I'm such a messed up person

[ProtestTheHero]

I didn't know where to put this. I thought about personal growth, but I don't grow anymore, and I thought about using emotions and feelings, but I don't feel anything.

 

All of this major stuff is happening to me and in the back of my head I feel like I'm totally cognizant of the fact that I just don't care. Maybe I don't care about anything. Maybe I can't feel anything.

 

A huge chunk of my friendships just up and moved away to pursue their career dreams in the Carolinas. They had scheduled it for years so I knew it was coming, but half of the life I knew...the core that essentially helped me when I was at my worst and most awkward in early high school and beyond is gone. My best friend is gone. We used to talk everyday. I don't think I've talked to him since he left December 26. People leave. It's just what happens. You grow up and things that made up your old life erode.

 

I thought this would affect me pretty badly, but it hasn't. I look at it and think "and so it goes." My brother left for the Air Force. I was used to seeing him all the time and now I'm not sure when I'll see him again. So it goes. My parents marriage was largely a con and for years I thought it was solid, but it turns out my mom cheated on my Dad three times and the third time was recent. He consulted me about what he should do. My mom looked at me and asked me if I cared if I'd see her again. They got counseling and now are trying to make it work, but I know it's essentially a sham...a band-aid because my dad doesn't particularly want to face the financial repercussions of divorce. So it goes.

 

Speaking of my dad, he struggles every day to be a communicative and involved person in the lives of the people around him. Doctors misdiagnosed him and the strong antibiotics he took gave him c-diff. He's part of the low % of people that can't seem to kick it with available treatments. He's relapsed like ten times. My mom complains that the pain he experiences makes him an iffy husband and a questionable role model for how a man should be to a woman. She asks me to evaluate him in that light. So it goes.

 

I think I was in love once. I dated someone for two years and we used the word. I hadn't used it before and haven't since. She moved away and we fizzled out. I don't really care about love now. I'm not sure I need it. I'd rather bleed out than let someone try to love a wound away. I met a girl here this semester. She was ok. It ended up mostly being physical but she's embarrassed to be around me now because she's in love with her ex and feels what she did with me was wrong. So it goes.

 

I'm not a depressed person. I'm not sad. I just look around and don't really see much for me aside from competition. Competition can make the sparks fly for me and it's why I've put all the work in to be a lawyer and it's why I play poker. The only pleasure I get is in beating people (obviously not physically). I have a drive to be better and it is all consuming. Aside from that, the only other thing I get out of life is doing what other people are too afraid to do.

 

I almost feel like finally achieving a degree of success with women is a product of that. People that I hang with in the dorm or friends will say "look at such and such girl, she's so hot blah blah blah." I'll say, "Talk to her." They give me reasons why they can't. I go do it. Drink such and such drink. They don't wanna do it, I'll do it.

 

I added this part because I need to be honest. What I believe in and "preach" in attraction and flirting DOES work. It's not snake oil. But I'm able to do it NOT because I'm some uber confident guy...I just don't care about consequences anymore.

 

This minor shock value, the disregard for all things me, and competition is pretty much the only thing that I intensely feel now. I don't dream about meeting a soul mate. I don't dream about changing the world. I don't need anyone to understand me. I don't even need anyone to care about me...there are a lot of things about me that I don't care about and I'd never hold others to a standard I couldn't match. I don't dream about starting a family -- I don't really talk to or see most of my own.

 

I just walk through life. I just am. There's really nothing behind it. I do everything I need to do to secure a stable life on my own. I think before, when I used to post a lot of threads on here, I was just broken. Now I don't think there's anything to fix -- in all positive and negative senses of that phrase. Every now and then I metaphorically bang my head against the wall to make sure I still remember the sensation, and the rest of the time I float restlessly in a way that maybe only Kurt Cobain could admire. I'm not sure.

 

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[In the Dark]

Interesting read.

 

Something makes you think differently from many people.

Maybe over thinking things and who you are.

What you have experienced and the approach you take.

 

Do you take issues head on or do you look for the easy way out?

 

We tend to grow when we take issues head on no matter how bad they are or so I have found out personally.

 

You have a lifetime to think and change a long the way.

You never know what the future bring or what you become.

[TidalWave]

I'd say you're on the right track, but then again who's to decide what's right or wrong.

 

Anyway, my life runs on competition with others in any and every way possible. I care to be better than everyone around me. Not because I need to prove myself to anyone, but as superficial as it is I love the attention It's like a drug.

[tiredofvampires]

You say you don't believe there's anything to be fixed. And from the sound of your detachment and numbness throughout this post, it would seem you really don't feel anything is wrong with you.

 

But the title of your thread is, "I'm such a messed up person."

 

So -- could you explain this apparent discrepancy?

 

What is "messed up" about you?

[tiredofvampires]

Let me add one more question --

 

I'd rather bleed out than let someone try to love a wound away.

 

This suggests you do feel that you're bleeding.

 

What is the wound that's bleeding?

