Journaling my "personal growth"

[penelope13]

So because you are not successful in the outside world, you think people on ENA owe it to you to prove that the world is not a bad place and that people care and will give you their support unconditionally no matter how much negativity you throw at them, no matter how dismissive you are towards their continuous advice and support, no matter how many temper tantrums you throw?

 

I think you are angry, angry at yourself and afraid that you are about to end up entirely alone, not even having ENA as a pseudo social interaction platform anymore and thus you react with dramatic declarations (I guess pretty much how your mom reacts whenever you try to take distance from her), cries of outrage, and trying to manipulate people into feeling bad for you, trying to make people tell you that you are not a "bad person" (however your definition thereof), that you deserve love, happiness etc.

 

People have been telling you all these things ... you just chose to not believe them.

 

Nobody can do the positive thinking for you, do the mental work required to find motivation within yourself to make some real changes in your life.

 

You are the one who needs to start taking action.

 

If you don't know what to do - read this thread from the beginning, because there is really nothing else anyone could be saying at this point.

 

I don't know what you get out of this self destruction course you are on, but I'm sure you must be getting something out of it. I know that bulletproof (and others before) suggested you to start giving advice/support to other people on here and that you actually started to post on someone else's thread. But instead of posting this in response to bulletproof and thus giving her some indication (as well as maybe a well deserved 'thank you') that her efforts have made an impact which would also have served as a HUGE sign for posters on your thread that maybe you are starting to take tiny steps - you start a temper tantrum because people may run out of energy and people lose hope that their efforts are worth it.

[MattW]

I'm not throwing a temper tantrum, I don't feel anyone owes me anything, nor am I looking for anyone to sympathize with me. I don't need anyone to tell me that I'm "not a bad person", or that I "deserve love, happiness, etc.". I already know that I'm not a good person, I know that I don't deserve love, happiness, or anything good. I've tried to pretend otherwise for years now, but it's time for me to face the facts. It's time for that tiny little flame of hope that's been burning deep down for all these years to finally get blown out.

 

All the things everyone has said about my character over the course of this thread, hell, over the course of the last five years, they all add up to one pretty rotten person. So, if that's the person I am, then that's what I'll be.

[penelope13]

If you want to pretend you didn't understand what I meant, fine ...

[MattW]

If you want to pretend you didn't understand what I meant, fine ...

 

What am I pretending not to understand? I get the whole "You have to work for what you want" thing, I do. I've understood it every single time someone has said it to me. But to some extent, I can't help it that my inner turmoil and fear of leaving my comfort zone have created a much longer, harder journey for me.

 

Again, I'm not trying to throw a temper tantrum, I'm not looking for anyone to give me sympathy or whatever. I'm just starting to try to make peace with who I really am. You, yourself said a few posts back that I've never shown myself to be a good person to anyone here on ENA in any of my threads, so it's not like I'm fabricating what you guys have said over time. I get it. I'm not a good person. Why should I bother trying to convince myself otherwise any longer?

[blueidealist24]

Nobody on here actually thinks you're a bad, horrible person. At first everyone was very positive in this journal, but then a few started to say somewhat rude things because they were frustrated that you didn't take their suggestions.. not because they think you're some evil monster who deserves nothing. At the beginning of this thread, people offered a lot of useful advice, but since nothing seemed to work quickly to make you "better," they started to "grab at straws" to try to identify what else might be a problem of yours that they hadn't touched on. Admittedly, a few posters took this and degenerated into nit-picking you, but most didn't do this, and once again, for the ones that did, it's not because you're an evil monster or they think you are that. They were just frustrated. I thought they should have a bit more patience, like I did, but maybe they visited your threads more often than me and have been reading them for longer, so they were more to the point of being fed up. I wouldn't say that is your fault, since it's your journal and it was their choice to keep reading.. they could have stopped at any time, but the situation is what it is.

[Deciduous]

Hello Matt,

 

I can see you're in a lot of pain right now. I do have a lot of sympathy for that. Yet, do you see how you have externalised your own internal war? These fights you keep having on eNotalone is really about your own internal war, your own self-hatred, your own battle inside.

 

Sweetie, suddenly you say it's you against eNotalone. But it isn't. You do know that. Night after night we watch a shocking level of abuse going on. It is dished out, by you, to you.

