Stubbornness, probably 🙂

I try to be more subdued and I sometimes even decide to just give up, but that never lasts. Mind you, burning brightly and being enthusiastic isn’t always such a great thing, because I can still lack goals and a sense of purpose. Most of the time I don’t know what I’m doing, but I do that very enthusiastically 🙂

Hello Pink Salmon!

It’s sad to read about your resignation from life and I’m sorry you find yourself in the position you’re in right now. I don’t think there is anything wrong with you. At least not any more or less than there is anything wrong with any of us. I also think that your feelings are perfectly normal. However, your thoughts are quite harsh and self-defeating. Allow me to elaborate:

We all have basic needs and desires and there is nothing wrong with them. Unfortunately we have created societies that dictate what and when is supposedly OK and what isn’t. So we attach morality into basic needs and things get too complicated. It could be sex or food or any other really basic need that we all have, and due to all kinds of pressures and fears surrounding those needs, our relationship with those needs have been twisted. That can indeed create perversions, because the needs still have to be met, but because of the fears involved, it is no longer authentic. But to desire sex is perfectly normal and of course you know that already.

Now, however, your needs aren’t being met, which obviously causes physical and emotional distress. That’s absolutely normal as well. Where things start to go wrong is your explanations for all of it. Your needs aren’t met and you allow it to happen so the logical conclusion in your mind is that you must not be worth much. It’s what you deserve. That’s the part you should be really skeptical about. We can’t always have our needs met, but it doesn’t mean that it’s because we deserve it. You’re creating a story on top of your experiences that is just that: a story. Just like your wife probably has her own story. The reality and the truth is probably something different from both of your stories.

I’m neither a man, nor have I ever been married, so I can’t truly understand the practicalities of your problem. I do know that it’s really difficult to start changing the mindset from a codependent personality to something healthier when you’re within that entangling relationship. I don’t think it’s impossible though. How other people treat you is one thing, but how you treat yourself and how you talk to yourself is something you can change. It is very unfortunate that you’re finding yourself in a toxic relationship, but perhaps it would be better to not attach morality into how you got into that situation. You’re not in that situation because you are bad or worthless. So I think that mentally stepping back a bit and taking a compassionate look at what is going on might provide you better answers to what you should do.

I feel like this was a bit sporadic, but I hope you understand what I’m trying to say 🙂

I love what Jasmine said 🙂

I’ve got a lot of pointers from different books, and I think that there are some answers to particular problems, but it’s still of course you who has to do the work.

One book, or rather the concept, helped me the most to overcome my biggest problems. It was Susan Anderson’s Taming Your Outer Child. In essence, the idea is that the Inner Child is our feelings; what we feel when we encounter something in this world. It could be joy, fear, anxiousness, etc. The Outer Child acts out the feelings. Unfortunately the actions aren’t terribly mature. So when we feel anxious about something, we might react to it by eating a cake. Eating the cake does not solve the situation that we feel anxious about, and we know that, but do it anyway and then feel shame later. When we feel shame, we might resolve the shame by eating more.

In your case, it could be that you feel under threat in some ways, and react to it with anger and saying things you later regret. It takes over and it’s hard to control. Then later, you might feel bad about it, which pretty much keeps you in that state of being under threat; knowing that you’ve acted in a way that is not socially acceptable, and that can lead to rejection and abandonment. That’s a lot of stress to carry around and leads to a perpetual cycle of anger and fear.

I suffered from all kinds of bad behavior and it really helped me to see this reactionary part that acted out these things as a separate entity from my self. That way I became more compassionate towards myself and was able to slowly start taking control over my own actions. When I noticed that I started to get out of control, I had a dialogue with my “Outer Child”. “No, it’s not a good idea to do that right now. It’s not going to help.” I didn’t yell at myself or cause any more distress. The drama started to die down, because I didn’t allow it to happen and I didn’t make it worse by stressing about it.

So in my humble opinion, it’s not about you becoming a better person. You already are a great person. You just need to learn new ways to cope with the stress in life. What you might’ve learned in your early years has been adequate back then, but now you need a new set of tools. Just like with other skills, hardly any of us are born with them. We need to learn them and develop them. Those skills aren’t who we are, so if we’re not that good at some skill right now, it doesn’t mean that we’re bad.

I don’t think you are an angry person. I don’t think anyone is. That’s just your way of coping with things at the moment. You’ll just need to find other ways to cope with stress and pain.

• This reply was modified 10 years, 9 months ago by The Ruminant.

OK, let me ask you this. Why would you cross your fingers and pray that everything will be OK, whilst thinking that you’re not good enough as a romantic suitor? Why not take control of the situation and yourself, stop obsessing, stop selling yourself short and stop giving away your power?

I wrote a response to this yesterday, but didn’t post it then for some reason. I’m hesitant to start to make assumptions about another person, just because we share a gender. I’m inclined to speak on her behalf, but I know that I shouldn’t. So I won’t. I do have some thoughts on this however…

There’s this one quote I have found to be a really accurate description of the communication problem between men and women. Unfortunately, I can’t now find the original quote, so I’m going to have to paraphrase:

Women confuse sex, but never friendship, for love. Men confuse friendship, but never sex, for love.

So you have women who might feel weird and scared if all of a sudden after what was supposed to be a friendship, the man would expect a romantic relationship. In the same way it may feel weird and scary for a man if after casual sex the woman expects a romantic relationship. Of course this is a generalization, but there’s some truth in it. The problem is that you probably both see the relationship differently. This is an assumption, but it’s a fair assumption. It is very likely that to her, talking about sex and lingerie isn’t the same as sharing a bond similar to that of a husband and wife. It is not meant to be intimate or arousing.