[Capricorn3]

All of this major stuff is happening to me and in the back of my head I feel like I'm totally cognizant of the fact that I just don't care. Maybe I don't care about anything. Maybe I can't feel anything.

I think the very fact that you started/posted this thread, shows that you DO care and you DO feel something. You're looking for answers as to why you're feeling "nothing".

ToV is on the money - there IS something hurting. Question is, are you in denial, or will you admit it?

[ProtestTheHero]

You say you don't believe there's anything to be fixed. And from the sound of your detachment and numbness throughout this post, it would seem you really don't feel anything is wrong with you.

 

But the title of your thread is, "I'm such a messed up person."

 

So -- could you explain this apparent discrepancy?

 

What is "messed up" about you?

 

My problems are no longer about abandoning physical fixations or reactionary responses from women. There's nothing I can look at and think "Yes, this is the issue." I just understand that the way I think and feel is usually not the way most people think and feel, and it's not a matter of being unique or marching to a different drum. Dressing weird might be an indication of that. Not caring about anything related to or about love is not marching to a different drum. I know it's weird and wrong, I just don't know that it's a point I can work on because I can't draw anything from me that makes me feel differently about the issue.

 

I'm messed up because I understand that I won't live what anyone would call a "happy" life but I am prepared to do it anyways. I don't look at it in fear, because I know I couldn't live any other way. I couldn't be a father or a husband. I couldn't look at a field and get all misty eyed believing I'm making a difference. I know I'm messed up because these prospects should frighten me. I'm messed up because they don't.

[tiredofvampires]

So just so I'm clear what you're saying.

 

Are you saying: "I'm messed up and I'm okay with that"?

 

I'm messed up because I understand that I won't live what anyone would call a "happy" life but I am prepared to do it anyways.

 

Would the life you see ahead for you be something YOU would call a happy life? Do YOU think you will be happy on your path?

 

Also, the bleeding wound thing...?

 

Sorry to be so long-winded with so many questions, LOL.

[Stay_home]

I just am, and that is that.

[ProtestTheHero]

So just so I'm clear what you're saying.

 

Are you saying: "I'm messed up and I'm okay with that"?

 

 

 

Would the life you see ahead for you be something YOU would call a happy life? Do YOU think you will be happy on your path?

 

Also, the bleeding wound thing...?

 

Sorry to be so long-winded with so many questions, LOL.

 

I'll be fine with it I think. I wouldn't categorize it as happy. It's enough to move forward, though...I think it is, anyways. The wound thing was just a metaphor to describe my personality and preferences.

 

I just don't even see any other way to go about things, and maybe that's the problem.

[itsallgrand]

I'm sorry to hear you have had so many of your favorite people move away all at once. I found it very difficult being away from my best friend for half a year, and that was only the one person who had moved for a limited time.

 

Do you think that you maybe over analyze and over think things sometimes, as a way of dealing with things in life that are hard? It almost seems to me that this is your defense mechanism; a sort of emotional numbing that is intense, in order to not feel painful emotions. Perhaps because it is what you learned to do in the past, or maybe cause it's just easier for you naturally and you have gotten used to that way of coping.

 

But I think if you were to deal with the more 'simple' and immediate things going on, and to accept a view that you are not so different than everyone else (you are yourself, with your own unique ways, but still essentially in all major respects similar to the rest of us), you might gain a catharsis of some of your emotions.

 

I don't believe you unable to feel at all. And sure, I don't know you personally or intimately, only what you write on this board. But you actually come accross quite a sensitive sort who uses distance to try and cope with what seem like unresolvable feelings to you, and problems to you.

 

You just need a new way to cope with hard times. And you are going through a tough time, with so many people leaving and so many things changing, a difficult period for anyone.

[tiredofvampires]

I think a lot of what IAG said is well-spoken, and my thoughts run similarly, so this is going to be a far less concise version of it, lol.

 

You know that old refrain about how if you have to ask if you're crazy, you aren't? Madmen don't typically recognize that they are mad.

 

So on the face of it, one could say there's some very disturbing stuff in your post(s), taken at face value and along with some of the history: here's a guy who started off rage-filled after some traumatic childhood incidents, developed a profound disrespect and mistrust (to the point of hatred) of the opposite sex with a need to prove himself as a man, and now is turning into someone who says he can't feel, doesn't care to feel, doesn't grow, doesn't care to want anything or anyone (except for some immediate cheap thrills and passing highs), who doesn't care about consequences, has a daredevil mentality, likes to shock people and put his fearlessness on display, is impetuous mood-wise and can be reckless for the sake of it; he's not concerned with "making the world a better place", is far more interested in confrontation and retaliation; he turns to substances and distractions/past-times that turn into addictions for many people, like alcohol and gambling, either to take risks that are a "rush" or to tune out; he has shown a proclivity towards grandiose ideals of brilliance, power, and beauty and feels possibly incapable of love or wanting love. At times he's shown a remarkable lack of empathy. He can't even identify if the feeling he had at the time he told a woman "I love you" was really love. And he states that he is untouched by the prospect of the trainwreck this might all signify for his life. So this (coupled with a genetic predisposition on your father's side of the family for mental imbalance, which you've mentioned in other posts, and connected some of your symptoms in the past to) is a sobering, troubling picture which, if you just looked at as a list, not a whole person, you could neatly fit under a number of defined psychological conditions that carry these features. And this being the case, I would agree with your assessment that it's not just "a geeky t-shirt-different" kind of different to respond to life emotionally like this. And quite honestly, I take that seriously.

