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[Playbahnosh]

Woah! I mean, hang in there dude! As Japofran said, we can give you advices but only you can do anything about yourself. That's true. But pointing out certain things to you might ease the progress a bit, that's also experience.

I tell you something about me. When I'm troubled by something, I always ask my friends for input. Note "friends" and "input". I'm not too fond of asking my parents because they are not objective to my cause. And only input. I don't ask for guidance or help, I only ask how they see certain things or what is their opinion on the subject, what would they do. Maybe get a tip or two. This way I can get objective points, see things from the outsider's perspective and than I can decide things FOR MYSELF. Don't let people decide things for you, not even a shrink. They can point you towards a certain way or goal, but the last word is always yours. Remember that.

Originally Posted by Mighty Midget

Ok, this is gonna sound really whiny but to hell with that. This is what I feel happened and what lead to much of this.

My entire life has been a search for acceptance. I wasn't accepted for who I was where I grew up and I never felt acceptance for who I was at home. I started to copy what others did and said. It did at least give me some feeling of acceptance. Basically it got out of hand in a short amount of time and I ended up pretty damn early living other peoples' lives as my own. Of course it never worked and of course I never understood. I wasn't them but to me it was more important to convince myself to keep leaving myself behind as long as I got some appreciation from my family and people around me.

Now that is called "growing up". It's not rocket science, dude. Kids learn by imitating grown-ups, even in the animal kingdom offsprings learn by observing their parents and try to copy them, it's pure biology. The fact, that you HAD TO copy others to get appreciation and feel good about yourself is sort of natural. You did NOT leave yourself behind, in fact, you were developing that thing you call yourself. I hope you know what I mean. You never understood why it never worked to try to live someone else's life. Well of course it did not work, because you simply incapable of doing that. It was only the process of developing your own character, your own self-image, the "I" part. Let me ask you something. When you think back to the experiences you had when you had this copycat stage in your life, what did you feel when somebody asked you "Who are you?". Ask yourself that very question now, and try to answer it for yourself as honest as possible. Remember, you can't hide anything from yourself, so don't lie to yourself. If I'm not mistaken, you need some effort to answer that. You need to think, piece it together. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in that time, when you were talking about yourself, you only told raw data, your age, your address, your feelings, your name, "yes, I'm fine, thank you"...etc. But you did not have a clear picture about yourself, your place in the world. That's natural too. Someone grows up faster than others, no problem. I myself had this crisis in my life not so long ago, when I realised that I unknowingly mimic other people.

Now, I'm not writing this for any sympathy or whatever but I write it because that's what happened and I'm just beginning to realize what damage that has done. Basically, I have been lying to myself and others out of fear my "real self" is something to loathe so consistently and for so long I no longer have any idea who I am. I have serious issues letting people know me and a lot has to do with the fact that somewhere inside my head I know what I let others see is just fake.

Quite the contrary. Not having a real, developed self-image is what makes it feel "fake" for you. Your "real self", as you call it, is....um...not "standalone" yet, it needs some outside framework to work, such as other people's personalities. It's not something to loathe or be ashamed about, it's life.

I think it becomes obvious I won't feel good about anything unless I can appreciate myself but that requires me first to get to know who the hell I am and have enough courage to dare being myself to myself and others.

To appreciate yourself, the first thing is to ACCEPT yourself. Accept that you are "you", accept yourself as your are here and now. Accept that guy looking back from the mirror, bacause it's not somebody else, it's you, dude, that guy is you. Not somebody you stuck in your body with. That guy in the mirror will follow your around wherever you go to the end of your life, and can't do anything about it, you might as well accept it. Trust me, if you accept yourself, your every personality flaw, birthmarks, bad skin, and everything you are, you will feel better, a whole new world will open up for you, a world you can explore, learn, experience...

I don't know, there are a lot of lies I need to sort and label as lies and I'm still scared of letting my mask fall so to speak, but that's about the only thing I never tried before and nothing has helped so far. I "only" need the courage to get started for real.

Remember, I said you CAN'T lie to yourself. Just think about it, you just can't. If you try it, you will immediatly feel bad and resent yourself for whatever you try to hide from you, because you are the liar and the person get lied to too. You will feel bad for lying, and feel bad being lied to at the same time, and that is some bad bad feeling. There is no mask to fall, because you can't hide anything from you, it's impossible, think about it. If you come to terms with yourself, you can then come to terms with others as well. No need to see this as a huge mountain you have to climb, as a task or whatever, no. It's dead simple really. The only thing you have to do is, get away from everybody else, find a quiet spot, and think. Talk to yourself. I know it sounds stoooopid, but go for it. You won't get any insaner than you are now :amused:. You might even get an unexpected answer

And for the record, you are not insane. You can stick a lot of medical diagnoses on yourself, depression, syndromes, whatever, but it's all male cow excrement. You are not sick, you are just growing up, dude. :amused: Have fun with it!

