Releasing My Insecurities

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TheSkaFish

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This is a long post. I just feel like getting this off my chest. I read that talking about insecurities and negative feelings can help release them so I thought I might as well try to untangle some knots.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the idea that my entire self, my entire personality has turned out "wrong", so to speak. I feel that my personality is almost entirely composed of insecurities. Like I mentioned in another thread, I have had a lifelong battle with this feeling that I am just not good enough, whether it is for making money/getting a good job, learning skills to proficiency, being creative/artistic, getting a girlfriend (especially the ones I'm attracted to), or pretty much anything. I have always worried that my abilities are fixed, and that my level of ability is low. I have had a hard time taking action on many things and I am hardly ever in the mood to do anything that takes effort because I have a hard time shaking this feeling that I'm just going to fail. I have been a quitter in life, and if I have a hard time with something or don't get it right away my first instinct is to give up, that it must be the thing is just too hard for me. Not only that, but I am also quick to assume worst-case scenarios, not only for me and my own life but the entire world. I have developed a habit of complaining since I was a small child, and it doesn't take much to get me started ranting about the various people, groups, institutions, and situations I feel have wronged me. I've also been prone to anger outbursts. Often times, I have felt like my life is out of my control. I struggle with spells of feeling weak and powerless.

I've been retracing my steps to find the roots of these problems, to try to understand where I've been going wrong in my life, why, and what I can do to fix it.

I've been reading a lot of web pages lately about bullying during one's childhood years and the effects from it on self-esteem, self-image, confidence, and on the feelings it can cause after the fact. As I've mentioned in other threads, I went through some bullying growing up. There was this group of smug little shits that really had it in for me. Unfortunately, most of them lived on my street so it wasn't something I could get away from easily. Maybe it was because most of them liked sports and I was more of a reading, toys, and make-believe kind of person. Maybe it's because they thought they were from a wealthier background than me. Maybe it was because I was quiet, agreeable, and friendly, and not aggressive or menacing and they could tell I was confused and didn't know how to fight back. Maybe it was because I didn't have a lot of friends. I can only guess. Nothing physical ever really happened, besides a snowball fight (it was clearly not a friendly one) in which I actually grabbed one of them and threw him down to the pavement because I decided I wasn't going to let him run up and whip a snowball at me point-blank. What did happen was a lot of verbal abuse, and a lot of coming over on to our property uninvited. This lasted pretty much grade through high school. Just a lot of disrespect of us in general.

At the time, I was completely confused as to why this was happening or what I could do about it. I didn't have a muscular build and there were at any time between 3 to 5 of them and 1 of me, so I didn't think physically fighting back was an option unless I used some kind of weapon like a baseball bat but I thought it was no use because I'd just get in trouble for that and no one would listen to my side of the story, I'd be labeled the bad guy instantly for using physical force even though they were verbally abusing me and I was outnumbered, even if I was just trying to defend myself, trying to make it stop. Plus I just didn't want to get on the path of being a violent person, because I thought violent people always lose in the end and I thought getting in physical fights would upset my family and officially make me a bad kid. I wanted to stay nice. I thought maybe the problem would just go away on its own, but if I fought back physically it would only increase hostilities. I also didn't know how to deal with their insults because I wasn't very good at that kind of thing, I wasn't interested in "comebacks" or any of that, I didn't want to start swearing because again I didn't want to be bad, and I just wanted to enjoy my life and be into the things I liked instead of worrying about getting good at fighting with people. I just didn't know what to do. My parents meant well, but didn't really seem to know what to do about it either. And the bullies' parents were either completely ignorant or in denial of what kind of people their kids really were. They were the overly-permissive spoiling type who acted like their kids could do no wrong. So, nothing was ever really done about it and it went on-and-off for years until I finished high school, didn't see them much anymore, and eventually everyone went their separate ways.

