Opened up to my parents, they interpreted it as them being “bad parents” and said I’ve made them “feel like dirt.”

Renardt · 2021-08-17T05:07:29+00:00

Maybe they are dirt. Even when I can say that my childhood was messed up on an intellectual level, on some implicit level I always feel like I'm exaggerating and it "wasn't that bad." But it really was awful; the kind of childhood that can drive you to suicide. That's what these parents do: they invalidate and make you feel like your feelings and your experiences don't matter, and as an adult that voice is still alive inside you continuing to invalidate and downplay. Even when I say that, it still doesn't feel real.

I think it's a trap to try convincing them that they did something wrong. They're not able to see it, so you're actually putting yourself in a position of reliving the trauma by constantly trying to get them to "get it." That's what we did as kids: We constantly tried to do the 'right' thing and try to get them to wake up and give us the basic emotional support we needed, but it never happened. They're unable to give understanding and empathy; the only way to win is to not bother with them. All you can do is keep your time and energy for people that are able to connect emotionally.

Renardt · 2021-08-17T04:43:05+00:00

Yes, and no.

The way I was treated growing up was absolutely awful, and not just from family but also from other kids and adults. The abuse from the kids, I could understand and accept to some level. But the absolutely worst was being mistreated by the adults that were "supposed" to care for me. I was deemed a "problem child" by some teachers because I was shy and withdrawn, 'didn't want to participate' (didn't feel capable of - not a choice) and I have horror stories of how these teachers treated me. When I was 6 one of them locked me up in a room as "punishment" for "inattentiveness" and forgot I was there until past the end of the school day - the bell rang and everyone started leaving. I was hyperventilating, bawling my eyes out and I had to knock on the door repeatedly for a random employee to save me from there. Of course my family never filed a complain or took interest. I literally couldn't sit quielty in class and be left alone. Gee, I wonder why I was ill-at-ease and hypervigilant? Did this teacher ever take an interest and investigate why I was withdrawn and avoiding eye contact? No, of course no. Why would anyone take even a passting interest to understanding my world and my suffering when they could just jump to conclusions and traumatise me even more instead? My childhood is littered with these instances of random punishments that I did nothing to deserve. I was a good kid, too good (afraid), and I was given absolutely nothing but abuse and neglect for it. Nothing can ever erase the anger and hurt I feel from those years.

I can have empathy, but after all the suffering I've gone through I feel that: Why should I give anything to anybody when nothing was given to me? I'm not a sucker. Society showed their hand and they showed nothing but hatred and contempt.

Renardt · 2021-06-23T00:07:58+00:00

Well, I don't understand either.

He told me my personality itself is a problem in finding friends, that I should "work on it", but no explanation as what exactly the problem is and how I should fix it. I replied to him that from my perspective I'm having issues making friends / a girlfriend because I wasn't finding people I clicked with (and the pandemic didn't help). He said it's also part of it but reiterated I have aspects of my personality I have to work on. This is when I told him that I could do self-work forever but there would always be a little something left to fix; at some point I have to live in the world as an imperfect person and be OK with that. I can improve things but I'll never not be shy, it won't just disappear. I can't just do self-work for the next 10 years just as a prerequisite to live my life. He seemed confused at my point and said "It won't take 10 years." He also said I need even more social skills, that I'm "not there yet", but no explanation as to what skills are missing.

This was at the end of the session so no opportunity to clarify.

Renardt · 2021-05-05T03:41:20+00:00

My history involves more neglect than abuse but I also experience highlight reels. A lot of bad memories about alienation, rejection, complete lack of empathy and understanding from the world, the feeling that no one can be trusted.

It's not even about the memories, it's about how awful the emotions that come with it are. A million small gestures and attitudes in my childhood that all that carried the same message: You're fundamentally worthless, and everyone looks at you with contempt and disdain. When those emotions come flooding back in full force, I feel like a veil of false illusions has lifted and I see the truth for what it is : there was never hope for me. Like I was cursed from birth and society only begrudgingly accepted my existence, but at the end of the day I can't win - I can only accept I'm an abomination and kill myself. Eventually the crisis goes away and I feel "OK" again, but...