 

This whole thread has been a bloodied punch-up between one individual and himself. We are constantly intervening between you and yourself. But to no effect. At times it is so painful to watch. I wonder how you can stand it, why you stand it.

 

Have you read some of the comments you've written about yourself. Do you have no pity, no sympathy for that person. Do they deserve that level of contempt? Why? What did they do? Murder some-one? It's vicious.

 

And when members of eNotalone walk away, saying "I cannot stand to watch this level of abuse day in, day out "- you tell us that we must - although there is nothing we can do, to stop it or intervene.

 

Do you know how helpless I feel, Matt? Me personally. When I was in my twenties, I felt very much about myself the way you do about yourself - and it breaks my heart to read some of your post. I am telling you straight. My Mother was also emotionally abusive, which caused me immense pain. Finally I went into therapy at the age of thirty. Now I look back I wonder why I waited so long.

 

There is so much pain in you and it needs to come out, it needs to be heard. Yet when it does on this thread, Matt, the Abusive Therapist comes out belittling and ridiculing every single thought and feeling that you have.

 

I feel that our voices, here at eNotalone are so far away, that you barely hear us. You aren't a terrible or bad person. You aren't a monster. YOU ARE A PERSON IN PAIN.

 

Do you get that?

 

Are you seriously asking us, the anonymous public to watch this level of abuse, every night and not feel some responsibility for letting it go on - and helplessly standing by.

 

So what the hell do we do, Mattw? You tell us. Go on, you tell me? You are more than welcome to PM me. What do I do? What is your answer to me.

 

Yes I do think you need to take a 48 hour break from eNotalone. You need stand back for moment and understand where your last past couple of posts are coming from. Absorb them, read them, reflect on them, because they are talking very loudly about where you are right now.

 

Are you listneing to them?

 

This is a person who constantly feels abandoned and scared and alone. When he has company - albeit on-line - he pushes it away because he doesn't feel deserving. And when we go - you begin to experience just how much you have abandoned yourself.

 

That is what is going on here.

 

It is not us - or our threatened departure - generating these painful feelings of rejection. They are coming from you. You rejecting, you. Over and over again. What is going on in eNotalone and your external world is just reflecting how you feel about...YOU.

 

You know that.

 

So, Matt, I ask you again, kiddie. What is it you want us to do? More to the point, what can we do? Are you asking us to witness overt and appalling abuse, over and over again.

 

If you want to change and grow, then we will do what-ever we can to do that. But if you want us to continue standing by whilst this abuse goes on then you are asking too much.

 

God Bless. I am definitely rooting for you to come through.

 

Deci xxx

[Batya33]

I know that my decision not to respond to your invitation to reinforce what you've written is because I do want to help and not responding is the only way I know how to be helpful (or at least not unhelpful).

[penelope13]

There are different ways of support and trying to help. Each has its own merits at different times and in different situations.

For some, support consists of simply lending an ear and being sympathetic. For others it's challenging the other person to rethink their own perceptions and decisions.

 

At this point you should know by the shear continuation of posters to keep responding to you that you have their sympathy and support and that they want to see you succeed. These posters wouldn't do so if that wasn't the case, because there are numerous other threads they could choose to respond to instead of to your threads. Thus I think many posters (that's certainly true for me) skip the part of expressing their sympathy at this point, because they consider it as a given that doesn't need to be restated in each post.

 

Not that it has been obviously successful, but at this point the only thing useful that I believe I can contribute is to challenge your perception of yourself since you are not doing that currently for yourself.

 

Despite all your fighting off suggestions - you have started to make small changes. Maybe you don't remember - but while I may challenge you, I ALSO point out continuously the developments that I see you undertaking. It's just a pity that you can't see those developments yourself as such and that instead you choose to focus on the negative self talk. Challenging your perceptions of yourself and the things that occur in your life is NOT equal to assigning all these extremely negative labels as you choose for yourself (I don't even want to list them here, because they just seem to resonate too strongly in your mind).

[MattW]

So what the hell do we do, Mattw? You tell us. Go on, you tell me? You are more than welcome to PM me. What do I do? What is your answer to me.

 

I want you guys to just... do whatever you want to do. Post, don't post, whatever. I'm not asking anything from anyone.