Don't take these things word by word, I'm no expert, I just said what worked for me. Some questions you can ask yourself, that's all. Life can throw hella lot towards you, and it can be indeed hard at times, but you will come out on top if you are in a good relationship with yourself. Remember, it's YOUR life, and only YOU can live it, and it will be what YOU make of it. No need to "gather courage" or prepare for battle with the vicious dragon, you don't have to defeat and bound yourfelf into slavery in order to be happy. You can achieve this by being nice to yourself, too.

[Mighty Midget]

Originally Posted by Playbahnosh

Woah! I mean, hang in there dude! As Japofran said, we can give you advices but only you can do anything about yourself. That's true. But pointing out certain things to you might ease the progress a bit, that's also experience.

I tell you something about me. When I'm troubled by something, I always ask my friends for input. Note "friends" and "input". I'm not too fond of asking my parents because they are not objective to my cause. And only input. I don't ask for guidance or help, I only ask how they see certain things or what is their opinion on the subject, what would they do. Maybe get a tip or two. This way I can get objective points, see things from the outsider's perspective and than I can decide things FOR MYSELF. Don't let people decide things for you, not even a shrink. They can point you towards a certain way or goal, but the last word is always yours. Remember that.

True, only I can do it. Also, I'm trying to ask for inputs but I'm still a bit uncertain what sort of inputs I need. See, I never until quite recently (last 4 years or so) turned to others at all. I didn't turn to anyone including my family, but at the same time I have always been told what to do, think, like, you name it. The rest of my life I have pretty much avoided people, my own family included, and never really talked with anyone. I always had to ask myself for inputs and that is not adviceable in the long run. Just to learn to talk to people and ask has been hard work for me and I'm nowhere near proficient at it. Even these posts are to me a way of learning. I have made some pretty horrible mistakes along the way and I wouldn't be surprised if I do some more, but like I said, these posts are also about me learning to talk with people.

Now that is called "growing up". It's not rocket science, dude. Kids learn by imitating grown-ups, even in the animal kingdom offsprings learn by observing their parents and try to copy them, it's pure biology. The fact, that you HAD TO copy others to get appreciation and feel good about yourself is sort of natural. You did NOT leave yourself behind, in fact, you were developing that thing you call yourself. I hope you know what I mean. You never understood why it never worked to try to live someone else's life. Well of course it did not work, because you simply incapable of doing that. It was only the process of developing your own character, your own self-image, the "I" part. Let me ask you something. When you think back to the experiences you had when you had this copycat stage in your life, what did you feel when somebody asked you "Who are you?". Ask yourself that very question now, and try to answer it for yourself as honest as possible. Remember, you can't hide anything from yourself, so don't lie to yourself. If I'm not mistaken, you need some effort to answer that. You need to think, piece it together. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in that time, when you were talking about yourself, you only told raw data, your age, your address, your feelings, your name, "yes, I'm fine, thank you"...etc. But you did not have a clear picture about yourself, your place in the world. That's natural too. Someone grows up faster than others, no problem. I myself had this crisis in my life not so long ago, when I realised that I unknowingly mimic other people.

Also true, copying others is a part of developing yourself. Only thing is, for me it got as I said, out of hand. Big time. You mention my "copycat stage". It never went away. I'm still there only now I'm beginning to realize it has been too much. I'm not sure if you can understand this, but for me it really went too far. I won't go into details here but let me assure you there I have a lot of "opinions" and "views" that just never seemed right but I can't put my finger on why, only thing is I know where I got some of them from. You can say I got opinions and views I have called my own that I never accepted but they got to be the only ones I got. It sounds crazy and I'll be the first to agree it is. I can only guess a comparison would be people breaking out of a secluded sect after spending their entire lives there. It probably would be much the same thing in many ways.

Quite the contrary. Not having a real, developed self-image is what makes it feel "fake" for you. Your "real self", as you call it, is....um...not "standalone" yet, it needs some outside framework to work, such as other people's personalities. It's not something to loathe or be ashamed about, it's life.

I can't agree just like that. To me, pretending was the only way for me back then that I knew that would make it less risky having certain people around. When you're 5-10 you don't see things the way you say there, it's easy to "accept" you should be ashamed for who you are. When you are blamed for all sorts of weird stuff it becomes even easier. I think I've mentioned earlier that feeling is still there and that's why trying to "find" myself is so scary.

