GuiltyAsCharged

First, thank you for all the replies. I agree that it would be really difficult to treat any psychological problems without first stirring up the negative emotions, but it seems that my therapist just invokes these feelings so that he can rip on me and provoke me to reveal more sensitive weak spots about myself. Anyone know how I could find myself another psychologist, as I didn't choose this guy..he was just assigned to me from the health care office. Who should I contact if I want a thorough list of local therapists?

I've got some insecurities and depression which used to be more serious. I went to see a therapist and almost every time I left feeling atleast a bit better about myself and even though I couldn't solve all my problems in life I thought that I was slowly making progress. I knew that whatever I would say I would be accepted and he would not judge me. A few months ago the therapist left the city for another job and I was redirected to another counselor. The problem is that now as I'm visiting this new therapist I always leave feeling alot WORSE about myself than I did before coming to him. I first went to therapy feeling optimistic, I felt willing to make sacrifices and admit that I am wrong in some things and accept his suggestions because it would be better for me on the long run. My mindset was that "I am an okay guy, but I have problems in some areas of my life. Sometimes my mind is irrational because of some psychological defences, but I am ready to accept the truth so that we can go on making me a more healthy person". However, this new therapist just picks apart everything I say. I entered the therapy feeling that I had _some_ problems, but he makes me feel like I am totally, absolutely insane. He tempts me into talking about something very intimate and afterwards makes statements like "Hmm...you really hate yourself don't you?" and "I see you have problems accepting that other people are stronger than you. You just can't handle my authority". After that he just sits silently staring at me waiting that I say something else that he can judge. I thought that he would be on MY SIDE and that he would try to help not harm. All the articles about therapy say that it is imperative that the therapist makes the patient feel safe, but this is totally the opposite. I could accept this if he would use this "insight" into how absolutely nuts I am into trying to make me more healthy, but he just does it for the sake of doing it. When after a long argument I finally give in, accept his accusations and ask for advice how I should act/think/feel instead so that I could deal with my issues more constructively, he just looks at me and tell me that "You just want a strong leader to lead you huh and live your life". I want to take responsibility of my life, but it seems that this therapist just likes to point out my problems and then leave me feeling all alone with them. He never answers my questions and leaves me guessing his intentions all the time. Like if I ask "Do you feel this is going anywhere, am I getting any better. I mean should we continue these meetings?" then he only stares at me blankly and says "I see that when you fail you cannot accept it so you have to devaluate me and my professionality instead, always blaming others are you?". Since I could make alot of progress with my old therapist then I'd figure that I just can't be as impossible as this new guy says I am. Really, I don't know what to do. We've made a contract of 80 visits so I can't just stop seeing him. I mean I'm starting to feel suicidial and feel like my mind is getting raped everytime, but now I'm obliged to hear how much problems I have and then pay for it without receiving any actual help. It's like if some company made a commercial "9 out of 10 women find bald men unattractive" and then when you think they are going to sell you a drug that stops hairloss, they instead just say "Sucks to be such a loser huh? It's not our fault that you are".

