Constantly feeling emotionally assaulted

[Aries73]

I cannot seem to escape my feeling that people are attacking my emotions by displaying their happiness in my presense. I work at a local University and a few weeks ago was brought to the point of having to leave my station just to keep some semblance of sanity.

 

The reason? A former co-worker had brought her newborn child to work for everyone to see. For me, this was all too painful for me to be around. My work just wasn't enough to occupy my mind. I felt as if these people were saying my life was meaningless. In my eyes, their happiness was a reflection of the misery I endure day after day. I didn't need to see this. I know my life is just a waiting room until the Reaper tells me it's all over.

 

Yesterday, I noticed a flyer notifying everyone of a baby shower being held today and this feeling returned. I can't even think of going because it very well could be the last straw psychologically for me.

 

Upcoming marriages, birth announcements, etc. Why do these continue to wreak havoc on my emotions? Why can this happiness float in my direction? All I have now are illusions that I create to feel as if things are OK.

[s758535]

I think it is in human nature to feel jealous when people have what we want the most and we don't have it. So if the happiness of the people make you feel bad it is because you don't have it.

Try to focus on your life to get what you need.

[smoochie]

Wow. Sorry to hear this.

 

I would suggest learning how to genuinely be happy for other people. Realizing that your day will come. Instead of feeling bad or jealous or whatever negative emotions you are feeling, turn that into joy. It's a little selfish to be envious of others happiness.

 

Find some things you really like and concentrate on that. Get out and meet other people to have fun with. I will tell you a quick story...

 

When I told my best friend I was getting married, I asked her to be my maid of honor. Six months before the wedding, she told me she couldn't do it for some bogus reasons. She came to the wedding and the night before caused a big scene, all because she was jealous I was getting married and she wasn't. She didn't come to the wedding the next day, she got a flight and went back home. We didn't speak for years after that. I finally realized she was never happy for me.

 

Well, she still has not gotten married and been with the same married guy for over 12 years. She is miserable because he hasn't divorced his wife (they have been separated for years) and marry her.

 

Karma....I think so. You have to learn to be happy for others before you can expect to be blessed yourself.

 

Hope you feel better soon.

[eurocar]

Wasn't it a little selfish of you not to forgive and forget and not to initiate contact for years?

[Mlost]

Wasn't it a little selfish of you not to forgive and forget and not to initiate contact for years?

 

Selfish? Her "best friend" was selfish enough to make a scene at the most important event in her life up til that point. Why should she have to get down on her knees and try to remake this friendship with an apparently immature, self-focused person?

[Mlost]

To the OP. I know how you feel. There was a time years ago when I would actually get a little happy hearing about drama in my friends/family's lives because my life was so deep in the s***ter. It tore me apart to see people succeeding when I couldn't seem to get my feet on solid ground.

 

But joy and success is not a nonrenewable resource. The more joy there is actually makes it possible for you to experience happiness and fulfillment in your own life. Be happy for people who are able to make something of themselves in this hard, hard world. That feeling will give you drive to be a better person. And that can ultimately lead to success in your own life.

 

I'm so sorry that you have these feelings. They are so debilitating and emotionally consuming. You can have a great life too!! But you need to push yourself. Nothing good ever comes of nothing.

[jettison]

Perspective can be a cruel mistress...

 

More then 50% of those people getting married will go through painful, gut wrenching, soul crushing divorces in the not too distant future. At some point, they will be crying uncontrollably on their bathroom floors, uttering "I wish I had never met him/her" and rocking back and forth like a mad person.

 

Of the children born, some of these parents will feel resentment toward their child for taking them away from the rest of their life. Their child will sometimes feel like more of a burden or a curse then a joyous gift. They will pray for simpler times, when they weren't alway worried sick, and so anxiety ridden because of their constant fear and worry that they are doing things ok, and that they are bringing up a fine young child.

 

Through each of their child's tribulations, their successes and their failures both, their egos will be affected. If their child gets poor grades, they will blame themselves. When another child can't dance and never picks up being a ballerina, the mother will think that everyone is actually being critical of her. Perhaps some dad will lash out at the coach of his kid's Little League team because his kid just struck out again, some other parents moaned with disappointment, and his ego just go bruised.

 

Still other children will experience perfectly healthy, blissful upbringings, and then for some unknown reason, grow to hate their parents. There's no real reason for it, but suddenly mommy or daddy are evil people, responsible for all of their childs ills and shortcomings. Perhaps some even become estranged.