 

But here's the thing. Despite this profile, you've titled this thread, "I'm such a messed up person" and you've said that you can see yourself that how you're reacting is "weird" and "wrong." You can also see that these things are objectively disturbing when you look at them within yourself -- even though the same indifference is being applied to this observation as all the other things you feel indifferent to. The fact of the matter is that you can identify these traits as neither healthy, nor leading to something you would ultimately want. And so as I said to kick this off -- someone who is completely lost in depravity doesn't think, "I think I need to bang my head against a wall to make sure I can still feel SOMETHING." (i.e., "I wonder if I've gone mad?") He doesn't post to put it out there that he may be a lost cause.

 

And for all the times I've felt you lacked empathy and have felt you to be icy and coldhearted, I've also seen cases where you clearly felt sympathy or empathy here, and a desire to help someone. I've seen you relate to people who are able to love and want love with a knowledge only someone who has glimpsed at it would know. I've seen you provide insight where your attention was not asked for. I've seen you give nuggets of healthy advice for people's relationships (not just dating advice), which can't be given unless you yourself had a healthy concept of what ought to be done, first. I've seen you earnestly share in someone's regret over any number of life situations. You've written poetry, and praised poetry, listened to music and made music, for no other reason than that it spoke to your emotional need to "get things out." I've seen your mind unbendingly set in stone about yourself while sensing that you were quietly recalibrating your judgments and perceptions over time (in contrast to what you've said here about "I don't grow anymore".)

 

So there is all that. And once there is that, you can't pretend it's not there, or overlook it. These are capacities. And capacities can become dormant or repressed, but they are not just obliterated. That's why they're called "capacities." So I see it as far less scary for you to make a thread talking about how you don't know if you can feel, love, care, want anything or anyone and don't fear not being able to, than if the idea of writing such a thread was laughable to you -- along with a forum like this, because life's going *just fine* in your opinion. "What, are you saying I have a problem or something?!" That would be a LOT scarier. (Actually, lol, you've done that too, but then later when the dust settled...were able to reconsider your arrogance.)

 

So then the question becomes...what the problem is, what is standing in your way, and from there, what does one do about it.

 

I agree with you that identifying a problem here is not a simple answer, or something you can readily identify that you're fighting with, as it was before. However, I feel that the reactionary responses (and power struggle) with women problem you had before has mutated, and that what you're dealing with now is another version of it, sort of like the software update -- it's more broad now. In that, you still have a strongly "reactionary"/reactive mind towards life and people in general. Which predisposes you to life in the only terms you feel are acceptable, emotionally -- and that is, combativeness or anger. I'm talking about when there isn't neutrality or some mundane fun/distraction going on.

 

I think as nonspecific as this statement is, it's going in the right direction:

 

I just don't even see any other way to go about things, and maybe that's the problem.

 

I really think you're on to something there.

 

But as you stated, you're not sure how you'd remedy this. How do you fix something if you don't have a blueprint, or tools and don't know what you're supposed to make? People can talk about this type of goal for happiness and that goal, and all the ways lives are made happy, and it's just blah blah blah until you find something within you that stirs which feels real to you. It DOES have to be experiential in some way for you to find another way of going about things.

 

The difficulty I see with this trail of breadcrumbs is that alternative ways of going about things -- and when we say "things", we really mean "emotional responses", don't we? -- are "things" you don't have a good relationship with already, so you have bad associations with them. And that puts you on a losing, antithetical footing to start with.

 

See, "a different way of doing things" would require that you consider the possibility that your current emotional palette is egregiously incomplete. It's like trying to paint a picture with only green and red (or in your case, black and white, much of the time.) Why is your palette limited like this? In my opinion, (and IAG has touched on this) it's because you would prefer to numb out than employ painful emotions. They are simply not allowed. And for you, the painful-est ones are the ones that make you feel "weak". You absolutely cannot stand to feel vulnerability of any kind -- not even to acknowledge it within yourself. It takes you back to a place you have beaten back with a big stick, I believe. And which are the emotions that make you feel weak? Any emotions where you need anything. Heaven forbid, need anything from anyone.

 

If you miss someone, that's need. No further explanation needed. So, no can do on that.

 

If you are sad, that's need -- pity for oneself is small and cheap. Need for comfort or solace makes for an inward beggar, if not an outward one (which would be even more horrifying). So that's gotta go, too.

 

If someone loves you, well, that's not necessarily your need, but it could become so if you're at risk for reciprocation, so that's rather dangerous territory because...