 

Either way, I've moved on from the idea of being the "best" person I can be. Now I'm on to looking at how I can be the "worst" person I can be. If I can't be loved, at least I can be hated. That's better than being nothing. That last little flame has been extinguished. I'm over the edge and there's no turning back now.

[Batya33]

I want you guys to just... do whatever you want to do. Post, don't post, whatever. I'm not asking anything from anyone.

 

Either way, I've moved on from the idea of being the "best" person I can be. Now I'm on to looking at how I can be the "worst" person I can be. If I can't be loved, at least I can be hated. That's better than being nothing. That last little flame has been extinguished. I'm over the edge and there's no turning back now.

 

Yes, it reminds me of what I learned about parenting small children -they would rather be hated than ignored so as parents we tailor our discipline strategies accordingly. If you simply want attention of some kind then sure, go for it. I just hope you stop short of doing anything self-destructive or destructive to others.

[blueidealist24]

Even if you're frustrated with the OP, I'm not really sure how telling him he's acting like a small child is going to help...

[BrianH46]

Even if you're frustrated with the OP, I'm not really sure how telling him he's acting like a small child is going to help...

 

I'm not sure how reinforcing/coddling negative behavior is going to work either. The OP is a grown man. Easy to forget but he is still a 25 year old man. Not a rebellious teenager. Not an ignorant child.

 

He pulled this same thing a few months back of no longer being a good person and reverting to a "selfish/bad" person. Apparently he didn't mean it then but means it now... Open your eyes, the OP is not here for advice but rather interaction, he frequents multiple forums for interaction. He is here for attention, the way he writes, baiting for tailored responses.... He is lonely. You can coddle him and make out posters who are trying to help as the bad guys but the fact remains, no matter how much interaction or attention he gets online, he will still be lonely.

 

So how do we fix that?

 

We get him to become aware of his issues. Although he may say things like he is a bad person or that he knows what his problems are, he doesn't mean it. Because he will argue that he is content. He only concedes that he has problems so that interactions with ENA would continue.

 

Now if we get him to become aware of his issues: the biggest ones being depression. We need to motivate him to take actions to counter depression. We need to get him to realize that depression distorts reality and that it is impossible to accomplish anything while depressed. If we manage to get him motivated we give him advice on how to utilize that motivation: exercise, therapy, medication.

 

Blue, how do you plan to help him? I've noticed that you have a soft spot for guys like Matt (and remember scklbad?) but how do you intend for them to change if you do not make them aware of their issues?

 

As for Matt: responsibility and humility. Learn the meaning of those words.

[Cheetarah]

Yes, it reminds me of what I learned about parenting small children -they would rather be hated than ignored so as parents we tailor our discipline strategies accordingly. If you simply want attention of some kind then sure, go for it. I just hope you stop short of doing anything self-destructive or destructive to others.

 

Yes. This is true, and is true of many adults who can be in full grown bodies, incredibly intelligent, personable people but emotionally are infantile. Negative attention is still attention. Being 'hated' is still being thought of, still being recalled, still something.

 

I've frankly never seen a thread, a journal get so many different posters trying hard to help over and over again.

[Batya33]

Even if you're frustrated with the OP, I'm not really sure how telling him he's acting like a small child is going to help...

 

I am not frustrated with the OP. I actually think he would rather be compared to a small child because that gives him another excuse to continue his dramatic pronouncements -I don't think he is offended in the least. We all act like children sometimes.

[enalover143]

Even if you're frustrated with the OP, I'm not really sure how telling him he's acting like a small child is going to help...

 

Oh blueidealist, ever the bleeding heart / apologist. I mean that in a good way, that's needed often to counteract us others who are on the tough love end of the spectrum. Both strategies work in different situations. However, in Matt's situation, it has been 5 years of the same talk over and over.

 

Even in this thread, the first 60-70 pages were quite positive and encouraging to him, but slowly devolved into the situation we have now due to the reasons mentioned by many posters. He was actually making some good progress, in small steps (e.g. going to lunch with the guy from work, trying to be more comfortable with touch / personal space with the girl, bugging the guy from work to go to the gym). But then he gave up real quick and reverted back to the maddening stance that is being taken now.