 

Life's happiness does not come to you because of what you own, or who you gave birth to, or who decided that you're so attractive or well off that you feed their ego efficiently enough. Life's happiness comes through proper perspective, through always offering up love to eveyone around you, through loving yourself no matter what, and valuing yourself so others might as well.

 

All of these "blissful" people you see at work have their problems as well. Life isn't always as rosey as you see it on the smiling faces of those successful people around you. Everyone puts their pants on one leg at a time. Everyone experiences pain, suffering, regret, loss, misery, and every other negative emotion. If they didn't then they would cease to be human. And for many people, the public mask that they wear is not a fantastic representation of the actual turmoil within.

 

 

it's a love song to the self

a story recapped every day

it's a world of bogus feelings

and a world of slow decay

it's a world of laughter hidden by this world of fear and torment

a game of strange compulsion, our visceral convulsion

 

anxiety for love of life

anxiety for pain

anxiety, a feeling that you know you can't contain

anxiety destroys us but it drives the common man

foundation of society

anxiety

suppress it if you can

 

the caste of coffee-achievers didn't perform like they planned

the morning rush hour traffic is our play of false elan

so run around your frantic track and lay you down to sleep

tomorrow's the redemption

we strive for that exception

 

anxiety for love of life

anxiety for pain

anxiety, a fear that you have nothing more to gain

anxiety destroys us but it drives the common man

foundation of society

anxiety

suppress it if you can

 

what are we angry for?

we all need a common cure

that common goal for which you strive

to have more than the other guy

 

the quest for the truth

the quest for the gold

we end up all the same

the common lie

the righteous cry

we end up all the same

the angry crowd

those lost and found

everybody's all the same

the poet's pen

these words I lend

we all bend to anxiety

 

- Graffin

[KAT MOMMY]

I think you need Jesus in your life. YOu sound so negative, vaugue, and very angry-not at others but with yourself. Stop expecting other people to give you happiness and bliss-you are in control over your own destiny and if at 35 you haven't managed to find true love/happiness then I feel as if you need a time out to re-evaluate YOU.

 

Force your self to be happy for others-the birth of a baby is a precious gift from GOD and you sitting around steaming hot and green with envy---for what???

 

Pick your head up, brush your shoulders off and keep it moving in anew positive direction, you are living and breathing so that is already a blessing! Is it not?

[jettison]

I think you need Jesus in your life.

 

This assumes that the OP is christian, or even that he believes in God. It's a big assumption.

 

 

-you are in control over your own destiny and if at 35 you haven't managed to find true love/happiness then I feel as if you need a time out to re-evaluate YOU.

 

I don't think that life is so much a destination as a journey. Nothing in this life, especially your level happiness or contentness remains static. It always changes. On top of the world? It will change. Bluer then blue? It will get better. There is no magic age where you find "it". "It" actually never comes. There is only "now". But I agree with you in that it is a choice if you can figure out how to make it.

 

Force your self to be happy for others-the birth of a baby is a precious gift from GOD and you sitting around steaming hot and green with envy---for what???

 

A depressed person can't just force himself to be happy because someone commands him to be so. It doesn't work like that. Minus concrete advice on how the OP might get to that place, you may as well be telling a cow to jump over a moon because it will come off as an equally achieveable goal.

 

Pick your head up, brush your shoulders off and keep it moving in anew positive direction, you are living and breathing so that is already a blessing! Is it not?

 

I like this one. I agree. You're breathing right now. Take stock of that. Live in the right now rather then the tomorrow. In now you may find peace. In tomorrow you can only find anxiety. In yesterday you can only find despair. You need to focus on now. And to that end, go pick up a copy of "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle.

[eurocar]

Selfish? Her "best friend" was selfish enough to make a scene at the most important event in her life up til that point. Why should she have to get down on her knees and try to remake this friendship with an apparently immature, self-focused person?

 

I was merely making a point. We are quick to find and point out fault in others, but we can start within ourselves: what can I do to remedy the situation and make an obviously insecure, honestly rather pathetic girl be able to appreciate the accomplishments and fortune of others? She is obviously troubled. Calling her selfish and harboring anger and resentment towards her does absolutely nothing--especially when you don't address the situation. In that case, it's just a war of egos.

[KAT MOMMY]

Only you are in control over your own destiny

[StretchGee]

I cannot seem to escape my feeling that people are attacking my emotions by displaying their happiness in my presense.