All I can think of how to not risk losing the friendship, but also not driving yourself insane by harbouring unrequited love, is to start creating healthy boundaries. If something she says or does makes you feel confused, then create a boundary there and say that you can’t discuss those things with her anymore because of how it affects you. Be a friend and a fellow human being where it’s natural, and avoid situations where you feel tormented. If you want her to see you as someone who she respects, loves and is attracted to, then you need to treat yourself as someone who you respect, love and tend to your own needs and desires.

Of course if you want it to be all or nothing, then you can take that route as well. If I were you, I would probably say something along the lines of “I’m starting to have feelings for you and it is confusing. I might not be able to be the kind of friend to you anymore that I have been in the past.” That’s setting boundaries and saying that you are protecting your own feelings, but in the same time, you’re not putting pressure on her. A much more favorable position to be in than giving an ultimatum.

I went through a similar phase, after some sort of “enlightenment”. I was happy and content and detached…and the detachment became a problem. I lost all motivation and interest, because I was living in this idea that I was already content. I have heard of other people going through something similar. Though to them (just like it was for me) was trauma -> letting go -> ecstasy -> loss of interest in life, so it might’ve been some other kind of chemical thing as well.

Everything balanced out after a while. I strive for things, am more ambitious, crave passion, etc. It’s just not to prove my worth or to fill some void within. The energy flow is different from before. Instead of grabbing onto things and attempting to pull them towards me, I radiate and occupy my space. There is/was a transition period though when things felt really weird and pointless.

So I think I can understand what you’re going through. It will get better. Just remember to be humble, and not to judge people according to what they seem to be looking for.

Hello Charles!

Is it OK if I also offer my point of view, even though I’m not a man? 🙂

I have also been chronically depressed, and am now like a different person and tremendously grateful for that. I know what it feels like to be stuck in that depressed state of mind and I also know how there’s the need to avoid facing the painful things and pretend like everything’s just fine when something nice happens.

I think that it’s quite easy to fall into that trap, considering that we still have a primal part of our brains fully functioning, yet the society is very different. We can be stuck in a stressful situation even though we’re not directly under any threat. Of course we also try to avoid anything that’s painful, because that’s what we naturally do: avoid pain, strive for pleasure. That’s where the mindfulness comes in, because if you’ll leave your thoughts on auto-pilot, you’ll be stuck in that trap. It’s really not easy and would take a lot of practice, but the alternative, as you have noticed, is less than desirable.

Essentially this is the same thing that Al and Matt are pointing out, just said differently 🙂 Left unattended and uncontrolled, the mind will become cluttered and chaotic. To take control of the mind requires practice. That’s where the different types of meditation come in. It’s kind of like a workout for your brain, where you use it in a different way. Just like starting out with any exercise, at first it’s very difficult and straining. But the more you do it, the easier it becomes and the results will start to show in your everyday life, even when you’re not training.

From my personal experience, you can’t start controlling your mind with suppressing thoughts or arguing against yourself. Rather it’s like passive resistance against the ruminating mind. When a thought comes, just nod and acknowledge it, then let it go. To me, personally, it was helpful to think of it in a way that when ever I start to verbalize anything, I should just stop. I don’t need a constant narration of everything I see or hear. I focus more on just the senses and not trying to make sense of things. That’s how I got my mind-chatter silenced and it is a wonderful skill to have. I used to be really tired all the time, and now that’s gone. I also used to drink to silence the mind, but now I don’t have to. So what ever the technique is that you would use to get to a state where the mind is clear of chattering, it is worth it.

On top of that, when you do talk to yourself, be mindful of how you do it. Try to steer clear from negative self-talk. It’s not helpful. It would be like trying to accomplish something with someone constantly nagging at you that you can’t do it. Complete waste of energy and resources.

Also, I really think that you should treat yourself with kindness for a moment, and not focus on other people. Self-awareness is really, really difficult, so I think we tend to project and try to heal ourselves through other people. It’s like having a bleeding wound in your own arm, and then trying to cure it by wrapping a bandage around another person’s arm. Of course it not only works and makes your own condition worse, it also hampers the relationship you have with the other person. It is understandable why we do it, but it’s good to be aware of doing it. Be compassionate towards yourself, be kind towards yourself, send all the love that you have towards yourself.

I have tons of book recommendations, and probably none of them are specifically suitable for this situation 🙂 Taking care of yourself is in the same time really simple and easy, but also something that has taken a lot of time for me to figure out (and I’m still on that journey). Not any particular book has been helpful, but all of them have offered a different angle on the same issue. I’ve gotten help from Susan Anderson, David Richo, Nathaniel Branden, etc. Then something that seems to be completely unrelated, but has been helpful in figuring out the practicalities of taking control of your brain has been The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonical and The Practicing Mind by Thomas M. Sterner. I know that those really have nothing to do with depression, but they allowed me to understand the problem of having an unattended mind filled with chaos and stress, which does promote depression.

Regardless of which approach you’ll take, please be understanding and compassionate towards yourself. There might be breakthroughs that will make you feel invincible, and then you’ll come down and feel desperate again. There’s frustration and pain and confusion, but it is totally worth it all. Every step that you take on a path of healing is meaningful, even when you sometimes take steps back or get sidetracked. All the love that you’ll give yourself will accumulate over time and will win in the end, so don’t fret. Just be patient.