In school itself growing up, I wasn't so much bullied as I was just disregarded, I guess you could say. I was a social outcast, not at all popular. Again, I wasn't muscular or athletic, I wasn't a socialite, nor did I have money. I didn't know how to make friends or what to talk to people about. I didn't think anyone liked what I liked and I didn't express my interests because I was worried others thought it was childish and would mock me mercilessly from then on. I didn't want to let down my guard and make more enemies, because I had to see these people every day, I didn't want to have to fight against everyone all the time and didn't think I had the physical build to win fights, and I already had enough ******** to deal with so I just kept quiet for the most part. I was shy and had few friends. People were verbally unfriendly to me here and there, but I wasn't so much constantly bullied by any one particular person or group at school as I was just generally received with either cold hostility or indifference. Almost nobody seemed to want to reach out to me. I didn't really fit in well. Everyone was so interested in acting older than they were, but I wanted to actually be a kid. I wanted to hold on to my innocence while everyone was in such a rush to throw theirs away. I didn't listen to popular music (including a lot of bands that I would enjoy a lot later) because I thought that no one my age could really relate to it and that people just wanted to look "cool" acting angry and rebellious, using it as an excuse to talk about sex and drugs and swearing. My home life was pretty good, and I had no real reason to rebel. I thought I'd be throwing my future away, snubbing and hurting those who cared about me and being "cool" didn't seem worth it. I didn't see any appeal in acting dark, brooding, rebellious, and cocky when my life was nice and it was easy to be friendly. I didn't see any appeal in drinking, smoking, getting high, and petty crime. I was into things like Star Wars, action figures, and LEGOs while most of the other people were into sports, adult TV shows and comedies, and later rap, weed, drinking, and sex. I'd say I had a higher sense of morality than most people (I didn't lecture anyone on this, just personal beliefs), who were lewd, crude, cocky, cliquish, and disrespectful of anything and everything for seemingly no other reason than thinking it was "cool" to be jerks. I didn't like how people acted like they were "better" than others because they had money. I didn't like all the swearing and sexual slang they were into, and I didn't like how they talked about girls. It just seemed so low-brow and unpleasant. I always thought of myself as an intellectual and I aspired to be nice and friendly. I think this would play a role in my confusion about dating later in life.

Not that the girls were very friendly to me either. They might as well have actually been from Venus. I didn't understand them at all. I couldn't relate. I had no idea how to talk to them or what to talk to them about since it didn't seem like there were any who liked the same stuff I liked. I didn't know how guys and girls "liked" each other, I thought it was all about looks and social status, things you just had to be lucky enough to have had from the beginning and not things you could build and develop. And I felt like I had neither. I had heard that girls liked confidence but I thought guys had confidence because they were born with the right things to give them confidence such as looks, money, or talent, or had a naturally confident personality. The ideas that personality was the key component of attraction and that confidence could be built instead of born with didn't occur to me until after college.

I had other miscellaneous insecurities that didn't come from any one area of life. I was insecure about my ability to be successful and make money. I thought maybe my family just didn't have the genetics for it. I know that sounds terrible, I know it's irrational, and not even true but that's what I feared at the time. I thought maybe there was some relation between social success and money, like both came from the same quick, sharp, predator mind that I just didn't have. I worried that I just didn't have the right kind of brain for making money and that a poor person is just what I was because I didn't seem to have a lot of natural aggression. I thought I wasn't smart enough. I thought I had a brain for being nice, not for being successful and that like predators and prey, people suited to kindness or success were fundamentally different.

I had a bad self-image, thinking of myself as a weak, low-status person. I was insecure about my looks, thinking I was too thin, lacking the muscle necessary to win fights, thinking that I looked weird and ugly. Girls didn't seem to want to talk to me much. I thought that I just wasn't good enough for anyone. Like I mentioned I had a hard time expressing myself for fear of unwelcome attention. It wasn't even until partway through college that I began wearing shirts of things that I liked. Due to the bullying and general unfriendliness I was given, I had a lot of anger and shame. I had anger flashbacks about how I should have fought back against the bullies and stood up to those who acted like they were "higher" than me. I had a negative disposition and didn't want to put much effort into my appearance and mannerisms because I didn't want to feel like I was sucking up to anyone. I felt ashamed that any of it happened and that I didn't stand up for myself and feared that if I were meant to be a successful person I wouldn't have been a social outcast. I didn't have any outlet or way to express or relieve myself of these feelings of anger, shame, and inadequacy.