The incident I'm describing isn't in it self the reason I'm contemplaiting suicide, but it knocked me back into the reality - that life is a battle I can't survive. Today, as I was playing football one guy took me as his target. Everytime I would do a goal or touch the ball he would attack me from behind throwing me to the ground, tackle me or wrestle with me. The guy was younger, but bigger, muscular and had been pretty much a street fighter and a bad boy for his whole life. I fought back and could shake him off of me and avoid greater damage most of the time, and people would verbally complain to him about distrupting the game and being an idiot, but no-one did anything to actually help me. At the last minutes of the game he once again attacked me, but I got a stranglehold of him, and we rolled over to the ground this time in a more even fight and I said to him I'd let go if he'd let go and as he complied I thought I had made it. How very wrong was I again. After they lost the game and I was already walking away, he ran up from behind and choked me. People yelled at him and told him to let go but he didn't, I said he wasn't being very courageous for starting the fight in such an uneven way. This provocated him more and to show his superiority he told I should take a stranglehold of him and see if I could do any better. I declined and he grabbed me again, so it became obvious I had to fight myself out of the situation and grabbed him with a fairbairn and sykes defendo choke I had learned from a self-defence manual, thinking I could win him. My psychological death and absolute shame resulted as he shook me off, headbutted my chest and tossed me to the ground. It was only then, having totally beaten me that he would stop and leave me alone. In my life, I have had to deal alot with violent people trying to dominate me. I am short and skinny, making me an easy target. I used to think that it didn't matter, as long as I wouldn't play basketball, that I would not have to be large and muscular to have a good life, but boy was I wrong. I now totally understand women's desire for a tall dominant man, for life really is about survival of the fittest. Humans are nothing more than hairless apes, with the same impulses as other animals and one can't simply trust that the modern civilized society would stop the constant fighting and strive for supremacy among males. I foolishly thought that as long as I was assertive and stood up for myself I'd be as worthy as anyone else, and that my ex-girlfriend was being irrational with her feelings of not being feminine with a smaller guy. Afterall, nowadays we have guns and other tools of self-defence, and specific systems such as krav-maga that would beat brute force and provide security for everyone. The reality however, is that one can't defend against unarmed attackers with weapons or effective fighting moves such as strikes to the groin and is considered a criminal in the society, but attacking someone innocent is considered masculine and honorable if fatal damage is not inflicted and no weapons are used. I have now lost all my remaining self-respect, self-esteem and will to live. I foolishly thought that I could defend myself against apes like him, but I can't. I am unable, unfit and have failed as a life form. I can no-longer see my therapist as he moved away to work in a different city and am ready to give it all up. My illusionary sense of control over my body has been lost and I have been defiled and humiliated. No use fighting anymore and I'm ready to end my existence as soon as I get my gun licence. I don't even know why I wrote this, it's probably that I have some kind irrational hope in my subconscious and think that some answer will turn me into a self confident fighting machine, somehow make the fact that I lost disappear and change the genetic triggering for women to swoon over powerful, tall, dominant fighting men.

I've read the sticky, but not all it's posts. It seemed to speak about what I already thought - that faking to be nice isn't really being very nice. There are dozens of material explaining the dysfunctionality of the nice guy archetype. However I haven't found too many people criticizing the pick up artist stuff which I personally find as disturbing as the nice guy phenomenon. Sylph and RayKay I found your posts very helpful because that is exactly what I have been thinking about all the time. This dating "game" and pigeon holing everyone does really suck. And I don't think faking becomes any more comfortable after the relationship is formed and you never really become intimate, I feel like I've been cheating the very core of myself when I've tried to mold myself to be this artificial concept of real man because they ultimately boil down to individual and cultural perceptions of what is and what isn't masculine/mature/moral.

I'm flogging the dead horse yet again by talking about the eternal fight between the whiny self-proclaimed nice-guys and the mega-confident wannabe-alphas. Everyone seems to always talk about either REAL MEN and nice guys or jerks and nice guys. I was wondering what ever happened to the gray area between being a subhuman and being the best thing in the world or being aggresive and being wimpy. There are guys who complain that women only want jerks and they fail because they are too nice and then there are guys who practically say that everyone who is not a stud is a submissive immature weak self-esteemed nice guy who is not actually nice but pure evil, because he isn't mega confident with the opposíte sex. The thing is that before I started reading all this stuff I had a fairly posititive self-concept and healthy self-esteem, I used to think that I defended my rights and my opinions assertively and were social with some people and inhibited with others without that meaning that I was superior or inferior to anyone. I used to think that being introverted vs being extroverted wasn't such a black and white thing. Now I'm becoming confused when before I explained my failures as "That specific girl doesn't like me either because of my personality or because of the lack of physical attraction, but it doesn't mean I am globally inferior and some can still like me" I now start suspecting that I am a nice guy girlie man submissive satan evil deceptive bottom of the barrel whopped child-like loser. Having read all these modern bibles with absolute truths I could do what everyone else does and with my vast theorethical information become a "dating guru" and advice others how to be "real men and not wusses", but really, I DO NOT FEEL COMFORTABLE PLAYING GAMES AND COPYING MY EVERY MOVE FROM THE REAL MEN'S DATING BIBLE. Why can't I just be myself - an inexperienced yet still assertive male who has some flaws and some good qualities, but perhaps analyses stuff too much and is not the most socially gifted person on earth? Why can't I just go up to a girl I am interested in and tell her I like her and would like to get to know her better? Why do I have to instead use some stupid "c0cky and funny" humour that I don't find funny and pose as some alpha dude who I clearly am not. Why don't they teach at school that if you don't immediately know if you are interested in someone based on looks alone you become sexually worthless to women? I keep reading stuff about the "friend zone" and the "ladder theory" that insist that if you fail to make a move on a girl very soon after the initial encounter then you get labeled as "unmanly immature weakling good only as a friend". And if you don't look everyone you pass by in the eyes you are weaker than them. Why should I socialize with everyone and have eye contact with every passer by? Why should I assert dominance over other people by ordering them around? Isn't this division of people into low status and high status the grossest form of inequality and discrimination? Then the "nice guys" keep blabbering about how if you don't kiss everyones asses you are a JERK. If you don't give a girl flowers on the first date you are RUDE. If you do something superficially moral you are SUPERIOR to the immoral jerks. Okay, here's the deal: I don't think I am better than others, I'm an ordinary person with both good and bad qualities. I don't want to harm other people and would like to do stuff rationally in a way that is mutually beneficial. On the other hand I refuse to be pushed around and will stand up for myself. I have both "nice guy" and "alpha male" qualities, but can someone tell me can an inbetween exist because I don't like neither of the extremes. Can a person form a loving relatioship without the pick up artist gimmicks and still not be a wimp?