 

The ultimate "concession" is loving. YOU loving. Talk about NEED. If you love someone, you will depend on them for things emotionally, like support (okay, you'll refute me on this one, but that's part of this whole thing and no healthy LTR exists without this component), you will lean on them in your trusting them, you will risk them leaving you or some day it ending, in which case you'll have to let go of something your heart wants or wanted. Love is an opening of a can of worms that treads in all the places of vulnerability that nothing else quite does. You HAVE to be open, to love. You HAVE to SURRENDER (a word I've had a a recoil factor about most of my life up until recently) a feeling of control when you love, because it's no longer just about you and your own happiness. I don't mean that you should be with a controlling person -- what I mean is that love itself is a feeling of letting your heart yield, and I believe you find this very threatening. Like you couldn't let them "have that over you." Like love will cause you to lose some power and control. I mean, when the hell do you yield anything, let alone this (your heart)? And in fact, the dynamics in your one serious relationship contained this element. I believe that element of not wanting to yield is alive and "well."

 

And what is the backdrop for your experiences and views of love? First, you were exposed to ideological and idealistic notions of love in religion which required you to have faith in something that didn't deliver -- to the 20th power. So that was a sham, and consequently all words that allude to love and sacrifice -- just the emotion of love in general and its "wound-healing" nature -- curdle your stomach acid and evoke in you a reaction of mental hives and rashes. Then there was this first romance you had which, while it lasted for a while, was fraught with insecurities on both sides, and your self-image as a man was already damaged and on the line at that point. So maybe there was too much baggage on that one to call. And since then, the one lasting pillar of supposed longterm love that is closest to you as a role example -- your parents -- has become another sham. Collectively, a mockery of love. And individually, playing their parts. On your mom's side, by making love a sickeningly undignified brew of smothering (wow, I just realized that word is just "mothering" with and "s"!), pestering, coddling, needy, clingy, insecure, petulant, suffocating and over-protective -- aside from the disloyalty of infidelity. On your dad's end, while I do believe he's an upright and honorable person from all you've said, for all that he's traded in to keep his family intact, along with that exchange was his regard, respect and possibly even love for his wife. And whether or not on paper he held up appearances overtly well enough, this is what he modeled for you -- and thus, you inherited his attitude towards women and their emotional needs in love, earned as well as unearned in her case (and no one has fully represented her side for me to know entirely what her story is.)

 

So I don't see how anyone could come away from all this with anything sweeter than vinegar-soaked soot in the mouth about this most essential emotion.

 

And yet, essential it is because I see it as the progenitor of all the others that complete a human emotional palette -- like sadness (since you can't grieve if you didn't love something/someone) and loneliness (you can't be lonely if you don't want to love someone and be loved, and can't miss someone unless you love them), etc. Of course, these are all the "negative" emotions associated with love, but the trade-off is that you also feel joy, happiness, fulfilled (in connection), safe (in trusting), and incomparable peace (that is my experience, anyway at its best -- that all is right, no matter what). So in a sense...as twisted a reference as this is here, love is a deal signed with the Devil -- especially for you. Or if you prefer an Old Testament reference, and this one seems apt...Samson entrusting his hair to someone.

 

But as that flies in the face of everything you've built up to feel strong and impenetrable, this is not a deal you're ready or wanting to make yet. And like I said, the backstory of associations with it almost precludes the desire to WANT to "do things differently" even if the blueprint and the tools were shown to you. You have many personal and philosophical, conceptual and visceral knee-jerks pointing you the other way. Not knowing how to do things differently is a very sincere and open question. And it opens the door to some answers that may rattle these various cages.

 

So what does one do but coast in limbo? If you are not as thirsty to hate anymore...but don't want to travel towards love...for the time being, canceling out feelings, period, would pretty much solve it.

 

Though I think it should be said, I think you've had so many months to prepare for the departure of your brother and friends, you've had a chance to submerge and numb yourself to the feelings of loss/missing (which come from love) you anticipated. I firmly believe that if you got notice today that your bro or your best friend were killed (or your dad), you would quickly find that you are fully able to FEEL. It would not be "so it goes." You have been desensitizing and bracing yourself for quite some time to pre-empt feelings of weakness, depression, or being disconnected when these things inevitably would happen. No, you didn't have to consciously do it -- your mind with its biases did this because the current is that strong. So it just feels spontaneously unfeeling, but I believe it's because you were building it along the way and that's understandable. I wouldn't say it's even abnormal or some big black flag. It's rather to be expected in ways.

 

I get what you mean about the bleeding wound thing being just an analogy about your personality and preferences, but then that is quite a statement you've made. Why would you use the analogy of preferring to bleed to death than to have a wound healed by love? What you are saying is an illustration of all that I've just enunciated: that you are too proud to be loved (the surrender aspect), too afraid (the mistrust and vulnerable aspect), and too cynical (the betrayed aspect) to let love or want love to be part of your emotional palette. You are not receptive to it for all these reasons, but I wouldn't say that's a verdict on whether you need it or not (in fact, I know it's not). Right now, it's a reviled emotion for you in all these ways.

 

Yet, in this analogy, you are implicitly acknowledging that love is -- or can be -- a healing force. Even if you aren't choosing it.