 

I don't think the OP can be coddled any longer. The negative habits and thought patterns will become so ingrained they will be near impossible to break. If you or he think it is difficult now at 25, it will be even harder at 35, 45, etc. He clearly needs professional help which we cannot offer (he has prior posts where he tried / thought of harming himself, is resorting to anger / bitterness recently, and has said nothing motivates / makes him happy which is often a sign of depression). It is necessary to push him to get it and sometimes you have to convey brutally frank messages about these things. He might take it as rude or offensive, but ultimately it's for his own good.

 

When I was 21 I almost flunked out of college, was lazy, and had no job, was going nowhere. But I got some serious tough love from people who cared about me and without that good butt-kicking I would not be where I am today. Of course, this is me bringing my own personal experiences, opinions, and biases to the type and style of advice provided on ENA. Every advice-giver will be coloured by their past experiences and affect how they provide aid and that is natural. That is why we see so many different opinions, advice styles, and even plans of actions here. But that is a GOOD thing. It gives the OP options and avenues to choose the best route/path.

 

The problem here is he isn't choosing ANY path. He just wants to sit and rot despite everyone's best intentions and that is maddening and frustrating beyond reason. There is 100+ pages of great ideas, actionable items, suggested plans, links to valuable professional material and websites, and yet he has discarded them all. Coddling clearly hasn't worked, and neither has tough love. The OP simply wants to stay put.

 

So I applaud you for maintaining your patience, but I think it's beyond the time for coddling anymore.

[enalover143]

He pulled this same thing a few months back of no longer being a good person and reverting to a "selfish/bad" person. Apparently he didn't mean it then but means it now... Open your eyes, the OP is not here for advice but rather interaction, he frequents multiple forums for interaction. He is here for attention, the way he writes, baiting for tailored responses.... He is lonely. You can coddle him and make out posters who are trying to help as the bad guys but the fact remains, no matter how much interaction or attention he gets online, he will still be lonely.

 

This. (Props to Brian)

 

It's always important to get to the root motivation driving a person to do something. And I think it's pretty clear after 100+ pages the OP's core driver is NOT to get help. It is attention and interaction as Brian mentioned above. Until he owns up to this, and truly seeks change within himself, anything we say will be useless. Sure, he masks it as needing help, but his style of writing, his battling of semantics, the baiting of responses and reactions as Brian points out, is all there to feed his real need for people to acknowledge him, soothe him, assuage his ego, and assure him his thoughts patterns and actions are totally OK and rational. And some of us are not willing to feed into that and hence why people are either: a) Reacting negatively, and/or, b) Fleeing / refusing to help further.

 

Don't be fooled by the tactics being used. As Batya (or penelope, forget who) said, he has to truly want to change before we can get through to him. Right now he is not there yet, despite his pleas otherwise to convince us. Just think of all the addicts you say (like on Intervention), who say all the right things in front of the camera, saying they want to change, saying how terrible their life is...but when it comes to push and shove, they actually don't want to do it. Matt has not reached his bottom yet, and his issues clearly have not hit critical mass (in his head anyways, most here would beg to differ), so he is going to stew and string us along until he finally realizes he does need true, authentic help.

 

As Dr. Phil says, you can't change what you don't acknowledge. Matt is putting up a smokescreen pretending he acknowledges the issues, but deep in his heart and mind his inner self does not agree. So, we're at the current standstill.

[enalover143]

My aim is to sort of use this topic to "journal" my personal growth (well, hopefully, anyway; either that, or my self-destruction), and discuss it with anyone that wants to chime in.

 

In terms of core drivers and core beliefs, here is a very telling last line from the OP's very first post on this same thread. Even 3 months ago the OP was not truly invested or believing in growth. He as was much focused and drawn to his self-destruction as his alleged "personal growth". You cannot change if you do not truly want it. Perhaps "self-destruction" was his subconscious desire all along. Only the OP knows for sure.

[enalover143]

Further, if the OP believes he can self-prescribe, self-medicate, and self-heal by simply relying on the internet and a community of anonymous posters, he is delusional. This is akin to one of us trying to diagnose and cure an illness we are suffering from just by using WebMD. Or trying to learn and pass a quantum physics course just by reading Wikipedia. Or trying to become a singing sensation by learning off videos on YouTube (Justin Bieber aside). How many of us in our right minds would do any of this? Clearly he is not right of mind and needs help.