I posted my previous thread in a strongly emotional moment and used excessive profanity etc. So here's a more rational version that is more about problem solving and less about venting: I am being scapegoated, sabotaged and now even threatened with physical violence by a person who refuses to leave me alone and dares to make arrogant demands on me when I try my best to negotiate with him and causes me great distress by trying to turn other people against me. I can ignore his stupid verbal insults, but the social sabotage and violence/threat of violence cannot be put aside. I have tried to reason with him and suggest that although neither of us like each other we could just leave each other be. As a result of this he just insulted me off being a coward for not wanting to fight with him. He demanded that I would withdraw from the social group (in which unfortunately he is also a part off, although he has a very low social status in it), leave from my best friend's parties, lose to him in a fight, beg for mercy and drop out of high school. Naturally I refuse to be a doormat and agree with such terms. Although many people will just want to sympathize with this guy I will not give up my rights because of this obnoxious person. My theory is that he takes out his aggression on me, because he can't fight those who are really causing it. Although he is a tall guy he tends to lose to everyone in fights and now thinks that the only way for him to save his manhood is by winning someone and he targeted me because he thinks I being alot smaller than him am easy enough for him. He says he is doing this because he just hates everything in me and in my behaviour and because I am simply dumb, immature, and a completely useless person secretly hated by everyone and refuses to admit any fault in his part in our conflict. Because he has been able to make me totally furious and ruin many parts of my life I will not try the "let's be more understanding of his behaviour, he has problems and has the right act that way. You have probably hurt his feelings and should now ask repeatedly of his forgiveness even though he gives you nothing but arrogance and contempt" plan that everyone seems to think works on every situation. And also because his ego (which is now in orbit mainly due to getting his first female "friends" who actually just use him as an emotional tampon) now demands to subjugate me physically, but I am not willing to risk my physical health for the sake of his problems. So he wants to fight, doesn't listen to any rational talk and is bent on sabotaging me for the rest of my school years which means over a year more from now (in my country we graduate from the local high school equilevant by the age of 19) and I am filled with total anger. Only solution it seems is to beat him up and so badly that he will be incapacited to ever attack anyone again. This counterattack would be illegal, but the stuff he is doing to me isn't so I have no legal protection. It seems I am forced to break the law and because I would not want a criminal record I hope someone here could give me some alternative suggestions on how to deal with the situation.

