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Fear of Success/Depression/PTSD/Abondonment

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Viewing 10 posts - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)
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  • June 18, 2018 at 12:25 pm #212951
    John
    Participant

    Hi!

    I was really hoping that I could some insight on this…

    I’ve been feeling the way I feel, (hopeless, dumb, anger towards myself, depressed, and that there is no help for me) for the past 20 years.  I’ll start a job, have a big success and then decide that I hate the job.  I then had a big Interior Design project fall into my lap.  I worked 7 days a week for three months on this and then another two months, 5 days a week.  I finished the job and went right into another project.  I finished that second job and then started to feel an episode coming on.

    As much as my family and friends were excited for me, I started to hate my new job and get nauseous.  This is part of my M.O. that I do with work.  I start to say things like, “I’m not good at this, I’m a fake, it’s only a matter of time before I hate this, I’ll never be successful at this.

    Then, everything hits me: You’ll never find a girlfriend if you live in your mothers guest house, I’ve been single now for 10 years, I feel like l have the plague with women, I’ll never move out of my mothers guest house since I don’t make enough money at this job.

    I don’t want to have a relationship, (I just figured this out) because; I live on my mother’s property, I’m scared to have a good woman because I’ll her down (in regards to my job) and she’ll leave.  Once she finds out I’m on Med’s, she’ll freak out.  I don’t have any self-esteem, confidence in me and my work, and that I’ll quit the job I’m in (no matter how much I like it) and I’m back to my depression.  When I was working for a year and a half that I just finished, I didn’t feel depressed much.  I felt like I was in survivor mode the whole time.

    I’m sure there is something deeper happening that is making me quit all the time and I’ve looked back in past and can’t see where it started.  This work issue has been the vein of my existence.

    I’m back to my feeling of “why live, I’m just going to let myself down and/or keep repeating my same mistakes, and I’ll never fall in love again because I don’t trust myself from quitting a job.

    I’ve done lots of therapy and even got help on here several years ago.  It’s been the same issue for 20 years and I’m just exhausted battling myself.  My doctor who prescribes me medicine just said that I suffer from depression.  I told my family and best friends who were all very supportive.  The Dr. said I must have inherited something from mother since she is depressed and full of anxiety.

    I’ve been literally working on this for 20 years!  I desperately feel hopeless and don’t trust myself not to sabotage myself in regards to work.  I have very very minimal insurance, otherwise, I would be seeing a therapist twice a week.  I’m just tired of trying so hard when I just keep doing the same things over again.  From that comes personal anger, don’t set goals anymore, and have lost faith in myself.  I’m not thinking of hurting myself, but if I got cancer right now I wouldn’t get help for it and die.  Horrible to say things like that, but that’s how I feel.  Oh, and I feel very very embarrassed about quitting all the time, so I don’t tell people what I do or do any kind of marketing for my business.

    Here is the weird thing…I have lots of friends, a loving family, known to be so positive and not bad looking…;)

     

    I would LOVE to hear from anyone on suggestions of how to heal/break through this pattern…I only have so much energy trying to figure this out.

    Thank you!

    John

     

    June 19, 2018 at 5:00 am #213105
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear John:

    I think that the most influential years in a child’s mental development are the childhood years and in those years, the most powerful part is the child’s experience with a parent (or parents). Therefore this sentence caught my eye: “The Dr. Said I must have inherited something from mother since she is depressed and full of anxiety”.

    Do you understand the doctor to have meant that you genetically inherited depression, that you were born depressed, that is?

    And in all the psychotherapy that you had, has there been an understanding of how her anxiety and depression affected the child that you were?

    anita

    June 19, 2018 at 5:28 am #213111
    Airene
    Participant

    Hello John,

    It’s so good that you posted here, at the very least to let out some of your feelings and frustration, and hopefully to find a new direction.  I believe that you do want to break out of this cycle.

    You talked about your job, and your fear of quitting, and sabotaging your successes.  You fear getting in a relationship because you fear letting them down and disappointing them.  What is it that brings on your self doubt, and feelings of “I’m not good at this, I’m a fake, it’s only a matter of time before I hate this, I’ll never be successful at this.”  Is this based on feedback from coworkers/bosses?  Or is this an internal dialogue you keep playing on a loop?

    It sounds like a lot of your time is spent doing your job?  Is that accurate?  What do you do beyond work?  Anything fun?