I thought I was over this once I started expressing myself and because I'm not concerned with the actual people involved. I know that I don't need or even want their friendship or approval. fresia them. But what bothers me is how it may have subconsciously influenced me to see myself as a low-status person, as someone with no power and no abilities, as a victim which could have screwed me up for the things I wanted in life by causing me to feel a lot of self-doubt. I wonder if it influenced me to have a negative attitude about life, people, success, and myself. It's been hard for me to have confidence of any kind, because my confidence and self-worth, -image, -efficacy, and -esteem were attacked early in life. They weren't really given much chance to grow and strengthen. I realize that there are many people who had it way worse that pushed past it to great success, so I don't feel like I can use this as an excuse. But I haven't been able to release these feelings yet.

I am unsure how to express myself sexually, for various reasons. For the record, I'm a straight guy with no fetishes or anything startling. I had this feeling for a while that I didn't want to be sexual because I wanted to maintain a level of pride and dignity, I didn't want to act like a caveman. I thought that the lewd crowd was needlessly unpleasant, tasteless, and not thinking for themselves. I didn't want to act like the machos that I felt were cruel, sexist, elitist, and shallow. I wanted to be different, I thought that by being kind and seeing girls as a person first and the opposite sex second that I'd be a breath of fresh air from guys who just want the same old thing. Do I want sex? Yes, but more than that I want a real connection. I want someone to feel like I am special, and I want to feel like they are special to me. But, when I look at my problems, anger, shame, self-doubt, bad self-image, a feeling of being powerless, friendly instead of rough, inexperience and insecurity even talking about sex, much less being assertive about it - I realize that I'm pretty much exactly what women don't like. I never cultivated my masculinity because I thought it meant being like the guys I didn't want to be, but at the same time, if I want a girlfriend it's necessary to have it. I'm still confused about how I can express my masculinity enough to be seen as an attractive, sexual being, but without selling out because I don't think I'm entirely wrong. I don't want to have to start being lewd and brutish, I want to still be nice and friendly. But I don't want to give off vibes of weakness either. I don't want to keep botching things with people that I could have been really happy with, making a bad impression because of my insecurities.

I guess I'm just looking for a way to get rid of all this, beat my insecurities, fix myself and feel empowered.
 
I noticed most of your post is in the past tense - have you started to move on from how you've felt about yourself growing up?
Your experiences mirror mine somewhat when I was growing up. I was bullied ( I call bullying "abuse" - I think bullying is a sanitized buzzword) and I fought back physically a few times, including against boys.
I went to private schools and all the other kids in my high school had parents who were wealthy doctors, attorneys, executives. Not my parents, though. I only went there because it was a Catholic school and we were Catholic. So I never was friends with the "cool" kids. I had a few "uncool" friends though. I clearly remember walking out of the school after our graduation ceremony, still in my cap and gown, and gladly thinking "I will never walk back in here again".
So many years have passed that I just don't care about what happened there any more. Things have gotten much better since then.
I've found my own tribe, so to speak, and I make an effort to seek out like-minded people - I'm fortunate to live in an urban area of the Left Coast and it's not hard here to find people like me. It gets easier as you get through life to spot people who are like you. I don't think there's anything broken or defective with you. Give it some time and I think you will be ok.

-Teresa
 
TheSkaFish said:
I had a bad self-image, thinking of myself as a weak, low-status person.

You don't seem to think that when it comes to jobs. This actually truly surprises me.
 