I was a bit unclear in my first message. It's not like I necessarily think that my looks are to blame. I have learned to be content in the way I look and with the right clothes I could even consider myself kinda good looking. It's just that the message that I get from the surrounding environment is that there is something wrong in me either mentally or physically, likely both, because otherwise I wouldn't get rejected all the time now would I? Everyone can think in their own minds that they are super cool, but the tough collision with reality is inevitable. I used to think that I was okay, but then my first short time girlfriend left me for a bass guitarist that was more exciting and attractive to her. My second girlfriend in turn, went for guitarist.She was deceiving herself by hanging out with me because she only felt affection to me, but was repulsed by the thought of being physically with me. The guitarist was tall, handsome, extroverted and most importantly, had social status and sex appeal. Last week I got rejected without even trying when a countryman I met on a ship tried to get me some company in the ship's night club. He ended up making out with both the girls he was trying to hook up with me. That's when I wanted to jump overboard to the freezing water and end all this. The reality is showing me that even though I might be able to get friendships, I am unable to get relationships because girls aren't ATTRACTED TO ME. As David DeAngelo has said, attraction isn't a choice, it's a gut feeling. And gosh is it frustrating to listen to everyones take on why I fail and what is the aspect wrong in me that is superb in them and how they themselves have dozens of girls. I have just had enough of this condition. Now some will say being alone forever without ever having hope of experiencing a core element of life and feeling like a loser as a result isn't enough to be suicidal. However, to me it is. Unfortunately I have other worries too - my future is hopeless (as well as is the future of the whole mankind link removed ) I doubt I'll get to study in the university I want, forcing me to take some you-want-fries-with-that job and live alone in a small apartment struggling to pay the bills with no feeling of meaning in my life, still contributing to polluting the world with my western way of life.

Everyone always says that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, but I think it's more like a permanent solution to permanent problems. The easy part of my life is over, last time I remember I was happy was when I was under 13. After that it has mostly been 95% chronic unhappiness. There are tons of reasons why it would be better for me to die, and only two reasons to keep living which aren't really positive at all. First off, I don't want to hurt my family. Second, I wish to have dignity, but by killing myself I would bring satisfaction and ego boost to those who try their best to push me down and hurt me. Hence rewarding their behaviour. But then again I just can't go on either. One of my biggest permanent problems is that it is IMPOSSIBLE for a girl to be attracted to me. I have read dozens of guides that are said to be totally fantastic and loaded with facts by millions of guys, but only thing these guides did to me was make me seriously depressed. It isn't fun to try and look for all the things that are wrong with you and then fail even with the fool proof social skill sets designed by psychology gurus after having changed your behaviour and personality to fit their ideals. I don't know what I am doing wrong/is wrong with me but the possibilities are too painful for me. The cold statistics of being rejected over and over and over again and my failure to ever get anywhere physically with my very short term girlfriends tell that I am probably 1) a submissive loser beta male nice guy 2) immature and dumb 3) an asexual ugly small feminine sub-male 4) a coward for not being myself 5) a weak self-esteemed pathetic whiner 6) a self-absorbed egotistical narcist 7) EVOLUTIONS WEAKEST LINK THAT IS NOT ALLOWED TO SPREAD HIS WEAKLING DNA. Really, like being sexually permanently frustrated and never having a person to care for wasn't enough I now have be ashamed of myself every day of my lowly life. I mean how much more clearly can nature tell you that you are a failure than by keeping you in life long celibacy ensuring your inferior dna is removed from the gene pool? And the thing gets ironic here in the way that in almost every guide they say a males attractiveness is the same as his status and respect within his peers and society. The authority he has over lower people. This is where ideas of equality and socialism fail. This is why every attempt at communism in human history has failed. Men always have to compete with each other in all sorts pissing contests to form a hierarchy. I am tired of these games and having everyone try to dominate and hurt everyone else in guy "friend groups". So the point is that: Social status=how much you have sex and are desired by the opposite sex Males sexiness=social status This means if you are not respected by people for being liked by the opposite sex then you won't be liked by the opposite sex because people don't respect you. Now people will say it's not like that and some girls are content in having a guy they themselves like and who is a kind companion. But if that is it then it means that instead of being submasculine I am just 8) a plain old chauvinistic selfish evil bitter loser. That would not be too nice an identity either so it will be better for me to kill myself so I don't have to live my life as a failure. There are too many people on this polluted planet anyway. Worst thing about being depressed is being so pathetically down that you start to write about your sorry life on the internet to unknown people instead of actually DOING THE DEED. Depression medication didn't work with me, but alcohol thankfully does so I hope that someday it will lower my inhibitions and give me enough energy to solve my problems.

