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self sabotage 101

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Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
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  • May 31, 2017 at 11:37 pm #151496
    greenshade
    Participant

     

    Hey guys!

    So recently I was involved in a project I really believed in, I was sort of drawing my sense of purpose from this project. My partners in this project were people similar to me who also really believed in it and overtime I had grown to develop deep friendships with these people. However, recently a financial backset happened that made everyone act in a way that was negative and hurtful to each other. My response to trouble has always been to run and isolate myself and I really tried to avoid that by actively reaching out. I fought my impulses for 2-3 mths. However, things are not back to normal yet. The extended period of disruption and infighting has left me feeling exhausted and cynical. I am having a hard time trusting anyone in that group anymore, and have withdrawn as a result. I also find it difficult to focus on the thing I was previously interested in, and have been unable to make myself work on similar projects even though I have the opportunity.

    So simultaneously I feel like I’ve lost friends and something I was really passionate about.I have other friends who I am still making time for, but while I value those friendships for what they provide me :lightness, laughter, a break from my thoughts, those are superficial friendships. We do not have very similar interests and I do not share the less conventional aspects of my personality with them, because I know those aspects of my personality will be difficult for these friends to digest.  In the absence of other, deeper friendships I feel a little incomplete.

    At the same time, I have found that my therapist was not a lot of help in dealing with this, as she focuses on positively reframing most things, and while that has helped me sometimes it does not fit every situation. In certain situations it can be more harmful than helpful because I believe I need to feel emotions even if distressful to their completion. As a result, I haven’t been to see her for the past week or so. I do not know if this is the right decision, but I can’t bring myself to schedule an appointment.

    So I have been feeling a little like I’m floating in mid-air without a lot of concrete things to rely on. This has led me to the sort of obsessive behavior I had in the past, which is trying to lose myself in either music, or a tv show or a fantasy world. I am not quite sure how to pull myself out of this, as the obsessive impulses are quite strong and I have not been able to control them.

    I would appreciate you guys’s wisdom/advice on how to understand, process and deal with this situation! Should I fight my instinct to withdraw? If not, how do I create a concrete floor for myself so I don’t float of into my obsessions quite as much?

    M

    June 1, 2017 at 6:24 am #151510
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear greenshade:

    Focus on your participation in every interaction. What happened, according to my understanding, is that your interactions with co-workers on the project were satisfying and exciting for you for a while. Those interactions became the concrete ground you stood on.

    Following financial distress, those interactions deteriorated and the concrete ground you were standing on was taken away, and so you feel like you are “floating in mid-air without a lot of concrete things to rely on.”

    Since you cannot control other people’s actions, other people’s participation in the interactions with you, and you can only control your participation in interactions with others-

    focus just on what you can control. Let what you can control be the “concrete things to rely on”- the ground under your feet.

    anita

    June 1, 2017 at 8:58 am #151536
    pinchofattitude
    Participant

    Hey greenshade,

    I can see why you want to revert back to your old self when losing a relationship when you put so much time into it cannot be easy.

    Like anything else in life, when everything is going well, everyone is happy and willing to interact with you but when the opposite happens that is when you know who you real friends who.

    From what I can understand based on what you wrote is you want to improve the way you deal with people rather than “to run and isolate yourself”, with this in mind you cannot focus on what others do but to focus on yourself and what you can control.

    If you can do that, things will change for you and it might also bring back some of the people that you once enjoy the company and start the process of interaction again.

    xoxo

    Pinch of Attitude.

    June 1, 2017 at 8:48 pm #151600
    greenshade
    Participant

    Hey Anita and Pinch of Attitude! Thanks for replying!

    I think what I’m struggling with right now is that my will to maintain (or put effort in) in those or other interactions is gone. I’m back at the place where I feel like I don’t need to be engaged with other people. From my own past experiences, I know that this is an erroneous belief, and I know acting on it will cause more harm than good in the long run. However, my “feeling” of not wanting to connect is stronger than my knowledge that I should connect.  So I’m sort of caught in this dichotomy and don’t quite know how to resolve it.

    Best,

    m

    June 2, 2017 at 5:39 am #151640
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear greenshade:

    Well put: “my ‘feeling’ of not wanting to connect is stronger than my knowledge that I should connect”- it reminds me of the advice my then therapist gave me, it is a certain therapy tool, one of many, that he passed on to me. That tool is “do the opposite”. In certain contexts, it works.

    At the time I had the “feeling” (in the sentence I quoted) of anger toward a particular person but had the “knowledge” that he was nothing but kind to me. When I practiced doing-the-opposite, I held his hand when angry, instead of, let’s say snapping at him. That helped!

    And so, do the opposite. We can’t control how we feel. The only thing available for our choosing is our behavior. Once you choose to behave a certain way, your feelings will likely adjust to fit the behavior.

    anita

    June 3, 2017 at 9:15 am #151762
    greenshade
    Participant

    Hi Anita!

    Doing the opposite is sort of how I’ve been dealing with my avoidant behaviors in the past and like you say, it has been helpful, mostly in terms of being able to maintain relationships. Continuing to do that. My underlying feelings of lack of trust haven’t changed so far, but I guess it will take time. In the mean time, I’ve started a new hobby to distract myself from focusing on this too much.

    Best,

    M

    June 3, 2017 at 10:11 am #151766
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear greenshade:

    Distracting oneself is one of those tools. Doing the opposite, distracting oneself, experimenting with something new, all within reason, these are useful tools.

    Best to you too-

    anita

    June 5, 2017 at 6:46 am #151944
    Fingerist
    Participant

    Hi Greenshade,

    You have invested a quite amount of your time and energy on that project.

    It seems that there has not been a proper closure and you feel sorry for the project ending before it’s completion.

    You might consider creating some kind of closure by yourself.

    When you encounter a thought or situation with loose end you just think through it.

    No need to imagine what might have been if things were different.

    Make a list of lessons learned and friends earned.

    Then move along, your life is awaiting.

     

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