Unknown involuntary public outbursts might be visiting me soon.

[Unbrainwashed]

First let me explain what these outbursts are like. I get lost in thought all the time, and if I'm not thinking philosophy I'm usually reviewing and processing my life and memories, both distant and recent. I'm an awkward guy, definitely unique, raised in a cult that made me believe I shouldn't have fun in high school so I missed out on social skills. Now that I'm an atheist I still have that burden because I never got much experience with friends, and I can't make very many friends with no experience. So I make social faux pas' all the time.

 

Now while reviewing memories, which I have little control over, if I begin to remember an instance of an awkward or bad social behavior I made then I involuntarily burst out. What happens is in the moment I judge myself and try to punish myself in some way so I don't do it again, while simultaneously trying to forget what happened. I spaz in a brief instant committing one of a wide variety of actions. I've gone from briefly choking myself, squeezing my head, clenching my fist, flailing my arms around, yelling at myself, flinching, and yelling at someone in the memory. Usually just one of those happens for just a few seconds but violently, and afterward I realize how silly it is and am somewhat calm.

 

In this calm state I am still aware of the bad memory and what I just did but my attention is diverted from it. This is how I've coped for years. I never had any idea what this insane behavior could be but I ignored it because it wasn't making any real problems. At the time I was dealing with more demanding problems, clinical depression and what is probably borderline personality disorder.

 

These outbursts have been private since my teenage years, and though they were difficult, I just dealt with it since I was somehow able to keep them under control whenever someone else was nearby. Like most people, I chose not to get help about it until it became unmanageable. In the past couple of days this has changed and become more extreme than it ever has before. I don't know if it's because the cause of the behavior itself is getting worse or because I am getting lost in my own thoughts more often for an external reason and this is just a side effect. Well I definitely am getting lost in thought more easily with company around, and now I don't have any control on these outbursts even when others are around. So far I've had them about 3 times around family but so far they haven't noticed (I'm trying not to show them because they would make it worse, they're still in the cult). If I'm more conscious about it I'm less likely to burst out but that requires more effort all the time which I can't keep up with.

 

My biggest fear is that this will be so bad that I'll start randomly yelling outloud during a lecture once my school starts again this fall, or anywhere else with lot's of people that I know. I know my priorities are messed up, I care more about what others think than I do for any other problem and ironically this problem is stemming from me caring too much about what others think and I'd rather correct my awkward social behavior than care less about it. But I'm open to suggestions for help or information on what the hell this behavior is. At this rate everyone will think I'm more insane than I am and I'd be sent to the ward. Funny, because of the short duration of these outbursts they don't seem to have any effect on me when I'm not having them, so I feel much more sane than I look. My school psychiatrist is a joke and I'd rather not risk making it worse and wasting time with his meds, the school counselor isn't very helpful, and I don't have any money to see an outside psychologist.

 

So if said biggest fear becomes evident I would probably kill myself within a few months after. It may sound trivial but I will refuse to be publicly ridiculed in that way and I was already thinking about it within a few years anyway (if this problem is resolved though I have more hope for the others). If fixing this would require getting committed or having to see a more dedicated psychologist I would find cutting life short and having a blast in the last few months more worthwhile.

 

Thanks for reading, I posted here a while ago about an ex, this is the first time I've posted about more serious problems. If this post looks disorganized and crazy keep in mind it was also written at 5am heh.

[Xylitol]

Sorry to disappoint you but your case isn't special, and the fact that everyone thinks they are special isn't so special either, think about it, you can't shoot lasers out of your eyes, just like everybody else. As for your case you have the classic religious youth trauma, and there's a lot more adult people walking with a simular trauma then you would initially think, especially in the reformed church.

 

So what is going wrong in your life? The answer is that you have been conditioned to constantly HOLD BACK. You can even see it in how you are constantly doing EVERYTHING in your power to hold back your feelings, to point it out to you it is an 'EXTREMELY' unnatural thing for a human being to do, this is the reason why your brain is constantly SCREAMING.