I go to a very small high school. There really aren't many groups to choose from when it comes to friends so I just hang out alot with those who I least dislike, because it would be pretty dull the be alone all the time. The problem is that this group isn't really a supportive best friends for ever group, more of a bunch of thugs united loosely around common activities such as drinking and playing computer games. As a result there is a dumb pissing contest for group pecking order going all the time. I used to get picked on and was socially isolated in my previous school, and although I nowadays have alot of friends outside school and I also have many individual contacts inside school, I am still left with this group mainly as my company. Because I am not the one that gets the worst **** and don't occupy the lowest ranks of the pecking order based mostly on who is the biggest ***hole and opportunist, I have so far chosen to continue to hang out with them even though the atmosphere is hostile and non-encouraging. But there comes times when I'm really furious with these people. It only takes one person to "signal the target" and everyone verbally attacks some lone victim. The power games are just so mindblowingly stupid and cruel. The rotten group spirit keeps everyone on edge and very effectively takes away human dignity. The thing I hate most about this is that their company has turned me into a very similar selfish *******, and I mainly look out only for number one nowadays, because I have experienced too many a times that trusting another person will only lead to a knife in my back. I have also learned to enjoy the group's degrading "humour" that is always on the expense of someone's dignity. The big conflict comes when I am entertained by this and at the same time am going against my morals. I wouldn't be thinking this if tonight the target would not have been me. I wouldn't care the slightest bit about this problem until I myself became the one who is robbed of human worth. I just really don't know what to do, if I'd leave the group I'd lose alot of my freetime activities and it would only be hypocritical for me to leave because nowadays I'm just as much of an ***hole as the rest of them. The worst thing is really knowing that I deserve everything I get, when I got picked on in my previous school I could maintain some bits of self-respect, because I knew that I hadn't really done anything to deserve the treatment I got. That is not the case anymore.

He is probably flirting with you throught being "c0cky and funny". It's a technique that supposedly makes girls attracted. If you want more information do a search on DoubleYourDating on google. There has been discussion about this technique even here on enotalone, but I still think acting like that isn't very pleasant.

It probably means that he thinks that both of you think alike. I don't think there is some universal thing about guys that they would for example use that phrase when they wanted to signal that they are romantically interested. Same goes for eye contact. While looking in the eyes can often be flirting, it can also mean so many other things.

Examples of anxiety triggers for me: being called a name, being criticized about a habit, being stared at disrespectively, seeing a movie that stereotypes people that have some aspect of me, being belittled, being laughed at, getting blamed for stuff I didn't do and misunderstood. The list goes on, really small and silly things can make me feel like the lowest person on earth.

I am a very insecure person. My self-image collapses daily. There need be only a small external stimuli, say a negative comment, and I will spend the rest of the week inside my head filled with shame/guilt. Or I would, but inside one day there are many shame triggers so my mind will stop obsessing about one failure only when a new humiliation appears. The pain and anxiety is effectively multiplied if a similar negative comment has been made in the past - anything can trigger my old hurts. I have started to seriously consider suicide as an option, because my daily life has become so unbearable. I go to counseling, but it's redeeming effects only last for a small time before a new incident throws me back to rolling on shame and self-doubt. To make matters worse I hate myself for being so insecure, which in turn doesn't do any good to my self-esteem. Is there a way to stop self-doubt and build self-esteem in a way that lasts?

I was going to post on the "emotions and feelings" area with almost exactly the same topic name, but then I saw your thread near the top. I'm going throught the same thing and thinking about suicide is the only thing that can calm me down. I go to counseling once a week, but it's anxiety reducing effects only last for a few hours before the hell is back in my head. Zoloft didn't help me, just gave me headaches and made me nauseous. Sleeping is an escape to me because when asleep I don't have to think about my problems. Alcohol helps too for a moment, but if I drink then the anxiety gets multiplied the next day. Sorry to hear that you have the same problems, from now on I guess I'll obsessively check this thread too in case someone posts here some kind of a solution to the nightmare like anxiety.

One factor is the lower average height among asian males compared to caucasians. I also feel that media portrays asian men as submasculine and undesireable.