Hello All,

I am touched by your replies – it means a lot that you take the time to read and reply.
I read all of your replies with a lot of interest.

I feel a lot different this evening. I did a lot of soul searching and being honest with myself yesterday and today….
I realised that I was afraid of being judged by other people, and being found to be not good enough. But, I also realise that people are going to judge me whatever, and that’s ok, it doesn’t matter. Whatever they think is what they think, and that’s fine. What I think is more important.

I also realised more, and where it came from. My mum didn’t listen to me when I was a child, I was shoved away, she didn’t have time for me ever, and I think I translated that as not being good enough, not being interesting enough. That made me put a lot of pressure on myself, I felt I had to ‘be interesting’, and to carry the conversation so that people would want to spend time with me. Which ultimately massively drained me and tired me out more and more quickly when I spent time with people.

Matt – thank you for such compassion and warmth and for the prompts which really helped in my despair. And knowing there are caring and supportive people like you.

Tony, thank you for reaching out to me. Anything similar in my realisations that you relate to? I’ve been doing EFT (emotional freedom technique) for a while to help me, it’s not always easy alone though to say or phrase things to unlock the realisation. And it was EFT that led to such a dramatic difference from yesterday/recent times to today.

Jess – thank you for your thought. I hadn’t thought of it as a control mechanism before and I think (extremely simplistically) that’s what OCD is about. Yes it is control – to keep ‘safe’ even though it’s not really safe! Thank you for your very compassionate and loving suggestion.

Lisa, thank you for the suggestion. I have done this Buddhist chanting 🙂 but not for a while. I use EFT now, have a look into it. I love your suggestions for monitoring internal dialogue and thinking of new terms and visualisations.

Perhaps I have more to realise but I am feeling better. I do a lot of self introspection, so perhaps I made some realisations quicker than most people – I just couldn’t understand this. Don’t underestimate how bad I was feeling by how quickly I have turned this around.
Thank you again 🙂

Hi Al,
Thank you for your kind response although I am not sure you understood my problem. I do agree that we are all the same and I do often find that talking with strangers, sharing a few words in the queue or a smile with someone passing by means a lot and provides a lot of comfort, especially when I am unable to connect with those close to me, with non strangers, and I have given the same advice to others.

However, would you agree that this isn’t enough for all of life? We do need to be able to connect closer with some people, it is important and necessary as human beings to connect in all ways, it is important for our spiritual growth and our connection as humans to be able to live with others in our lives as well as being able to live and be happy alone.

And would you not agree that fear and immense pain are not things to tiptoe around, but are to be faced and deal with, which in my original post is what I am trying to do. I don’t want to live in immense pain or fear that I will be hurt by others, I want to live in freedom and joy. This was the purpose of my post. It’s not about my social skills or about how others are, it is about me and this problem that is stopping me from living spiritually freely.

Me shying away from other humans and being afraid to connect to loved ones and those who are in my life is a problem. It is a problem if I can’t let good connections become closer out of fear, if I am holding back from connecting out of fear. It is not showing love for myself most importantly, let alone love for others. If it is causing me immense pain I want to deal with it, not hide away from it!

Thank you for your lovely words, you have a beautiful way of writing.