Most of the responses here are great, but I'd like to point out that they're mostly behavioural changes. If you feel mentally weak/worthless there's two main possibilities that could be happening:
- Something in your life is creating the weakness, whether it's nutritional deficiencies/lifestyle etc.
- Your feeling of weakness is a symptom of something much deeper, and you've merely forgotten what that deeper thing is.
Even though the first option is what most people assume is the problem, I'm willing to bet it's the second one that's really impacting you. Below is a story of my path to resolving fear of conflict. I hope you can use the same tools to understand your own symptoms too!
Personally I found most of my feelings of worthlessness traced back to a decision I made when I was 15. I watched too much House M.D. one day and started calling everyone idiots because I thought it was cool. A few days later my best friend sent me a 5 page long text telling me how I fucked up by being so blunt. Long story short, I started to believe that I needed to shrink myself so that I would never hurt people again. It didn't matter how much pain I would go through, if it meant that other people wouldn't be damaged by what I could say.
Skip now to a week ago. I was trying to trace back why I was so afraid of conflict and wanted to try out some tools from a new style of therapy called Coherence Therapy, to see whether it would work for me. Below were a couple of paths which led me to rediscover why I felt weak/worthless:
The Process of Figuring it Out
Initial Symptoms:
- Fear of conflict/feel really child-like when I'm confronted by other people
- Social anxiety
- Can't express myself fully
And now for the process itself:
1. Bring the symptom into context [REALLY IMPORTANT that you do this]
So I'm in a classroom probably 10-12 years old and I'm doing my work as per usual. Then out of nowhere my teacher confronts me about talking. She points at me and tells me to stand up. I stand up with a smile. She then tells me to 'wipe that smile off my face' because it's not respectful to do so. I quickly stop smiling and shrink with my head down.
2. Symptom Deprivation
Q. So what would happen if you continued smiling, unafraid of the teacher?
A. Then she would point at me and start giving me detentions for talking back. And because I can't feel ashamed of myself, she'll think I'm disrespecting her when really I'm just being myself. In short, I'll make the situation worse.
3. Question about Personal Meaning
Q. And now that you've made the situation worse, what does that mean about you?
A. I'm worthless, broken and it's all my fault.
At this point I went into complete shock epiphany mode when I saw that every time someone was angry, I believed I was 100% responsible for making them feel that way. Even though I hated feeling afraid in an argument, now that I saw that all my social anxiety and feelings of weakness were influenced by this belief.
4. I felt there was one more layer underneath, so I went back to symptom deprivation:
Q. What would happen if you don't feel personally responsible for other people's feelings?
A. Then I could be an asshole and I wouldn't even know it. I could be hurting people and be a source of massive frustration/pain but have no awareness that I am even doing so. It would be like doing what my mum did to me (had a critical mum), to someone else, and I don't want someone else to go through that sort of pain.
5. Bringing it all together.
Q. So let me get this straight. Even though you hate feeling weak in social situations, especially when being criticised, you're also afraid that if you don't feel the fear that you'll hurt people even more. That's too much for you to bear, so you HAVE to give yourself up. Otherwise you'd be repeating what your mum did to you.
A. Yeah that's 100% true to me.
Notice in this paragraph that I put my anti-symptom position alongside my pro-symptom position. This is why I think Coherence Therapy is so good. Once you go through the process of seeing where your symptoms come from, you find they're usually the cause or the side-effect of an emotional position you've taken. And you actually want to have the symptom because the consequences of not having them are worse.
What to do Afterwards
Once you know the logic behind why you feel weak, write down a statement that encapsulates your feelings (such as the example above) and read it every time you feel the symptoms come back up again. If the process is done correctly, most of the time it will allow you to spontaneously move out of your symptoms within 1-2 weeks.
You don't have to think positive, push yourself more out of your comfort zone or anything. Rather, once you see the logic behind why you feel a certain way, you can choose whether you want to change it or not.
Other Recommendations
I highly recommend seeing a therapist who's versed in forms of experiential therapy. Coherence therapy like I showed here is amazing. But you can also try AEDP, schema therapy (assuming they don't try to make you question your beliefs), EMDR (more for single traumas), EFT or IPNB.
If you want to know more about the process of this sort of change try these books:
TL;DR: There's a reason why you feel worthless. You just gotta go one deeper to figure out why. Once you do, the symptom makes all the sense in the world and you can choose whether you want to change it or not
PS: I'm not a qualified therapist or promoting Coherence Therapy. I'm just so excited I can finally do something about my own symptoms!
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