 

And that is a good thing I see buried in this.

 

Because as much as it's unavailable to you now (which is ultimately self-caused and self-imposed), recognizing that wounds can and do get better with love (even though you've got to do the major lifting yourself), such a choice may become more relevant, more imaginable, more desirable to you as life continues to shift and evolve. At some point in time, love and self-dignity may not seem as inconsistent as they do today. I think right now these conflicts are buried in the overwhelm of all these life events.

 

So I think at no point that you've felt "this is final, I'm not going to change" (which you've said before) should you ever foreclose on what can or might happen with your heart in how you might "go about things differently." Notice that this is your pattern — you come to a conclusion that you’ve stagnated with, wherever you’ve plateau-ed at, you proclaim how things will be...and then...things change. The more often you notice this (I’ll beat it into you, god help me, haha), the more you can in the future stand back from yourself just as you have in this thread, witnessing yourself outside of yourself, as an observer and say, “Hey, look — I’m doing that thing again.” And it IS really great that you can stand outside of yourself and observe as you’ve done here. That’s the healthy mind at work.

 

Coming back full-circle to what you said about not knowing how to do things differently, I think this is quite a massive transitional time for you on so many fronts that you should cut yourself some slack. Think about it: much of your identity for the last 3 years has been The Man Who Women Could Never Want. And now, that identify has been shed. It's a load off -- but then, what else are you to become? I think you're not sure of who to be and how to be without it, but that's kind of a good thing. And while there is this vacuum...there arises this restlessness about the future shape of yourself. And just at this pretty recent turn of events, your closest friends and brother have left, and your family feels unsolid. AND you're in your last semester, facing graduation and all that implies, which in and of itself is extremely stressful. So there's a lot going on here, plates for you to keep in the air. Needless to say, I think it's okay if right now the last thing on your mind is being a husband or father. Whether or not that is in the cards for you, your mental affairs should be only focused on keeping yourself aware. Self-aware.

 

The first step to learning how to do things differently is to posit the question, which you did (though declaratively.) Then, stay open to clues. When you really want to do things differently, you'll actually realize you want different things. Which will make you more interested in finding out how to achieve them. You've got anger and indifference down pretty well. I think even if you don't want more...it's possible, and it seems to me, that you want to want more. You're not supposed to have all the answers now, or be fully-fleshed out in self-definition. Not by a longshot.

 

But you can't force wanting something, anything. So right now, I'd say active observation is your ticket. There is sometimes nothing better to be done actively than this. And that leads to new developments. Take a watch and see attitude, and suspend judgment.

 

It's a lot more intriguing that way, too.

 

Things have a way of revealing themselves. I say that to myself whenever I'm up against a wall and don't really know what's supposed to happen. And it has served me very well.

 

 

 

(I had some thoughts about "happiness" as well, and also the "so it goes" bit, but I might either PM that to you or post again, since this is already, well. You know how it goes. lol)

[ProtestTheHero]

You and IAG are right -- I do cope this way.

 

Everything you said about how I feel about the word love, what I associate it with, the religious background, the examples of "love" around me, the callous treatment I was subjected to and how weak I was to do anything about it, and how vulnerability in general makes me feel like I'm a POS high schooler getting dumped on without any recourse available to me. I hate that Tyler. Tyler at 14 - 17 was almost unforgivable. His naivety, his shyness, his weakness, his "walk away from trouble" and avoidance attitudes makes me feel like he will forever be the worst version of me that I have ever shown the world around me. So when you talk about love, I think of how it has failed me or how fake it has seemed, and when you talk about vulnerability I think of being the guy who might have paid for friendship or any type of positive contact with a female.

 

I do hate the prospect of needing people. I know that most people don't make apologies for the fact that they need close friendships, a supportive family...bonus points for a loving partner and whatever else. I needed (maybe everyone does) those things at one point, at least I would have told you that I did. I definitely remember wanting some of that at various points in my life. I think over time I just sort of broke everything down into parts. "I want a woman to love." Well, what can women bring me? Sex. Intimacy. Friendship of a different sort. Ok, I got porn, so the sex thing we can cross out. Intimacy...well, I can surround myself with guy friends and just have close friendships with them, plus I don't much like talking about myself to begin with -- at least, not in emotional terms. Cross out intimacy. "Friendship of a different sort..." -- well, what else is there? Guess that was BS. Don't need that, so I can cross that out, and then I can cross out women entirely. Next.

 

And I did that over and over and over with different things, where I found ways to essentially meet all my needs and learned to live a life that while I wouldn't say it was phenomenal, it wasn't (and isn't) what I'd call "bad."

 

I still struggle big time with shaking certain characterizations of myself. The Man that No Woman Could Want is still a battle for me in the lulls, when things dry up. When I go through periods of more limited contact with women, it creeps back in and I deal with it.

 

But I have done a lot of work to try to arrive at a place where I don't really need anyone. I would definitely be affected if my Dad or my brother died today. I would handle that pretty poorly, and when I finally processed the fact that we'd never meet again, the way I would emerge from that grief would set me back big time from any progress I might make with the issues we're discussing.