SofiasMami said:
I noticed most of your post is in the past tense - have you started to move on from how you've felt about yourself growing up?
Your experiences mirror mine somewhat when I was growing up. I was bullied ( I call bullying "abuse" - I think bullying is a sanitized buzzword) and I fought back physically a few times, including against boys.
I went to private schools and all the other kids in my high school had parents who were wealthy doctors, attorneys, executives. Not my parents, though. I only went there because it was a Catholic school and we were Catholic. So I never was friends with the "cool" kids. I had a few "uncool" friends though. I clearly remember walking out of the school after our graduation ceremony, still in my cap and gown, and gladly thinking "I will never walk back in here again".
So many years have passed that I just don't care about what happened there any more. Things have gotten much better since then.
I've found my own tribe, so to speak, and I make an effort to seek out like-minded people - I'm fortunate to live in an urban area of the Left Coast and it's not hard here to find people like me. It gets easier as you get through life to spot people who are like you. I don't think there's anything broken or defective with you. Give it some time and I think you will be ok.

-Teresa

Hi Teresa, first off thank you for making it through that long post. I realize it probably wasn't the most enjoyable thing to read either. I was just trying to....take out the mental garbage I guess.

You are right in that the majority of this is in the past tense. I just went back through my memories and explained everything to try and figure out where these problems came from.

I've gotten over how I felt about myself growing up, and I've learned a lot about this stuff since then. I realized that it's not my fault I was bullied, it's the bullies' fault for choosing to be rotten people. I also realized that it's not my fault for not fighting back - like I said I didn't know that was an option, or perhaps it's more accurate to say that I didn't think it was an option I could or should have taken. Another thing was I guess I didn't want to take the risk - I hated these people and I didn't want to risk losing a fight to them, that would have been so humiliating. Anyway. Since then I've learned how to deal with bullies and that there's really only a few options - be dismissive of them, report them to someone who can do something about it, or stand up to them yourself. I made a mistake in taking no action, but I didn't know any better. I understand it wasn't my fault. By the way, I saw you said you fought back a few times even against guys - you were braver than me :p

As far as the general sense of unfriendliness from my peers, I guess that was just how it was. There were a lot of people, but just not a lot that liked the same things as me. Perhaps I could have been more confident, assertive, and expressive, but again, I didn't know any better. I do wish I'd cultivated my interests sooner though, but that's another story. Also, I don't want to give the wrong impression here - growing up wasn't always a bad time. There were lots of good times too, a lot more. I do feel somewhat foolish focusing on the few bad things when most of it was good, but I guess it's because the good times were fine, they didn't need any explanation. It's the bad times that made me doubt myself, so I needed to re-examine them. As far as "cool" and "uncool" people go, I'm not worried about that either. I didn't want to be friends with the "cool" people because I didn't like how they were or what they stood for, so no regrets there.

With money, I realize there is no such thing as "money/success" genetics or anything like that. It's just that not everyone is interested in doing those kinds of jobs, or having high-end things or whatever. I don't blame my family for that, it wouldn't be fair, mature, or nice and it would dismiss all of the good times we've had. Plus I might not have been into some of the things I really like about myself. Maybe I wouldn't have had the interests I have. Maybe I wouldn't have been as kind and friendly.

As far as finding my tribe goes, I have my friends and they are great. There aren't any problems here either. It took me longer than most to make friends but it turned out just fine.

I don't care about the specific antagonists or events of my school years anymore. My point of all this was that I wondered if they had subconsciously messed up my perception of myself, my confidence, my self-esteem and self-image, and in doing so set me up to make the mistakes I was making in more recent times. I was wondering how to turn that around and replace my self-doubt with confidence.

PS - California sounds really neat, perhaps one day I will have to check it out :)

Thank you again for saying that you feel there is nothing broken or defective with me. It makes me glad to see that.
 
VanillaCreme said:
TheSkaFish said:
I had a bad self-image, thinking of myself as a weak, low-status person.

You don't seem to think that when it comes to jobs. This actually truly surprises me.

Now you see why I hate being called "entitled" so much. Because it is condescending and dismissive of how I really feel (I don't want to turn this thread into that, though).

I still have a hard time with this self-image. The reason why I so fiercely oppose things like going back to minimum-wage jobs or other similar themes in my life is partially out of feeling like I am in fact good enough. But it's also fear that all these insecurities that I have tried to get away from, that I have tried to disprove, from which I have tried to break free, are in fact true and that I was right to have self-doubt, right to think I had no power and that I just can't have, do, or be anything.