 

You need to let go of envy and allow their happiness to lift you as well. Being bitter and envious will eat you up inside. I've been there, done that, am still doing it.

 

jettison's recommendation to 'think of others potential misfortune' is no good, either. Schaddenfreude (finding joy in others misery) is an awful policy. It causes you to live your life at a 'lowest common denominator' position. Not good.

 

Let go. Seek out the beauty and happiness around you. Be amazed at the miracle that humans can be happy at all and it will help to teach you that you can be happy as well. Misery loves company, but it is still misery.

[jettison]

Only you are in control over your own destiny

 

Tell that to cancer.

[jettison]

You need to let go of envy and allow their happiness to lift you as well. Being bitter and envious will eat you up inside. I've been there, done that, am still doing it.

 

When have you ever seen, in the history of anyone's life, someone tell an angry, depressed, bitter person "Just don't be envious. Be happy." and then they are happy. Ever? The kool-aid has to be spiked with just a wee bit more then that.

 

 

jettison's recommendation to 'think of others potential misfortune' is no good, either. Schaddenfreude (finding joy in others misery) is an awful policy. It causes you to live your life at a 'lowest common denominator' position. Not good.

 

That's a misquote. You put quotes around something that I didn't say. NO WHERE did I say to seek joy in other's misery, and you completely missed the point of the post, 100%. No, it's not an "awful policy" because that's not the policy at all. "Lowest common denominator" is a rather disgusting take on a very thoughtful post that I made. Go back and read it 3x if you have to or don't. If that's really what you got from it then I don't think you're apt to get the spirit of it anytime soon.

 

Comparison is the root of all anxiety. The OP makes negative comparisons about himself in relation to others when he bares witness to their happiness. However, we are all part of the collective uncounsciousness. We all experience pain, joy, misery, and happiness. Some are just better at processing these emotions. In the future, don't just skim through someone's post only to read something ugly and false about it, and don't attribute a negative quote to someone when they never said the words. That's what's "lowest common denominator".

 

Let go. Seek out the beauty and happiness around you. Be amazed at the miracle that humans can be happy at all and it will help to teach you that you can be happy as well. Misery loves company, but it is still misery.

 

As if he's a child? Do you really not think that the OP has thought "Oh gee, maybe I just seek out happiness then". You're addressing him as if he's either 12 years old or a complete idiot. He's not. He's a person in pain.

[Aries73]

The bad thing is I actually WANT to feel happy for people when good things happen to them. I am fully aware that bitter reactions to something good happening to others is destructive and toxic.

 

The problem lies in the reflection I see as a result of these events. Seeing the joy in others is like staring into the sun for me. It's as if all of the years of rejection and relationship that had fallen apart come back to my mind all at once. It is extremely tough for me to see the world in a positive way when I feel as if the odds are stacked against me in everything I wish to succeed in.

[jettison]

The bad thing is I actually WANT to feel happy for people when good things happen to them. I am fully aware that bitter reactions to something good happening to others is destructive and toxic.

 

Exactly... because you're not stupid or that out of touch. That is my point. Comparison is the root of all unhappiness. If you don't believe me, then go read "The Four Agreement" by Miguel Ruiz. This will lend you all the subject matter you'd ever need on the topic. Until you change your perspective, you will always suffer.

 

The problem lies in the reflection I see as a result of these events. Seeing the joy in others is like staring into the sun for me. It's as if all of the years of rejection and relationship that had fallen apart come back to my mind all at once. It is extremely tough for me to see the world in a positive way when I feel as if the odds are stacked against me in everything I wish to succeed in.

 

And success and failure are two sides of the same coin. "Nothing breeds failure like success". No, that's not a misquote. Glimpses of anyone else's success are the only tools that might make you feel like a failure. Because, by your goalpost, the vast majority of people on this planet are complete and utter losers. If you're not married? You're a loser. If you're married, but not happily married, then you're a loser. If you don't have children, you're a loser. If you have children, but your children don't like you, then you're a loser. If you don't have enough money then you're a loser. If you have a lot of money, a spouse, and happy children, but you're a mean spirited person, then you're a loser.

 

By your standards, about 98% of the people on this planet would be deemed loser. How do you win in your world? You can't, ever. You've set yourself up to fail no matter what you achieve.

 

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

-- Eleanor Roosevelt

[StretchGee]

In the future, don't just skim through someone's post only to read something ugly and false about it, and don't attribute a negative quote to someone when they never said the words.

 

Point taken. I acted in haste. Sorry.