    Airene

     

     

    June 19, 2018 at 11:04 am #213163
    John
    Participant

    Hi Airene,

    Thank you for the reply! All the below is internal dialogue. My family and my mentor in design says I’m great at sourcing fabric/wallpaper and I “have the eye” for finding the right thing. I’ve had this issue of quitting and sabotaging myself for over 30 years! I have no idea where it came from when I was a child.

    My dream is to finally feel confident in my work (and the rest of my life) and know that I won’t give up on this career.

    I have lots of hobbies, but depression (or resting from work on the weekends) get the best of me.

    Hobbies include surfing, camping, tinkering around my house improving it, entertaining friends, cooking, BBQ’ing, working out with weights, going to my best friends family’s house by the beach to BBQ every Friday. The only thing I still do is go to my best friends every friday. He’s very positive and I have a blast with him.

    Right now, I’m not working on any projects and didn’t want to. Eventhough I like my career, it’s very taxing with clients bitching and working 10-12 hours a day and not having my paychecks reflect that. Then my mind starts spinning and thinking I’ll never get out of my mothers guest house, move back to the beach, have a bitchen girlfriend and most importantly, a healthy self-confidence.

    I’m hard on myself because I know I’m a total badass and that people like me and think I’m very charming, (not to toot about myself). Because I know this about myself and I’m not there, I get really pissed at myself and then go on a downward spiral.

    John

    June 20, 2018 at 10:27 am #213275
    Airene
    Participant

    Hello John,

    I wonder if your conflict is because what is happening on the outside of you is very different than what is going on inside of you.  You say on the outside you are perceived as charming, good looking, a badass.  Yet you fear never getting out of your mothers’ guest house, or having a good woman because you lack a healthy self-confidence.

    What does a healthy self-confidence look like to you?  I can’t say I feel 100% self-confident every day, or that I like all aspects of my job.

    The part about being able to pay the bills though…that’s something I would consider being within your power to change.  Is it solely that you don’t make enough money to get out from the guest house?  Or does it have more to do with how you manage your money?  I guess breaking it down might help define where the problem lies.  If it’s about making enough money…from the way you describe feedback you get about what you do, I wonder if you could charge more for your services?  Would being paid more make it easier to deal with “bitching clients” and working 10-12 hour days?  I think I can tolerate almost anything if I see the payoff being worthwhile, and I don’t mean just the monetary pay off.  Maybe your conflict about your job is that it doesn’t give you enough of a “payoff.”

    Airene

    June 20, 2018 at 12:52 pm #213289
    John
    Participant

    Great insight Airene!

    Yes, there is the outward me and internal me that aren’t in sync.  One of the reasons that’s so frustrating is that my family and friends say I have all the tools to be successful (and I think that as well) but internal me is saying, “you’ll quit”, “you’re not good enough to be a great designer”, etc.
    In design, it depends on the project on how much you charge.  I’ve turned down two clients because I couldn’t justify the time I’ll spend versus what I would get paid.  The last sentence is what gets me nervous and that’s where the downward spiral in my head goes.
    From there, I freak out that I won’t be able to afford moving out and that no great woman would want to be with a man who doesn’t know when his next project will be, (fluctuating income).
    I seem to sabatage myself when it comes to work.  I also don’t feel comfortable at winning, I feel bad for the looser, plus I’m not very competitive.
    That’s why I’m thinking I have Fear of Success happening within me.  I’ve sabotaged all my jobs (even if find success in the job) which keeps me small.
    The payoff seems pretty cool, (creating beauty and making people feel good), except the time spent versus what i get paid is off skewed.
    Not sure where to go from here.  What I do know is that I have to be nice to myself which can be hard since I seem to sabotage myself.
    I was in a deep depression for about 1.5 weeks and I started to pull out of it yesterday.  I feel better today.
    John
    June 27, 2018 at 6:18 am #214387
    John
    Participant
    Hi Anita,
    So happy to hear from you!  You really helped through a tough time a couple of years ago..:)   We worked on me and thought I might have PTSD.  Well, since then my mother and I have a pretty good relationship.  For some odd and amazing reason, she has flipped her vibe and has been really nice and not so anxiety filled these past 6 months.  She feels very very bad that I’m going through this and I feel bad I’m putting this stress on her.  She’s concerned that I might hurt myself, (I’m not).
    In a nutshell, this is the same pattern I’ve had since I can remember.
    1. I’ll get a job, (and this last one as an interior designer was the one I liked the most in my life so far).
    2. I’ll accomplish something big in my career (I had a huge design project land on my lap last year), and I’ll finish it.  I never get excited about my completed accomplishment.
    3. I’ll have feelings of quitting.
    4. I’ll start to feel that I’m not good at this job and everything around work seems like I’m getting very sick to my stomach.
    5. I’ll quit.

