Dear Regi:

I am glad you did start your own thread. Now I know what that specific thing that was said, what you referred to in your first post, two days ago.

I wish your big brother didn’t say that. But he did.

Anxiety is fear. Fear is like fire. It starts and it catches on to anything that will catch it, anything in its way. Reads to me that this is what happened. The fire started one Saturday night at your grandmother’s dinner table. Then it caught on to every dinner at your grandmother’s, continued to spread to situations with friends and eventually to you being alone at home.

Shame is what you felt that Saturday night when the fire started, “one of the worst feelings I’ve ever had”, you wrote. I know this feeling. I know shame.

Before that fire started, that Saturday night, were there embers, silent embers of shame?

anita

Dear Regi:

I don’t know how I missed your post from five days ago. If I knew of it I would have responded earlier, the day you posted or the day after.

You wrote above about your brother that he is not an a*&^%. Well, he was exactly that on that Saturday evening, at your grandmother’s dinner table when he said what he said.

You asked about my shame, if there was something specific I experienced. My answer: there were many, many events that I don’t remember, some that I do. I don’t have a single memory, like yours, a single  memory that triggered intense anxiety that was not there before and that spread and grew after.

Shame for me started early and it is something I lived with for decades. I am still in the process of healing from it, from shame, from anxiety.

anita

Dear Regi:

“This phobia is my own fault”, you wrote. It is not a wrongdoing on your part, not a choice you made, to blush and so forth. So “fault” is not a good word here, I believe. You are not at fault for blushing and for experiencing anxiety otherwise.

Regarding your question: “Is your own anxiety the reason why you’re helping people on this forum?- there is an assumption in your question that I am helping people. I wish I helped others. But I don’t know if I am helping anyone.

“Because you don’t want them to feel bad?”- I gave up on such expectation some time ago, that is, the expectation that it is possible for me and for anyone else to not feel bad, at times. I feel empathy for others expressing their pain, absolutely, and I do want them to feel better. But when I respond, I do not type anything at all unless I believe it is true to reality. I will not bend reality so to cause a reader to feel better.

I believe that our mental health (and feeling better long term) depends on our thinking and believing being true to reality.

anita

Dear Regi:

Thank you for your last paragraph.

Notice this: I wrote to you in my last post: “You are not at fault for blushing and for experiencing anxiety otherwise.” In response, you wrote: “fault may not be the right word. But still I feel like I only have myself to blame for this anxiety”.

See, my suggestion that you are not at fault didn’t help you, did it. Instead of the word fault you used blame. Still you are taking responsibility for what you are not responsible for.

But I am not surprised my suggestion to you did not change what you believe. I am not at all surprised. After all I didn’t change my beliefs because of other people’s suggestions.

Back to the issue of responsibility: you are responsible only for the choices you make. Blushing is not a choice you make, therefore you are not responsible for blushing. It is not your fault. You are not to blame for it.

Blaming yourself is being aggressive toward yourself and that only increases anxiety.

anita

Dear Regi:

The functional purpose of shame is to point to a behavior that needs to be examined, and if found wrong, then to correct it. As the social animals that we are, each one of us has a personal responsibility, to take good care of oneself and a social responsibility, to not hurt others and to help others at times.

So you had a relationship with a woman who had a boyfriend. You felt shame as a result (before your brother’s comment). The message: this behavior is harmful, at least in potential, to the woman who may be conflicted about this and to her boyfriend who will feel hurt once he finds out, harmful to their relationship. And it is harmful to you.

So, you correct the behavior: stop the relationship with her, resolve to not get involved again with a woman who has a boyfriend or husband. You can choose to share your experience when others are considering doing what you did, so to try and discourage others from doing harm.

Following correction, shame has served its purpose, has delivered its message and should be gone.

In your recent post you referred to this shame as “this curse”, meaning it is not gone. You did end any and all  inappropriate relationship with this young woman, correct?

anita

Dear Regi:

You are in the correcting-the-wrong-behavior stage then. You have been responding to her sexting you, that is the wrong behavior in the last month and a half.

I wonder why you feel that you “need to convince her as well that this madness has to stop”- why isn’t it enough that you believe that this madness has to stop and … stop it?

anita

Dear Regi:

You wrote: “I really want to feel loved by a girl, but her love is bad for my mental health.”

And you indicated clearly that it is up to her whether to harm your mental health or help your mental health. If she chooses to continue her behavior then your mental health will be harmed. If she chooses to stop her behavior, then your mental health will improve.

anita