 

Having a therapist or medical professional work with him 1-on-1 will cut out all the noise, the negative distractions, and the never-ending limbo of staying stuck on the internet. The professional can come up with an action plan, prescribe correct medication, and take it at the pace he wants (since he professes we "push" him too hard). Further, the professional can ACCURATELY and APPROPRIATELY gauge his progress and what fine-tuning is needed. He cannot do that himself nor can we do that as proxy over the web. The professional can customize and tailor the right plan (although he refuses to believe so) to his needs, whereas we cannot. He/she can come up with a SMART plan with SMART objectives (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, Time-bound).

[MattW]

Okay, great, I'll add "immature, irresponsible, attention-seeking child" to my list of things I am. Why not, eh?

[MattW]

My thoughts for the day, as I get ready to leave for work:

 

I hate everything, and everyone. I hate people, men, women, myself, everyone. Everyone is worthless, useless, myself included. I'll still wear a smile to everyone I come accross in the outside world, but in actuality, I hate everyone. There's not a single person in this world that I care for. Frankly, it's beyond me why I ever craved human companionship of any kind, hell, it's beyond me why ANYONE wants human companionship.

[MattW]

One of the worst parts about working retail is how many random people you see and encounter. People that seem normal and happy... Ugh, what a farce. Saw this one couple, about my age, that just couldn't keep their hands off each other. Disgusting. People make me sick.

[MattW]

Last night, as I sat in bed, flipping channels, I saw that I get a free preview of HBO and Cinemax this weekend. My natural curiosity led to me checking out the "erotic" programming that was playing. Watching it just brought me anger, disgust, and discontent, yet I couldn't bring myself to change the channel. Ugh. I hate sex.

[MattW]

Blah. Another day where I have to spend 7+ hours around people, due to work. Great... Considering how ignorant and annoying people are in general, that's never a fun time... Really getting tired of seeing "happy" people, "loving" couples, annoying children... It'd be nice if the whole human race just went extinct. Such useless existence.

[MattW]

It's amusing to me how everyone lives such a lie. The world is all a lie. The world we live in, it's all make believe. At their core, people are all selfish. People only want what benefits them.

 

People seek friendships because they don't want to be alone. People seek relationships because they don't want to be alone. People date because they have the animal instinct to mate.

 

But everyone wants to dress it up, make it seem like it's all bigger, more special than it really is, because no one wants to accept the reality that our lives are meaningless.

 

People want so badly to believe their lives are special in some way, but they're not. "Love" isn't real, "love" is a buzz word people use to make themselves feel good about who they're with. It's just a word. It means nothing.

 

Relationships, platonic or otherwise, exist only to satiate one's own ego. They fear being alone. "Love" and "commitment", in actuality, are a bit of a fallacy; in reality, people will just say and do whatever they can to keep people in their lives. That's what "love" and "commitment" really are, a desperate hold on people, using "love" to justify it to the other person.

 

And on top of that, the world takes the idea of "love" and creates propaganda with it. Why? Because it works, it makes money. Every movie, book, TV show, whatever, displays some ideologic version of "love", because people buy into that. It's all over the place, because people buy into it. And it's all just money in the pockets of those capitalizing on all the little sheep.

 

I've been a "sheep" for a very long time, but I'm finally seeing things clearly. I'm not a sheep, I'm no longer a part of this machine that is the world. I'm smarter than that, I'm better than that. I'm not an animal, I've no interest in feeding into carnal animalistic instincts to mate. I'm too evolved for that. That's beneath me.

 

In a way, it's almost sort of sad, to me, to see how sheep-like the people of the world are. I'm better than those animal instincts, I'm better than the media that spreads their propaganda. I'm better than the machine.

[blueidealist24]

I do remember scklbad and how I was sympathetic toward him too. However, I no longer speak to him since he ended up being quite rude to me at one point. He's not exactly like Matt though.. anyway, I do have sympathy for people with these.. problems socializing, I guess you could say, because I used to be one of them. Occasionally, thoughts like MattW's drift through my mind but I somehow push them out now. I wish I really understood how I "fixed" myself, then I might be able to be of more help.