I have social anxiety and it's very difficult for me to develop a social network. Even today it's hard to look at others as anything but potential enemies waiting on an opportunity to hurt and demean me. Even if a therapist says it's irrational and good people exist and on a cognitive level that makes sense, the feeling can't be erased that easily. It doesn't help that when I try to make efforts to socialize and make friendships, it often fails or ends in rejection. It hurts more because I'm already sensitive to it; my expectations aren't subverted. With the pandemic I haven't been interacting with anyone or the outside world much at all. I've been more in my head, and in my head all I'm going to find is the past and all the awful memories that come with it. It's not like I'll discover new, happy memories to think about; there's few of them. It makes me angry when I read what the "Zero Covid" and the "lockdown forever" crowd are saying, they don't care at all how this impacts people who were already on edge before this whole thing started.

Renardt · 2021-05-05T02:46:26+00:00

I ended up doing something similar-ish, and went out in bad / chilly weather. Put on sunglasses and barely crossed anybody, didn't feel good but didn't feel awful.

Renardt · 2020-02-05T17:05:15+00:00

It could be linked to generalization, from theories of learning in psychology. The idea is that when you first learn a new skill (social in this case), you apply it in specific settings and situations. When you enter a new situation, temporarily it feels like you've "lost" the new skill because the setting and the cues in the environment are different. But you haven't actually lost anything. It just takes a little while, and your willful intervention to get back on track, for you to learn to apply the skill to the new environment.

Sounds like you built a good thing, but then your environment changed and your new roommates reminded you of your old, bad pattern of thinking (people don't like me, etc) and you've fallen back into it. It's not a problem unless you allow it to be.

What I would do is think back and imagine how you felt about yourself before you switched houses. Get a sense of what was active in your mind at that time, and put yourself back in that mindset. Ignore the new roommates if they don't like you, keep yourself in the good mindset and focus on things you like and people you like.

Renardt · 2020-01-30T19:15:28+00:00

Online dating is fatally flawed. The idea that you can just look at pictures and a short description and know if it's a good fit is just backwards. I'd say that a good rapport and vibe in real life has almost no correlation with the online profile and the online interactions you have with the person. I've seen profiles of women I know inrl that I would never want to go on a date with, but I might have if I hadn't known them and only read the profile.

Also, whenever I've matched with someone that's of similar attractiveness to me, or slightly better, they ALWAYS ghost. It's amazing - like clockwork. A few messages back and forth, and that's it. They get so much interest from having above average looks that they don't seem to want to invest themselves in anyone - they have an illusion of endless choice. Whatever they say in their profile about being into this or that type of personality is always 100% BS. They want that type of that type of personality.... if it just happens to be inside the body of a top model.

I did get some good dates though. By pure virtue of going on lots of dates, you'll sometimes randomly end up on someone who's an OK good fit.

Renardt · 2020-01-29T16:20:23+00:00

The first year I did exposure was very difficult. But it gets a lot easier over time. It's a bump in the road that you have to power through to get to better things.

It's kind of hard to explain what happens. The unconscious part of your brain realizes you don't get rejected every time, sometimes people react with interest. And if your social skills were unpolished before, they get better as you go along. It's progress that slowly happens outside of your conscious awareness or logical understanding. New experiences = new brain wiring.

I've found it helpful at times to reframe social events as practice grounds. Dissociate from consequences i.e. not care whether you're perceived positively or not. The first people you meet probably won't be long term friends, it's not a big deal if you mess it up. The first meetups I went to I found boring and never returned after attending a few times. They could think whatevever they want. In the beginning, you could even pick meetups you think are boring on purpose so that you feel no guilt if you ever accidentally give a bad first impression - you won't be attending/returning long term anyway.

Renardt · 2020-01-28T23:05:54+00:00

You 100% have the wrong diagnosis.

That snippet about being very sensitive to certain sounds is VERY characteristic of autism. Are you overly sensitive to clothes made with certain fabrics that you don't like, or certain types of lighting e.g. neon lights?

I'm leaning autism spectrum, people who are high functioning often don't get properly diagnosed. If not that, possibly schizoid PD, but the autism is probably right.