     

    Effects this has on me, and I’m just coming out of an episode)-I can’t have a girlfriend because I have thoughts like, “I don’t feel confident enough that I won’t keep this job and she’ll figure me out and leave” . Or, “I live in my mothers guest house, (which I made beautiful), and no good woman will want to date me”
    1. I can’t afford to move out of my mothers guest house.  I did happen to pay off any debt I had, which was nice though.
    2. I’ll have to force myself to work out (which I still am thank god).
    3. I haven’t had a girlfriend in 9 years and I’m very lonely.  I keep picking subpar women, (meaning women I know I won’t stay with) because I have low self-confidence.  Also, I’m afraid that they will figure out who l am and not like me.  I’m always so scared that I’m going to quit, (because those are my thoughts) along with all the above.
    4. I don’t feel confident in myself that I won’t quit.
    5. I’m afraid to really push my design work because I’m afraid I’ll quit and be humiliated with another job I quit.
    6. I don’t feel like I’m a good designer, (even though people say otherwise).
    These thoughts have crushed any self-esteem I have.
    It’s been almost two weeks and I’m feeling better today.  I even want to do a little work!
    I just want to have confidence that I can actually make a living at this and can move out and travel a little bit.
    I just need to learn how to handle my depressive mood swings.  When I’m not depressed, I’m pretty happy!  I feel that a lot of my depression comes from my lack of confidence in my work.  When work sucks, the rest of my life sucks.  My feeling of quitting isn’t there when I’m not in a depressed episode.
    My doctor upped my dosage of Prozac 2 weeks ago and I think it’s working.
    Thank you for reaching out again Anita, you’ve been a wonderful person to get advice from!
    John
    6/27/18 Update:
    Anita, I went to my father and stepmothers house this past weekend and had a good time.  We were talking politics and then I gave them a serious breakdown of what I’ve been feeling for a long time (depression, blockage from succeeding at work) and they were very supportive and didn’t know how bad it was for me.  They were very thankful that I opened up to them.  When I left their house, I was totally depressed for two days.  I think I was really bummed because I just opened up and ripped open a big wound that is trying to heal.
    I usually do snap out of it and I have.  Looking at this, I know I have a lot of negative self-talk and that stops me in a lot of ways as well.  I’ve been digging deep to see where this fear of success stemmed from and I have no idea.  I can think far back where I didn’t do good, (I lost a baseball game for us when I was 8 or 10 and it was a championship game), to selling candy at school and giving it away mostly.
    So in the meantime, I’m listening to Napolean Hill’s “Keys to Success” in the hopes that I can overcome my fear of success and turn around 35 plus years of negative self-talk.  It’s almost like I’m saying in my head, “You don’t deserve success”, “You’re not good enough”,  etc.
    June 27, 2018 at 6:33 am #214389
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear John:

    I didn’t know that we communicated before, there is nothing on record when I click your user name. Can you give me the link to your previous thread where we communicated?

    I am wondering what happened on this thread: I replied to you on the 19th but you didn’t reply to me (while replying to another member) until eight days later. Why is that, I wonder.

    anita

    July 10, 2018 at 4:15 pm #216199
    John
    Participant

    Hi Anita,

    We talked last year about PTSD that stemmed from my mothers screaming.  You gave me some great advice.

    It took a while to get back to you because I realized later that I replied to the email versus going on the board and writing there.

    I’ll see if I can find the thread from a while back..:)

    July 11, 2018 at 4:23 am #216245
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear John:

    I remember now. I didn’t see our previous communication here but I remember that at the time we communicated at length. I remember you lived then, as you do now, in your mother’s guest house in the Los Angeles area, the South Bay, I think. You were concerned about how high rents are, that you couldn’t afford moving out of your mother’s property. At the time you traveled to San Francisco, if I remember correctly, working on a project for a friend. You were also casually dating, cooking for a woman you met. You like cooking. And your mother, yes, screaming at you.

    I think what it comes down to at this point, and has been the same for a long, long time, is that it is relatively comfortable for you to live in your mother’s guest house. You don’t make enough money to afford renting a place elsewhere, not having consistent income. You like the area, the LA area, I think, the beach and living on your mother’s property is comfortable. Now that she screams less, or not at all, what would  motivate you to move out, I am thinking.

    I don’t think you inherited anxiety and depression from your mother. I think her screaming at you created that. I still think it is a good idea for you to live away from her, far, far and away. But I don’t see it happening.

    I think you started a new thread. I will go there next.

    anita

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