To appreciate yourself, the first thing is to ACCEPT yourself. Accept that you are "you", accept yourself as your are here and now. Accept that guy looking back from the mirror, bacause it's not somebody else, it's you, dude, that guy is you. Not somebody you stuck in your body with. That guy in the mirror will follow your around wherever you go to the end of your life, and can't do anything about it, you might as well accept it. Trust me, if you accept yourself, your every personality flaw, birthmarks, bad skin, and everything you are, you will feel better, a whole new world will open up for you, a world you can explore, learn, experience...

That I can only agree on.

Remember, I said you CAN'T lie to yourself. Just think about it, you just can't. If you try it, you will immediatly feel bad and resent yourself for whatever you try to hide from you, because you are the liar and the person get lied to too. You will feel bad for lying, and feel bad being lied to at the same time, and that is some bad bad feeling. There is no mask to fall, because you can't hide anything from you, it's impossible, think about it. If you come to terms with yourself, you can then come to terms with others as well. No need to see this as a huge mountain you have to climb, as a task or whatever, no. It's dead simple really. The only thing you have to do is, get away from everybody else, find a quiet spot, and think. Talk to yourself. I know it sounds stoooopid, but go for it. You won't get any insaner than you are now :amused:. You might even get an unexpected answer

That's the whole point. It has indeed been possible to lie to myself but at the same time, you are right, those feelings have been with me all along but I never dared challenging it. I can even add to it you end up in a spiral you feel only more lies will get you out of. Trust me, it is indeed possible to get stuck in that spiral.

[Mighty Midget]

Sorry for the double post, but there seems to be a limit of quotes in a single post.

And for the record, you are not insane. You can stick a lot of medical diagnoses on yourself, depression, syndromes, whatever, but it's all male cow excrement. You are not sick, you are just growing up, dude. :amused: Have fun with it!

Don't take these things word by word, I'm no expert, I just said what worked for me. Some questions you can ask yourself, that's all. Life can throw hella lot towards you, and it can be indeed hard at times, but you will come out on top if you are in a good relationship with yourself. Remember, it's YOUR life, and only YOU can live it, and it will be what YOU make of it. No need to "gather courage" or prepare for battle with the vicious dragon, you don't have to defeat and bound yourfelf into slavery in order to be happy. You can achieve this by being nice to yourself, too.

Well, I don't concider myself insane only utterly confused and lost. My diagnoses? Well, I'd be nuts to say I haven't got a depression but about the other diagnose, well, I'm not sure about that one myself, neither is this other doc. I can tell you that both him, you and I agree I need to grow up. But I also need to get to know what I think and feel. That I can't deny.

[Playbahnosh]

Well, I'm glad you are making so good progress, dude.:amused:
See your shrink says you should grow up. Well, I agree with him, but I have something to add. You WILL grow up, no matter if you want it or not. You can't evade it, it's a natural process. Your brain gathers experience continuosly, no matter if you pay attention or not, which leads to more processed information and those to built into your personality. So you will grow up, no matter what, it's not something you can control. You can't speed it up or slow it down, you will grow up at the pace you can. I'm only saying this so you won't feel any pressure growing up, that "OMG, I need to grow up FASTERRRRRR! Like NOW!" or something. Just observe. Walk around the world and observe, gather knowledge. Don't dive headlong into something you don't even know, thats called extreme sports:amused:. What I did is that too, I mean the observation, the learning. It doesn't require any effort at all, just so you pay attention to little details, open your mind. The best way to gether knowledge. Don't dive into textbooks or study rigorously, that won't help, your will only get tired and you will forget most of what your learn that way. But what you learn by simply "wanting" to know something, and think "wow, I didn't know that, how interesting", you will remember that till the end of your life. Experience.

Remember: Knowledge is the only thing that cannot be taken away from you!