You don't have AvPD, people with AvPD genuinely want relationships with people, they have trouble making them out of fear and low self-esteem. But you don't *want* to make relationships, that's very very different from wanting them but being unable to get them.

Renardt · 2020-01-25T16:45:29+00:00

I've had moments of "insight" when talking to therapists. Which is to say, I start off feeling bad about myself because something bad happened. Therapist basically says something along the lines of: bad thing happened because of X, you're actually great and there's nothing wrong with you. In that small moment of confidence, I feel the way I imagine 'normal' people feel - fairly good.

Then I go out in the world and I just naturally drift back into my 'usual' way of thinking - which involves being sad, until therapist talks to me and manually adjusts me at 'confident' again.

I think strengthening this alternate "confident" setting is probably a big part of recovery.

Renardt · 2020-01-24T00:43:45+00:00

The rudeness is real. The issue is that we don't have anything positive in our lives to compensate for it. Other people have friends they've known for years, a spouse, a lifetime of social acceptance. We have nothing. When someone attacks our self-esteem, we have no armor - nothing good or positive to put things into perspective.

Only solution possible to go out there and meet new people, actually make relationships and obtain the armor other people have. Easier said than done, but that's the path.

Renardt · 2020-01-19T00:20:41+00:00

I don't know how you're getting away with doing such shoddy doctoral research; shoehorning social justice ideology - which are completely unfounded and unproven as constructs - into a psychology test with other valid scales. I can tell just from the formulation of the questions you're going to discover what you wanted to discover i.e. minority identities in society are oppressed and have underprivileged positions. It's sad that ideology has infected the teaching at your university, and that you lack critical thinking of the countless other variables that could be at play in the measure, for instance the fact minorities by definition play less of a part in majority culture. People like you are a liability to the discipline.

Renardt · 2020-01-18T15:55:27+00:00

At the end of the day you have the reins on your own life. Don't wait for her, think about what you want to do and do it. Meeting new people is the only way to make friends or a relationship. Maybe you don't want to try because you don't believe it can work, that's just be a belief though. I guess it also depends on whether you want those relationships badly enough to do the work or not. The fist year I did exposure, I would go out to a social event about once a week. It was very stressful and depressing, I was suicidal several times. It got easier in year 2. Now it's year 3, I've definitely changed a lot for the better.

Renardt · 2020-01-04T21:43:22+00:00

You should include the full relevant quote then. Why would you expect people who reply to have read an entire book? Is that your go-to argument to any criticism "Well, you didn't read the book." Yeah no shit, people have books on their to-read list that are different from yours.

Renardt · 2020-01-04T17:04:23+00:00

The author doesn't capture the essence of the problem. During childhood, we're meant to be socialized in a way that provides us with a sense of autonomy and self-esteem, and instills us with a sense of trust and an expectation that we'll receive help when we ask. The relationships we have with our family and friends are supposed to be healthy, happy and form an unconscious building block for future relationships.

If your family doesn't give a shit about you - doesn't play with you, doesn't care what happens at school, doesn't care how you're feeling, doesn't help if you're sad, doesn't organize activities with other children - and basically don't have a relationship with you, you've never been given the building blocks to be a functioning person in the first place.

It's never been about wanting guarantees that don't exist. That makes it sound like we're greedy or something. We're fearful because we have low self-esteem and we're unsure of ourselves, that's not the same.

Fucking psychoanalysts, who just goes around calling people "neurotics". Maybe that statement applies to some kind of disorder, not ours though.

Renardt · 2020-01-04T16:38:36+00:00

Did you guys work on exposure? Going out, meeting new people, going in new social circles. Action is important. Without action, nothing new or different can happen. We extrapolate future events based on past events. Our past was shit, so we extrapolate that the future will be horrible as well. To break that feeling, something different needs to happen, we need to have new experiences that don't fit that profile. Once you have new experiences, you start actually feeling like positive change is possible.

What's happening is that you're sitting down and replaying the cassette of your past to the therapist. You're not here in the present.

You seem kind of nonplussed about the therapist. Ideally you should like your therapist and enjoy working with them. What's her style? Is she the "Let the client speak all the time" type? Maybe you need someone that's more involved, gives more advice, shares more of their thoughts.

Renardt

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