If I got a decent job, I would prove to myself that I have some ability. I'd have some confidence. But if I went back to a low-level job again, it would absolutely crush my self-worth. It would be straight back into the old story that I'm just not good enough.
 
TheSkaFish said:
Now you see why I hate being called "entitled" so much. Because it is condescending and dismissive of how I really feel (I don't want to turn this thread into that, though).

I still have a hard time with this self-image. The reason why I so fiercely oppose things like going back to minimum-wage jobs or other similar themes in my life is partially out of feeling like I am in fact good enough. But it's also fear that all these insecurities that I have tried to get away from, that I have tried to disprove, from which I have tried to break free, are in fact true and that I was right to have self-doubt, right to think I had no power and that I just can't have, do, or be anything.

If I got a decent job, I would prove to myself that I have some ability. I'd have some confidence. But if I went back to a low-level job again, it would absolutely crush my self-worth. It would be straight back into the old story that I'm just not good enough.

No, I don't get why you dislike being called entitled - other than the obvious. I think you are a bit entitled. You refuse to take any job you feel is somehow beneath you. And when you're desperate enough and need to get your foot in the door to succeed, you'll push around a broom and a mop just to get that chance. When you continue to say that you don't want to do this job or that job, that's you being entitled and feeling as though you're too good to do a menial job. That is entitlement. Perhaps you don't want to admit it, but that's what entitlement is. It's not about showing your ability right off the bat. It's about you being humble enough to accept a menial job because you're not supposed to start off at a top position.
 
verb
[with object]
1 (often be entitled to) Give (someone) a legal right or a just claim to receive or do something: employees are normally entitled to redundancy pay [with object and infinitive]: the landlord is entitled to require references.

The fact you have to go through an interview before getting something it means it wasn't entitled.
 
Xpendable said:
verb
[with object]
1 (often be entitled to) Give (someone) a legal right or a just claim to receive or do something: employees are normally entitled to redundancy pay [with object and infinitive]: the landlord is entitled to require references.

The fact you have to go through an interview before getting something it means it wasn't entitled.


en·ti·tled
inˈtīdld,enˈtīdld/
adjective
adjective: entitled

believing oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment.
"his pompous, entitled attitude"
 
Xpendable said:
verb
[with object]
1 (often be entitled to) Give (someone) a legal right or a just claim to receive or do something: employees are normally entitled to redundancy pay [with object and infinitive]: the landlord is entitled to require references.

The fact you have to go through an interview before getting something it means it wasn't entitled.

But if you refuse to go to begin with...then you must be somewhat entitled.
 
You can be lewd and brutish while still being nice and friendly and caring. They each have their time and place.
 
Seriously, what the fresia. I made this thread in the hopes of trying to HEAL some long-standing feelings of insecurity, self-doubt, and low self-worth I had and try to learn to feel EMPOWERED, not to have those feelings REINFORCED. I didn't make this just so I could be told, yeah you're right SkaFish, it really IS that you just aren't good enough and that you should just accept it, just roll over and die. It's that you're just naturally a ******* loser.

Aside from Teresa's post, and a few others, the rest of these posts have been totally useless and counter to what I posted in the first place.

I don't understand these people that go out of their way to attack on here. If you don't like a thread don't post in it, and if you don't like a user, don't talk to them. Especially when it's something about their life and not about anything to do with you. Why is that so hard?
 
kamya said:
You can be lewd and brutish while still being nice and friendly and caring. They each have their time and place.

Yeah, I get how that is possible and I get how people can be different things at different times.

But I'm saying, what if I don't want to be lewd and brutish though? But, I still want a girlfriend and you can't attract anyone if you don't come off as masculine. And I think I was going wrong here because I didn't want to be like the examples of masculinity I was shown early in life, and I didn't think it could be done any other way.