(no, don't count electroshock therapy! Positive thoughts, remember?)
You said you need to get to know yourself, your feelings and thoughts. If you take an advice from me, learn languages. They say, the more languages you know, the more people you are. That may sound confusing at first, but it's really not. I'm hungarian, and the best thing ever happened to me, that I learned English. And German. And Japanese (well, sort of). The more languages your speak, the more cultures you get to know, the more you get to know yourself. Talk to people. I know it's hard for you, because you are not used to just striking up a conversation with complete strangers, and it's very frightening too. What will that other person think about you, what if they are not nice, oh if I screw something up surely they will think I'm a jackass...etc. Yea, been there, done that. But that is not even close, trust me. Most of the people you meet think the very same thing about you, too. Just think about it, you are more prone to talk to somebody if they address you first, right? Well, most of them are just like this. I used to travel a lot. Not because I wanted to, but I had to (school, work, family, moving...long story). I came to realise, that people are not like I imagined them to be. Usually I travel by train. Locked together with a handful of strangers in a cabin (trains like here in hungary mostly have 6-8 seat cabins insted of line of seats) can be a strange experience. More in fact, if some of them know each other, and start talking. You don't even have to evasdrop or look at them, they are sitting right near you. You can gather some valuable intel listening in on these conversations, and not mainly on the subject they are talking about. Observe their talking style, their body language, their personality. I'm very good with people, and I can assess the mood and general personality of people quite fast, it's a perk of mine. You can aquire this perk too, just by doing the same thing. observe people. If you are afraid of interacting with strangers or people in general, this is just for you. It's like passive sonar, you just gather information, and don't have to involve yourself at all if you don't want to. Some time later you'll start to see patterns, personality traits and body language that is connected to one kind of a personality...etc. It's not only a very valuable skill to have, but it is fun too :amused:. Is amazing how different people react to the same situations or questions.
And here comes the best part. You'll learn hella lot about yourself too in the process. You'll start to recognise personality traits that you yourself have, that you couldn't recognise otherwise. You can select the personality traits you like and build it into your own. Just like Lego. Think about this: if you grow fond of a person (for whatever reason, it doesn't matter), you unknowingly start to assimilate his personality to a certain degree. You start to use expressions, body languages, opinions like that person. This is how you build your own personality. Interesting huh?

Okay, I gone too far now. You see I'm prone to ramble on about things I like, that's me : ). If you don't want any more of it, just don't read it ; ). I don't wanna bore you any longer, so I might just finish this off now. See you in the next edition of "Personality With Playbahnosh" : D!

[jg007]

Much of what I would say has probably already been said on here , but I would say be carefull of over analysing yourself as it can be easy to do and certainly something I have done before .

I use the same nick on a number of different forums and speak to people at work who may wander the same boards so I wont add much to this public discussion but I am impressed and glad that you feel comfortable with expressing your thoughts on here and wish you luck with the search

[Mighty Midget]

Thank you.

[whining]
Ok, so what's new? When I got back home last week I realized I has lost my rainjacket at the airport. I'll get it back, it will probably be here on Monday. Anyway, it's clear I'm still deep in it. The weather here is godawful these days with only a few hours of no rain so far this week and my walks have suffered from this. I guess I know I have been using the weather and the missing rainjacket as an excuse not to be as busy as I was before that happened. There have been a few walks and there have been moments where things become lighter, where I felt more energy and will to do something. I started tidying up and cleaning my apartment but I know how little it takes still before that energy is lost and the negativety comes back. Yesterday evening I got a phonecall from "home" I didn't need and it ended up with me heading straight for the pub. I knew I was shirking "homework" and that I was running away again and it made me feel even worse. I continued today with the home chores but today has been hard to keep my focus on what I should focus on. The stupid bit is that it makes me feel better to do that tidying and cleaning but yesterday is still a bit too heavy and I just don't have the energy to get started. I feel like a car with dead batteries, that has to jump-start itself.

Another thing is I just heard a mate of mine had to go to the hospital for some heart surgery. I will go see him but I feel like an arse for digging myself down like this and not caring enough for him.
[/whining]

[Dave]

I think you should open a new chapter of your life, I mean, you need "fresh air", to change your habits a little, maybe a travel, or a new job or a hobbie.
One of these things could be a new battery for an old good car

[Mighty Midget]

Yeah, I need a change. Well, travels are out coz I haven't got the money to get anywhere, hardly have the money for the bus ticket here. I have been accepted into this back-to-work program but I'll move away from here shortly so I won't have a full 5 days a week program until I get settled at the new place. About a hobby, well, playing has pretty much been all I have ever done but I have to leave that for quite some time. Another thing is I honestly have no idea what that hobby can be seeing I can't afford a hobby unless it's absolutely free and those old ideas are still there that I have to deny myself what I want to do, I'm still telling myself I'm not interested coz I've been told I'm not interested so I do what I've always done, pushing it all out of my memory. It's totally crazy but that's how it is. Someone else used the word brainwashing to describe what it was like to grow up in our family and there are a lot of ideas I need to get rid of and a lot of daring to accept having my own ideas.

[Lulu_Jane]

Drawing is free, and you already have a talent for it

[Mighty Midget]

Perhaps. If I could find some inspiration. It would have to be MS Paint though as I can't afford even a sketchbook. Ho-kaaayyy. I seriously need to learn about possibilities and forget a lot about limitations. And if anyone was wondering about the nature of my negativity, well, it's becoming plain to see I'll say.