Tilted Therapy: I'm sharing my madness with strangers
 

My insecurities are holding me back---- keeping from enjoying my life. I am so self-conscious every second of every day that it consumes me. It has led to compulsive behavior and severe anxiety and depression. I want to feel liked by the people in my life so badly that I lose sight of what is best for me and I end up neglecting myself and my needs. I feel like the real me, the happy me that I used to be, rarely makes an appearance anymore. I really miss being her. I think the more I get hurt and denied, the farther out of reach she gets. I should be fighting to find her again, but instead I do the exact opposite. All of the negative thoughts and feelings about myself drive her farther away. I just want to start having confidence in, believing in & loving myself again. I want the negative thoughts to go away and I have no one that I can talk to about it. I have a number of wonderful people in my life, yet I feel so lonely because I don’t want them to know.

I wish I had health insurance. I don't know if what's going on with me can be helped without medication.:sad:

For me, I write about my negative thoughts from time to time. It helps them get out of my head and elsewhere. Sometimes I read them again and think, "Gosh after the event that I was so worried and anxious about, nothing came of it. My fears never materialized."

We have a blog section, feel free to write in it, it's not scoured by google by default, though you can set it that way. It's a little more intimate community than the rest of the sections here.

re: therapy here in New York. I assume you are in NYC. If you are then there are many therapists here that accept sliding scale payments. You can check with NIP Graduate and Post-Graduate Training Program - Home and let them know you are interested in finding therapy with someone that accepts sliding scale.

As far as something you can do immediately, try contrary thinking. This entails you doing the opposite of what you want to or normally do. So if you want to do something for others at the expense of something for yourself, change that by doing something for yourself FIRST, then doing something for someone else.

good luck.

First the caveat, I'm not trained nor qualified medically to answer your questions.

However it appears that you have isolated the problems you are having without the benefit of professional help or drugs. You seem to have a good handle on your life and identifying what is going on.

All you have to do is take the next step. How can I achieve what I want and be the person I want to be in the reality I'm living in?

You are obviously an intelligent person, so now you need to look in a mirror and say to yourself, "I'm an achiever, not a receiver" Over and over and over. You are in control of what you feel and others are not allowed to control you. You can do what you want and you will not be a sponge soaking up the crap they sling your way.

Now learn the internal phrase, "fuck them". If you want to wear the green blouse with the purple skirt and it makes you happy then put it on and mutter under your breath, "fuck them, I like it and I'm wearing it, fuck them". You are allowed to be you, but no one is allowed to tell you how to be you. Fuck them.

Make a new friend and be different with him/her. Be who you want to be and don't worry about the consequences. Be you. Practice, refine and discover who you are and how you want to be as a person. If they don't like it, fuck them. Find a new friend.

You can get therapy, you can take drugs, you can pick apart who you are and what you want to be, but only you can make it happen. If you take drugs it won't be you.

I'm saying this because you already know the problems. Psychotropic drugs are not the answer. They don't make you who you are. They make those unable to cope, able to cope. You can cope, you just need to fight harder to be you and not let anyone stuff you into their way of thinking.

The difference here is you already know the problems. Most people who seek advice don't know why they feel or act the way they do.

Start small, put on the green blouse and purple skirt and fuck them. Their acceptance does not define who you are.

Halanna:

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I will definitely try the "fuck them" mentality. When it comes to drugs I just wonder if there is something that will help me calm down, quiet the anxiety. Because of it... I have trouble even talking to people when it comes to speaking my mind, confrontations, job interviews, sticking up for myself...etc. I feel so overwhelmed by it and I'm not sure if it's normal or some sort of chemical imbalance. It's crippling in a way when my mouth goes dry and my heart palpitates and I feel almost hopped up on adrenaline and I freeze up and become introverted. I hate that I feel like I have no control over it.

What Halanna said is helpful, but a psychiatrist is qualified to evaluate and decide whether medication is necessary or if therapy alone can do it. What you're suggesting will probably come up in therapy in one form or another, but medication may be necessary. Psych drugs, when used properly, get you back to normal so you can go back to being yourself, or they help lift you out of a rut so you can face problems head-on. You can't just pull yourself up by your bootstraps and set yourself down on level ground.