I also can't attract a girlfriend or do a lot of other things that require high confidence, self-worth, and positive self-image if my personality is entirely messed up, if I took a wrong turn early and kept going and going in the wrong direction. That's what I was getting at with my post. I am over the early events of my life themselves, but I just wonder if they set me down a path of failure, because I subconsciously built my personality on a bad foundation. If you start out believing that you're a low-status, low-ability person, that there is something wrong with you, and keep going that way, it can put you way off-course.
 
I don't exactly know what to reply with because I'm not that great with words but umm.. Sorry haha. Umm I hope you're doing ok at the moment. If you ever need someone to talk to, don't hesitate. Good luck, friend. :3

Edit: By the way, you're very brave for posting this story. Acknowledge that. :)
 
K0deName said:
I don't exactly know what to reply with because I'm not that great with words but umm.. Sorry haha. Umm I hope you're doing ok at the moment. If you ever need someone to talk to, don't hesitate. Good luck, friend. :3

Edit: By the way, you're very brave for posting this story. Acknowledge that. :)

Thanks. It's okay, nothing to be sorry for.

Like I said, I'm over how I was treated in my youth and don't care about it anymore. But, I just wonder how to fully repair my personality so I stop approaching life feeling like I'm probably going to fail, feeling like there's something wrong with me, feeling like I'm not good enough.
 
I don't really see how my post is useless, but okay. And I never once have ever told you that you yourself weren't good enough. Your attitude is honeysuckle, and the fact that you think that you're somehow too above doing any type of job that could possibly get your foot in a door for a bigger opportunity is unbelievable to me. But I think you're an overall decent guy.

I can see my opinion isn't welcomed, so good luck to you.
 
VanillaCreme said:
I don't really see how my post is useless, but okay.

How could it be seen as anything but inflammatory?

I didn't make this thread to argue but to get rid of these feelings and I'm mad that it is turning that way because it's totally losing the focus.

VanillaCreme said:
And I never once have ever told you that you yourself weren't good enough. Your attitude is honeysuckle, and the fact that you think that you're somehow too above doing any type of job that could possibly get your foot in a door for a bigger opportunity is unbelievable to me.

Again, inflammatory. It's not like I've NEVER done these jobs. I have. That's how I know it's pretty hard to feel good about yourself doing them. It's okay as a teenager, very early 20s - there just aren't a lot of options then. But when you're older than that, it's a self-esteem killer. You're there, and you look around you, and it's like, this is what I am, and I am a loser. It's humiliating. It's confidence-killing, especially for a person who was told they were smarter than average (which I always doubted), who did the things you're supposed to do and mostly avoided the things you're not. It makes me think, maybe I just have no ability, no power because if I had any intelligence, ability, or potential I wouldn't be there. Maybe I can't make it. Maybe all my insecurities were right after all. Maybe I'm only kidding myself that I can have, do, or be anything and should just give up completely.

Confidence that I can do better than that (but I don't even know how much better) is one of the few things I have confidence in. And if that too is wrong, it just makes me think, maybe I'm hopeless.

Also, I'm not, nor have I ever intended to tell anyone else how they should feel about themselves in these jobs. Maybe somebody is genuinely happy stacking boxes and it doesn't make them feel inferior, I don't understand it but I don't have to because it's not my life. I'm only saying how I feel about ME being in them. It's about my own personal standards and expectations of what I think I should be able to do.

VanillaCreme said:
But I think you're an overall decent guy.

I can see my opinion isn't welcomed, so good luck to you.

Thanks, I guess.
 
Hey Ska. :)

Good on you for posting such an honest summary of your life. It's not easy and you should be commended for doing it. I'm sorry it hasn't been received in the spirit it was intended.
 
SkaFish, we already had conversations about selected topics that are recaptured in your starting post here, so I'll reply in a broader way...also, because you managed beat me in regards to "length of personal manifesto".

