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June 24, 2018 at 7:21 am #213863NeoParticipant
Disclaimer: Too long (probably boring) story..
I’m the eldest son of a conservative family. Until I was 16 years or something, nothing in my life is exciting. I was that kid in the school whom nobody remembered going with. Nobody knew I existed. With luck and lots of help, i completed my college degree. In short I can support myself now and earn decent living. Even though my existence was insignificant I had few dreams. I want to do masters degree now. I have to prepare for exams which are conducted every year to get admission into the colleges. I’ve been studying for it since two years. Almost everyone of my college mates are either settled, doing masters or have done masters and secured well paying jobs.
I haven’t done any big things yet but of the small things I did, I poured all of myself in them. You know that perfectionist cliché- “does perfect things but extremely slow and sometimes doesn’t complete the tasks because something isn’t done right”.
Because I think I can do much better if I had knowledge and skills that any typical masters degree would offer, I have no other option. I can’t settle with this. But I’m not able to crack the exam and start my masters.
I’m not doing well in my personal life too. I always thought i’d never find someone who thinks I’m good enough to have in their life. Yet as it turns out, I did find someone. She was the most terrific girl I’ve ever had privilege of knowing. She accepted almost all of my shortcomings, she supported me in everything. She was the first person I opened up more than I ever did my whole life. She was like my very own personal Angel I could ask for suggestions or share concerns and doubts. We’d talk for hours about the type of house we’d own and types of plants we’d grow in backyard, the cutlery we’d buy, or whether we get a Dog or Cat and what’d be its name.
Soon those beautiful times came to an end. I failed my exams miserably. It took a toll on me. I had gained a lot of weight during the preparation time and soon I had sleepless nights. Even getting up and brushing teeth became big task. I skipped meals. All day I’d just lie on my bed staring at the ceiling or at the ticking analogue clock. My stomach would gurgle indicating its ready to receive breakfast. I had zero interest to have anything. Soon I’d hear another sound and it was 1pm already. I lost a lot of weight and became so skinny, people actually asked me if I had terminal cancer.
All the while this was going, she was out of town. She was trying to be supportive despite her busy schedules of meetings.
I couldn’t be with her. And I ended it. She was hurt a lot.
From my childhood I was empathic of every creatures. I’d feel awful when saw people being mean to animals. Yet I couldn’t feel a thing when I ended my relationship even when my girlfriend was crying in phone, begging me not to end it.
I felt guilty for long time.
I feel worthless.
It was my birthday recently and I actually had to force a smile just because it was my birthday.
Any input would be really helpful.
June 24, 2018 at 8:05 am #213909AnonymousGuestDear Neo:
You wrote: “Even though my existence was insignificant I had few dreams”- in reality, you having been born and alive, your significance is not lesser than any other human. Yet you believe that your existence was/ is insignificant. And so, I ask myself, why you believe that way.
You wrote that you had dreams… even though your existence was insignificant. It is as if you were not supposed to have dreams, as if you borrowed something that other people have, dreams. Other people, being significant, have dreams. So you stepped into a … sort of fantasy land where you too could have dreams.
But the belief deep inside, that you are insignificant, will not allow the dreams to come true. Interestingly, even when a person who believes he is insignificant, even if his dream does come true (example, passing an important exam), the person still feels miserable, right after the first emotional high, perhaps.
And so, it is the belief that you are insignificant that needs to be looked at. What do you think?
anita
June 24, 2018 at 9:53 am #213921NeoParticipantDear Anita,
Thanks for your views..
“But the belief deep inside, that you are insignificant, will not allow the dreams to come true. Interestingly, even when a person who believes he is insignificant, even if his dream does come true (example, passing an important exam), the person still feels miserable, right after the first emotional high, perhaps”.
Maybe you are right in what you said above. I did experience exact same thing. People say whatever I’ve done till now is good enough to live a decent life. Yet I see no accomplishment. I’ve a younger brother. He is that son every parent boasts of and proud of. He achieved almost all of those wishes my parents had on me. I could not do anything that would make my parents proud.
I always thought that hard facts are more important than the faith/believe. You can’t possibly believe you have skills to fly a jet unless you have actually flown one. So I think in order for you to have a sense of accomplishment, you should have facts to back it up. And I don’t have any.
I had read somewhere that one should separate his profession, family and society from his sense of self-worth. Because the moment you base your self-worth on these, you start to measure it from others’ validation.
I have been thinking how to do that exactly.
Right now, passing that damned exam and securing a seat in that university is all I can think of that would help me come out of this. But in the long run, Grades, Degrees won’t bring happiness to me. I want to be able to look beyond those and don’t base my decisions on them.
Did any of this made sense to you? Sounds more like a rambling to me.
-Neo
June 24, 2018 at 10:07 am #213923AnonymousGuestDear Neo:
The belief that you are insignificant took hold in your brain when you were a child, when your parents expressed to you that they were not proud of you (“I could not do anything that would make my parents proud”).
I do hope you pass this exam you are studying for. But this core belief, that you don’t have what it takes to make your parents proud, is in your way of studying effectively. This core belief causes anxiety that interrupts your brain from operating at its best.
Parents often enough communicate such damaging information to a young child who takes it in, naturally and automatically, as the truth, not being capable of evaluating such information.
And as often as this happens, the messages parents pass on to the child are incorrect and so, the core beliefs formed are also incorrect.
anita
June 25, 2018 at 2:23 am #213969NeoParticipantDear Anita,
Thanks for your views. I hope you are right.
Yeah changing those core beliefs would help me work optimally. I hope I change it soon and get over those things.
Lately the guilt of hurting my girlfriend by breaking up with her is taking hold on me. We still speak sometimes but that closeness is gone.
Let me figure out something.
Again, Thanks a lot for taking time and replying. I appreciate it.
-Neo
June 25, 2018 at 3:40 am #213977AnonymousGuestDear Neo:
You are welcome. Clearly you have low confidence in your abilities. You wrote in your original post: “With luck and lots of help, I completed my college degree”. You assign the credit of your college degree completion to luck and help from others, not to your abilities.
Clearly, you believe that you are not good enough, “I always thought I’d never find someone who thinks I’m good enough to have in their life”.
The reason for having low confidence in your abilities and in general feeling not good enough is that your parents were proud of your brother but not of you, “I could not do anything that would make my parents proud”. What this means is that you tried, you did things, but they either ignored what you did, or expressed to you that what you did was not good enough, insignificant.
You wrote: “You can’t possibly believe you have skills to fly a jet unless you have actually flown one”. But you can believe that you can learn the skills successfully if, as a child, for example, when you presented to your parents a drawing you made in school and either one of them took their time to look at your drawing, with pleasure and appreciation, and comment on how much they like the way you used green and red in the apple tree you drew.
As far as your guilt- from what you shared you did hurt her. It is unfortunate. But notice this, when we are hurt, as you have been hurt as a child and onward, it is impossible to not pass on that hurt somehow. I am not in any way… recommending to pass on the hurt, of course not. What I am saying is that it is not possible not to, somehow. “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”, I hope I am quoting it correctly, this is a law of physics. A thing or a person cannot not react to hurt.
All you can do is do your best to heal from your original, early hurt, so there is no more hurt to pass on to others.
I hope you post again with your thoughts and feelings.
anita
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