 

Lesson 1: Emotions are not to be bottled up, they are to be expressed. With that expression comes freedom of the mind.

 

If you put a kettle of water on the fire without it being able to release steam , what will happen? The answer is that it will explode. The same process is taking place in your mind, so what you actually need is an 'outlet' to express your emotions. If the kettle releases steam, then you can drink tea in a bit, if you forget the fire ,then nothing gets done, so what you see is that the mind is a balance between, expressing and firing up the heat with pressure to get motivated.

 

You have the fire, and you have the pressure, now you just only need a way of expression to release the steam.

 

Expression is done thru activity. But if you restrict yourself from this activity you cannot express yourself.

 

So what i want you to do is to start doing the following things to start expressing yourself.

 

Start painting, express all your feelings onto the canvas. All your inner frustration, it doesnt matter what the picture will look like, just throw on it what you feel.

Get a free chat account at link removed , and start talking to people. It doesn't matter what you talk about, just talk and let it all out. Instead of restricting yourself i tell you that if you dont want to be lonely, you have to step towards the people. This in order to free yourself from your unneccesary social isolisation, to come to the understanding that 'no ,i do not have to be lonely, and 'no i do not have to be deattached from the community or from the people within my circle.

 

You need to free yourself, alright step 2.

 

Allow your emotions.

 

If you have a bad memory don't try to block it, just let it flow. The more you try to block a bad memory, the more it will come back to haunt you. When you let it flow, it actually means that you allow it to be processed, and that way you free yourself. This counts for all your bad memories, let them flow ,and let them be released.

 

Its ok to be strict towards your classes and getting things done, but its NOT ok to be strict towards your own emotions, you have been conditioned into being too harsh on yourself, instead of saying 'i cannot make mistakes' say although we try to avoid mistakes, life is build on them and from them we learn,and because we need to learn from them we may not judge ourselves that we are not allowed to make them.

 

The greatest achievements have been made from learning from mistakes, when one makes a mistake one must not judge, rather forgive themselves for making one. This is the only way to move on in a healthy manner.

 

That being said, you've aquired a hard to get rid off habit, and you need to train on a daily basis to get rid of your restriction and allow to let the thoughts flow, and use the negative energy from these thoughts to do positive things. Use the anger to bake a cake, use the negative energy to tend to your garden. That way beautifull things can come out of your hands.

 

I still think you should express all your feelings in here, and to a good psychiatrist if you can ever get one. Because its seriously not healthy how you are bottling things up, time to let things go and flow, so spit it out , everything that is on your mind.

[Unbrainwashed]

Thank you for the reply. Here's me caring too much about what people think again and trying to correct what you think of me. I don't think I'm unique because of this one behavior of mine, but I think I'm unique overall, the cultish upbringing being a part of that. In fact through recent research I found out this is probably tourette's syndrome, so I know this behavior is definitely not unique. But I will disagree if you try to convince me that I'm not unique in general. Or you can prove me wrong by finding me a bunch of physics-loving, psychedelic-using nihilist art majors.

 

I really appreciate your suggestion and it probably has a lot of merit; despite my being an art major I spent the last year finishing up my gen-eds without any art classes and I've been extremely demotivated at other times to get down and express myself. I've had ideas, so many ideas that I decided to start writing them down because I didn't want to lose them even if I didn't want to use them at the time. The more time passes the less relevant each idea seems to me though. Blah anyway I do need to just shutup and make some art one of these days.

 

I can't say for certain if my tics go away while I'm creating, I've had them since mid high school and I haven't noticed a pattern yet. But I'll try to find out when I get motivated again. In the mean time I'll work on your other suggestion which seems like such a good idea I can't believe I haven't thought of it. My problem is consistency, I can never be consistent with anything but I'll do what I can with this. Thanks again.