back off and if I want their advice, I'll fucking ask for it.

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34 minutes ago, KingintheNorth4 said:

I need to get this off my chest. My loved ones like to think that they know what's best for me and how to treat my mental health. I know they mean well, but they've never been in my shoes. They've never had social phobia and mild depression. "Oh just get out there and do this and that". Yeah well, it's fucking easy for them to say that. I just need them to back off and if I want their advice, I'll fucking ask for it.

This is always hard. What was helpful as a youth living with her parents was having family therapy sessions alongside my own. Something to look into if you are spending significant time with these loved ones

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On 6/27/2018 at 2:47 PM, .H. said:

Honestly consider, how would feel if another person treating someone you care about in the same manner that you treat yourself? 

To be honest, I'm treating myself with the same indifference I've seen people treat each other with all the time. I don't like it, sure, but that's how it is. I do appreciate the 'lift yourself up to lift others up' line though.

Because I'm currently seeing that even when forcing myself to pretend to be sociable, approaching the students and joke around with them during the breaks, I still can't exactly deal with it when I'm actually succeeding. That voice whispering "don't trust them, they are just mocking you" keeps winning my internal fights and when the kids with whom I've interacted start to unexpectedly shout out to me later afterwards, I end up ignoring them again.

... it is weird and I messed up again just as I started to recover and had noticed some reactions of them that made me question that their animosity towards me is as personal as I thought it is. Fine, my last 'lesson' (the last one before summer break of course...) still failed horribly, the students going as far as refusing to return my greeting at the beginning of the lesson and then protested when I called them out on it. But at least I was able to accept their reason that had little to do with me or my lesson and moved on.

Only for the things that happened yesterday to totally throw me off-course again. It's a long and messy story, but it boils down to it that during the badly planned clean-up day, the secondary headmaster of my social studies class told the kids that I will send them home an hour earlier and when I asked him what the hell this is about, he just giddily grinned that it's now my responsibility, it is illegal for them to be sent home without the parents getting a notification, but he will not make that notification (I can't), I will have supervision duty (despite the plan of the school administration saying that I haven't) and he will not support me in any way and will claim that he never gave an okay for sending them home if something happens. I was left stumped and confused and when I tried to call him out on it, he just walked away to his sports lesson. In the end, I had no choice but send them home because 8 hours to clean up their classroom, empty their lockers and clean a 30m² patch of school grounds is seriously far too grand a time-frame for 27 students. Especially now since their headmaster pitted them against me and refused me all the actions necessary to do it legally and by the book.

Fine, a generous interpretation of what he did is that he wanted me to take a leap and take responsibility by doing something necessary, if illegal. But that doesn't change the fact this is not about responsibility, but about taking the blame for something he decided and then wriggled himself out of by shoving the responsibility into my lap and then made a huge scene dripping of plausible deniability so that he can walk away scot-free if it had gone awry. Not to mention that he knew of my strained relationship with his class and still poured oil into the fire by forcing this onto me.

Today then was the barbecue of the teachers to celebrate the end of the school year. I tried to forget what had happened yesterday, I tried to mingle with the teachers and practice socializing, but when this jerkass of a headmaster came and asked with a wide grin whether I survived the shit he pulled yesterday, all the anger and frustration of this first half a year came bubbling up, I snarled at him 'No thanks to you', walked away and left a bit later after it was clear that I was trapped in far too much negativity to interact with anyone anymore.

I guess if I were in a normal state of mind, this wouldn't have caused me this much trouble, but right now I'm just too much in need of a single kernel of success to deal with it. It's like I'm walking a tightrope while being horribly out of balance. I make two steps forward and then something makes me come crashing down, forcing me to start right from the beginning. I want to make progress, I want to take up these opportunities at being normal, but I obviously can't make anything with them when I'm just one misstep away from being plunged into a spiral of negativity and depression.

Gah... these last weeks I kept telling myself that I don't need a break, I only need a single positive moment. But right now I need a break... hopefully with positive moments.

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