 

I'm just at such a weird point. I want to want those things, yes, but I don't. I'm afraid that observation and time won't be enough, because observation in the past has only reinforced whatever I feel, whether it's because that's all I could look for and recognize or whatever other reason I don't know. But if I'm trying to observe things that could somehow help the process of some of these desires manifest in me, I'm stuck watching groups of college women and groups of college men, hearing sex throughout the dorm, walking past surface level evaluations/conversation of hot guys in our dorm, watching my parents, watching religious couples that are friends with my parents, etc. etc.

 

What can I observe in these environments with my eyes that would process through my brain with my background that could help me here? I don't know the answer to that question.

 

I think real love has some restorative power. I also know that if some woman approached me trying to become a close friend to help restore me in that way, I'd be looking for traps around every corner. I'd say there's a 1% chance where her motives had my interests in mind. I'd be looking for a catch. That's why I hate vulnerability. I hate being made the fool. I hate letting my guard down only for them to pull this BS on me again just so I can say "Haha, yeah, you got me. What was I thinking? Funny stuff." I'd rather say "I'm too smart for your s---" and leave it at that. It's not even the pain of rejection. It's more the pain of being shown my class, my real worth.

 

Instead of building a house with a foundation of pillars and patting each little support beam saying "I'm counting on you," I'd rather take a sledge hammer to the whole thing and make a comfortable bed among the ruins and learn to love the wind in my face when I sleep and hopefully dream of nothing.

[itsallgrand]

I recognize all of that in myself. And I truly feel I have come out the other side of it.

I never thought I would, I thought I was damaged beyond repair a lot of times, and the part that rings the clearest bell for me is the discussion here about blocking the sense of needing or wanting anyone or anything out in order to protect my pride. Pride was the downfall of several major relationships for me, romantic and not! I didn't want to be made the fool again and made to feel that powerless, and da da dum....it happened anyways even with my massive kremlin of protection of anger and pride and numbing to not feel vulnerable to anyone.

I sit here and read this and it's like PTH is a male version of me in my late teens and twenties. My view of men being pretty much, beat him to the punch and don't give him much room for anything and that will protect me. When I fell in love, it was in spite of myself, and only bc someone loved me so much that there was eventually no ignoring it. I felt it and it changed me.

 

I'm talking about myself but I am thinking, man, what can I say that would help PTH out? And I don't really know. I think what TOV said is true; until that inner part of you changes enough to start picking up the clues, and you let yourself want it, know that about yourself and really see how what you are doing now is hurting you and the consequences are so huge and negative to you that you will do whatever to go another way. there is something very important in you that will remain inaccessible to pretty near everyone and everything. You have the control over that, and you know that. It's hard to open that up when you've been hurt so bad. I know that very well.

 

Keeping yourself aware and open I think was very good advise. And if there is anything that is learned by taking the path you have (and I feel I did for a long time), it's that things change even if you don't want them to! How do you get around that one. You can't control it. Nothing you can do can control that. It's a matter of how you are going to choose to adapt to those changes and who you want to be in this world. It took a really low low for me to decide to seriously change my course. Hopefully that isn't so for you, and you don't go through so many times of needless suffering and waste as I did, in trying to preserve this state.

[tiredofvampires]

I've read this again, with the intent to return to what you've written here. There's a lot here, actually...so I think I'll post some at a time to avoid a totally unmanageable all-at-once post. If you're still into the thread...(edit: oh, I see IAG beat me to the bump! )

 

I wanted to say something about not needing people and, related to that, the whole "so it goes" thing which would seem a little off-the-beaten-path considering the things I always emphasize.

 

Yes, I do think people "need" to bond and have deep relationships with others. When I say deep, I mean ones where you can trust people, where vulnerability is mutually acceptable and edifying. Where you mutually rely on each other for emotional intimacy and support, as well as practical support. Whether these are friendships, family or significant others, I think it's essential to most people to cultivate and nurture such relationships which means there is a "need" for us to have them without apology. We were designed for this, and in fact science -- including the study of non-human species -- has born out that universally, lack of close contact, physical and social, breeds mentally unsound individuals who also show signs of physiological decline. To say that creatures need other creatures is a scientifically proven truism. Of course, the higher on the brain sophistication chain we go, the moreso. Our primate brethren are shown to behave and require much as we do, but there's no mistaking the fact that human beings pretty much top out in this respect. So unless you consider yourself a complete aberration of nature...I think this does apply to you, whether or not you feel you've done a masterful job of killing off your need for others and crossing them off lists. The need is still there, even if you have effectively repressed it, is what I'm saying. I have no doubt it's been effective and it's also quite possible that you will never be someone who craves some of the demonstrations of affection others do. What I am saying is that love is a basic human need -- and I believe you could take even the most hardened, emotionally stunted sociopath and this would be true. Some psychology experts might disagree, but this is my feeling.

 

And YET, there is another whole viewpoint about this that I take. It might even seem contradictory, but it's not.

