Hi CBThank you so much for taking the time to express your thoughts. It means a lot to me.
It has been important to me that people recognize that I am different, as that is (was) my belief. I wanted to change that belief and see myself as one of all the rest, just with different problem areas solved or to be solved.
I will be asking the therapist what my irrational beliefs might be, and the one above fits that category. I want to hear from people like you that I am wrong and that I am not different.
I began life without a script and I only recently learned that our belief system makes us who we are. Then I had to find out what my belief system was/is! My naiveté in my older age, as well as younger, has held me back from changing by not realizing I must change my beliefs.
I have learned much on this Board from other people’s words: affirmation for one and its use.
Yes it was important to me that people see me as different, because then people could help me with that difference. In my quest to have an answer for this difference, I landed on AvPD, as some of the symptoms fit, then a psychiatrist validated that, but even they can be wrong. My therapist does not use labels, so I’ve rather dropped that but still refer to it.
Because of my problem, of shoving friends away, when I was younger ‘because I was different' I mentioned that I just might suddenly disappear because after everyone heard about me, I would be shunned. These are just my own thoughts, an irrational belief that guided me, that is now out the window.
I know the feelings in my head but cannot feel them. I am hoping that with a good list of positive beliefs in place, I will change for the better. I have one already from the last 2 emails between my daughter and me. “A____ and I will exchange only pleasant emails.” With that one in place since just yesterday, I have a much more positive feeling about us. That puts Gus out of the picture, as there was nothing but anger toward him. I will (try to) keep all negative thoughts out of my mind.
I needed the Board to see that I don’t FEEL my feelings in hopes that ideas would be forthcoming—and there have been, like a hard shell inside holding them, yet in my mind I know what is a happy thing and what is a sad thing. I suppose I, very young, put feelings into an intellectual position instead of otherwise.
I think that you are sometimes scared of interaction here on the board--scared that you have nothing to contribute and that everyone else does.
That is dead on, CB, as I've never thought of myself as 'wise'.
. But you are also a lot like everyone else and, when you ask what attitudes I see, one that I see is that you don't want to see yourself that way.
More like: One is that I
can’t/couldn’t see myself that way, but this Board and all you wise people are slowly chopping at the block of cement and I have a peep-hole now.
It was just yesterday or the day before when I read that in a certain psychological stance ”
one can have no feelings at all”. There! I read it some place and now that I have seen that, I don’t feel as different because someone else knows about it. I don’t quite understand the theory yet but it just tells me I am normal and not different. I expect everyone did my thinking for me when I was young: i.e. I did everythng I was told and likely never spoke a word of whining or complaining, so their words filled my head not my own and I have been "voiceless".
I expect what I have said will show that I have needed an answer for quite a number of questions. The more normal I feel, the better beliefs I will have and the happier I will be, I expect? I hope?
Thank you for your insight CB
Love
Izzy