Looking at it through a completely objective lens, there is no such thing as a bad experience. But the conclusions we draw for ourselves and the actions we take based on bad experiences can get us on a good or a bad trail and which way you decide for is completely up to you. So the first thing that came to my mind was also saying that you have to move on - which inevitably involves taking care of yourself, getting your hands back on the steering wheel because you are responsible for sustaining yourself. You are only broken or defective if you ultimately label yourself this way.

When it comes to peer acceptance and finding a partner...you are free to act however you want and you definitely should if you deem it the right thing and does not disagree with your morality. Even if you are okay with yourself (which should be your first goal), not everyone will accept let alone respect you for being yourself, but those who do will do it genuinely. And that's what it's about, right? I'm saying this because...

TheSkaFish said:
But I'm saying, what if I don't want to be lewd and brutish though? But, I still want a girlfriend and you can't attract anyone if you don't come off as masculine. And I think I was going wrong here because I didn't want to be like the examples of masculinity I was shown early in life, and I didn't think it could be done any other way.

Let me rephrase it: "I still want a girlfriend and you can't attract everyone if you don't come off as masculine."

You can go ahead and equal masculinity to brutishness, but this is forcing the term through a really small and outdated bottleneck. You could also equal being masculine to being confident, but does that mean women are inherently less confident because they are not masculine by definition? That's a bit of mindfuck to be honest. So just be yourself and be okay with yourself. If you are not happy with an aspect, change it. But change it for your own sake, not the sake of others. Some women are into not so masculine (not brutish) men and it's something to consider. You can't expect to be liked for who you are if you wholly dislike yourself of course, constantly reinforcing the dislike with thoughts of inadequacy because you don't live up to some standard others have been preaching.

TheSkaFish said:
I also can't attract a girlfriend or do a lot of other things that require high confidence, self-worth, and positive self-image if my personality is entirely messed up, if I took a wrong turn early and kept going and going in the wrong direction. That's what I was getting at with my post. I am over the early events of my life themselves, but I just wonder if they set me down a path of failure, because I subconsciously built my personality on a bad foundation. If you start out believing that you're a low-status, low-ability person, that there is something wrong with you, and keep going that way, it can put you way off-course.

You are aware of all these things though, so this is not really happening on a subconscious level anymore. This awareness enables you to stop and turn around and get back on the road you'd like to be on. Especially if you are "way off-course", it's better to start retracing your steps as soon as possible because it's such a long way back. As I said before, no such thing as objectively bad experiences. Just events and consequences. And the conclusions to be drawn are solely up to you.
 
TheSkaFish said:
Seriously, what the fresia. I made this thread in the hopes of trying to HEAL some long-standing feelings of insecurity, self-doubt, and low self-worth I had and try to learn to feel EMPOWERED, not to have those feelings REINFORCED. I didn't make this just so I could be told, yeah you're right SkaFish, it really IS that you just aren't good enough and that you should just accept it, just roll over and die. It's that you're just naturally a ******* loser.

Aside from Teresa's post, and a few others, the rest of these posts have been totally useless and counter to what I posted in the first place.

I don't understand these people that go out of their way to attack on here. If you don't like a thread don't post in it, and if you don't like a user, don't talk to them. Especially when it's something about their life and not about anything to do with you. Why is that so hard?

It's easier for them to say "take what you like and leave the rest" than for them to actually put the attitude in practice. I don't really know how I can help you, but I am sorry people chose to misinterpret your posts. I wish you luck in your career searches.
 
lifestream said:
Hey Ska. :)

Good on you for posting such an honest summary of your life. It's not easy and you should be commended for doing it. I'm sorry it hasn't been received in the spirit it was intended.

Thanks. It was only a summary of the bad parts, and like I said, there were lots of good parts too, much more - but they are good so they don't cause me to question myself.

I went into the background to explain some things but I don't want to focus on details like how I feel about low-wage jobs or things like that because it's not really the point, it's missing the forest for the trees. I guess that is my fault because when I respond to things and I am tired and rushed, they tend to come out argumentative/generally badly. I only explained that to show where this started. I wanted to focus on the deeper things, the feelings of WHY I feel low confidence and low self image and HOW I can make a full personality recovery.
 
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