 

Taken in a certain light (which is another light entirely), I agree with you that we shouldn't need anyone. And in a certain light, I consider "And so it goes" to be a highly evolved, progressive thought. Someone could say that and I'd consider that they are very advanced, emotionally and adaptively, in the world.

 

The kicker is, how that's said and how it's meant.

 

See, I don't believe that anything in this world is made to last -- that's a given, if you're observing. I don't mean, "All marriages fall apart" or something like that. I mean that since everything's always changing, we can't expect to know when or how something will leave us. A person might leave us because the love they feel is insufficient, or because they are killed, or die, or move away and fail to return our messages. Or if they are your child, they will grow up and even though you love them, they may reject you as a parent or otherwise just get so involved with life that you don't hear much from them or see them. So this person you spent your life investing in is now their own agent and you have fairly little control over what happens from there, whether they remain part of your life or not. I could go on and on about different scenarios about family, friends, or partners no longer being there -- not having them anymore for one reason or another. But the bottom line is the same: when you have someone or something in your life and love it, you also have to be able to entertain the idea of letting it go, releasing it, should the time and need arise. Be that through death or separation. So ultimately, I feel that one should live in a state of preparation for these events -- in the sense that one recognizes the nature of things is such that we may be asked to let something or someone go.

 

This doesn't even just apply to people, and banking on them. It applies to everything. EVERY THING. You may lose your job. Your health. Your fortune. Even your life. And the attitude I think ultimately is the best one is that you need none of these things. When I say need, I mean that if the situation arose where any one of these things were lost, and it was out of your control (of course you should try your best to preserve things you love and value), you are able to gracefully relinquish things or people without clinging.

 

The thing that makes people miserable, angry, sad, despairing, bitter, resentful is really rooted in the clinging, not the having had or loved -- it's rooted in the fact that one truly believes one NEEDS certain things to be okay, or even happy (that word, unqualified, bugs me a bit, but for now it stands.) If you perceive that something is absolutely necessary for you to have in order to feel okay in your skin, in the world, appreciating life, then yes, this is a major set-up for being at the mercy of loss. Of course, this is the way we naturally are, so everyone takes it for granted that it's a catastrophe if you lose the "pillars" around you.

 

In my view, the proper way to "not need" is to be able to say, "If I have this person in my life, wonderful. But if they are gone, I will still be okay." "If I've got all this success, money, etc. wonderful. But if the tide turns, I will still be okay." "If I am healthy and strong, wonderful. But if I'm given 6 months left to live, I will still be okay." I will take whatever comes and embrace it for the time I have it -- I will enjoy life and what it offers me, I will not refuse the joy I have, when I have it. But then I will not grasp at it if it changes or I don't have it anymore. This is quite a radical thing, and how much easier said than done -- but it's really such an immense freedom, as I've come to believe.

 

Can you imagine being able to enjoy and love something while it lasts, and then be able to say sincerely, "all good things must come to an end"? What an unfettered mind that would be!! You would not be caged by clinging to love or being loved. But you would not be caged as you are now, either, unable to let it in for fear...and it is for FEAR...of what might happen, how it could betray or hurt you. It is not the love that is the problem. It is the anticipation of how needing it will hurt you, and how clinging to it will play out. So you're pre-empting that, and I'm saying, the best of both worlds is to be able to take it or leave it. And I don't mean that in a "it makes no difference to me" sort of way, that that's usually said. Here, I mean it as, "I can take it. I can enjoy it. I can even seek it out to benefit my life. But then if it's gone, 'so it goes. I can leave it.'" That "so it goes" thought could be, in this mindset, extremely powerful, peaceful and philosophically mature. But right now, you're not without clinging. You're clinging to not clinging, and it's making you into a "mess".

 

Unfortunately, the "so it goes" version at play now is quite a bit more about pushing things away out of deep aversions and fears and negative mental states, and numbing out, than about walking the line between having and being able to let go.

 

If you could learn to walk that line between having and being able to let go, I'd agree with every word -- sure, you shouldn't NEED people. You shouldn't NEED anything in fact. And everything about life is "so it goes" -- I'll drink to that!

 

But of course, this is almost like asking yourself to eat a piece of pie and not taste it. How can you have something and not crave or want, or need, or whatever comes up? It's really possible though, I think -- to fully, totally taste something, to feel it, even to want it, but then in the next moment to not be tasting it and attached to that anymore. You don't have to lose your tastebuds or sensation -- the change, the orientation to it, has to take place in your mind.

To the extent that you might see some merit in this...you might see some merit in the idea that you don't have to either get suckered into a situation that'll destroy you, or else smash everything to rubble and think, feel, and dream of nothing. Either love and be ruined, or make a bed of loveless ruins? You don't have to make that choice.

 

You can choose to walk in the middle of it -- thinking of love as something creatures and humans do thrive on, and that you are no exception there. But also to carry the "que sera sera", "so it goes" higher understanding into all of it. Not fearing, not pushing away, not hating, not looking to punch holes in it, or looking for the catch, not guarding...but ready with a chute and rip cord if the plane is on fire, provided you've done everything in your power to prevent it or save it. A rip cord to sail out into the blue and be ready to leave it go if need be, carrying your freedom of mind with you.

 

You say that the 14-17 year old Tyler was the worst version of you that you've ever shown the world. I disagree. First, because I think we just have a disagreement about what makes a good showing. I understand why you, having gone through that, would feel it brought you nothing but pain and therefore it's the "worst" you there was. But I, standing on the outside of you and your peers (who you should really not be handing over lifelong power to determine your best "you" in their despicable, SOPHOMORIC actions), I personally think that a kid who is quiet, polite, who walks away from bullies, who is naive, was not improved upon by becoming the guy who is showing all those traits I described in my last post that might easily characterize a person of especially bad, psychiatrically compromised nature.

 

You know what I think the best version of you would be? The one that would walk that line I talked about, above. The one that is brave enough to love and be open to it, and strong enough to not be destroyed without it. I think the best version of a Tyler would be one who knows when to act, and when to not act; when to step forward, and when to restrain himself; when to respond, and how not to just REACT; when to embrace and when to let go. It's a lifetime commitment though, so the sooner you get on board with it, the more chance you'll have of succeeding.

 

Can you admit this is a really hard thing to do? Harder, and requiring more of you, than being just an angry SOB who teaches himself to compartmentalize and methodically strike things off his list so he can not feel anything? That was hard, granted. I challenge you to say that my suggestion isn't even harder, bolder, and stronger.

 

And better. Because you've said this, and this is really good:

 

I'm just at such a weird point. I want to want those things, yes, but I don't.

 

This is really a first step. To want to want these things. It's good you at least want to want them. I think you see no other way than how it's been though, and how to reconcile what has happened with wanting these things. And for the things I've just said, I'm suggesting the outline of how you might reconcile that conundrum in your head, as a starting point anyways.

 

When you want something then, and it's not happening, you have to then ask:

 

1. Am I willing to acknowledge that I have a problem?

2. Do I want to try to solve it? Do I want to work on it as such?

 

You said in a thread some time ago in Personal Growth, "I hate women". It was a long thread, titled that. And in that thread you said you realized this was not something you wanted for yourself. You didn't want to hate women you said, and didn't want to hate anyone.

 

So I think now, even though you haven't put this in Personal Growth, you might ask yourself the same questions, only the focus is different now:

 

1. Do I recognize I have a trust issues -- do I recognize that this is a problem, and do I want not to have trust issues?

2. Do I recognize I have intimacy issues -- do I recognize that this is a problem, and do I want not to have intimacy issues?

3. Do I have anger/anger management issues -- do I recognize that this is a problem, and do I want not to have anger issues?

 

So really, the start is the same as before -- you have to want to identify what you don't really want in yourself and acknowledge it as the obstacle it is, just as you did with hating women/people. And by the way, I don't think those are off the table either. This is just an update of self-inventory. But I do think you have to ask these questions of yourself.

 

You've said that IAG and I are right in that you are now using these mechanisms to "cope." So really, you know this isn't so much a "who you are" as a "how you cope" question. And I think you recognize that these are maladaptive coping strategies in some way. So the thing here is not to resign yourself to something because this is just "how you cope." It does get better than that. Shouldn't it?

 

I would not say this is even half the battle won. But it is the battle committed to, and that is everything. Without that, there can be no movement and no winning.

[tiredofvampires]

Oh, and there was a post/thread here not long ago that I just thought was terrific, and I think it totally belongs on this thread. It really just speaks to everything here -- about not feeling, "controlling and predicting", and so forth. Basically, it's just a link to a video clip.

 

I thought I might PM it to you at the time because it made me think of you, but now seems perfect -- and plus, anyone else seeing this for the first time might get the benefit of it being in circulation again, here.

 

I think you might really enjoy this presenter -- she's funny and fun to watch, and I think she might be on your wavelength. I like her down-to-earthness.

 

 

[LillyLooWho]

You've gotten some great advice and insight already but here's my two cents.

 

From whatever has happened to you during your life, whatever has affected you, it seems it has brought you to the point where you deal with your feelings by being numb to them. As if you are resigned to the way things are and you can have no impact so why bother. In some ways, I think we all have some of this feeling of impotence -- it is part of being human, but some people have a stronger resilience against this and some people accept that it is what it is.

 

I think that recognizing our lack of control over so much in life can be a healthy thing; however, if this recognition turns into resignation and numbness, it has gone too far. Like all things in life, there needs to be some balance. I think this is why you say you are messed up. I think you recognize that you have tipped into an unhealthy level. It can be easy to do for some people.

 

As far as advice for you, I could suggest therapy but in your current state of mind, I would imagine you would say "what's the point". I guess all I can really say is that you mustn't give up on love and on connection to other people. When you put yourself out there, you can get rewarded for it. A life of detachment can be a very unsatisfactory way to live. I think you need to chew on this dilemma for awhile and hopefully your human spirit will push you through so that you can have a more satisfying, less disappointing, less numb life.