The Pain Of Positive Attention?

[Friday]

Compliments sting. Badly. LMAO. In point of fact, the only reason I don't argue about them? Is that just makes other people use more compliments :shifty: So what looks like gracious acceptance? Is actually my ducking the next blow. I hate compliments, praise, positive attention of most kinds. Despise it. Just makes me want to run. It f*cking hurts.

^^^
There are exceptions to that rule. It's very rare someone gets inside those defenses, but when they do? For whatever reason? It's still difficult. But it's a good difficult. Ish. Usually. Sometimes. Gah. It's complicated. What I'm trying to say is that there are times when it's exactly what I need, exactly when I need it OR it actually feels good. Shrug. But there is a complicated maze lined with booby traps and tiger pits and rivers filled with crocodiles between point A (ouch) and point B (c'est moi).

...
On a different level? I cannot stand rising in the ranks. I don't like promotions, I don't like being known, and I reeeeeally don't like being recognized. f*ck fame. Rich and famous would be hell for me. Rich & obscure, otoh? :sneaky: I could do that one. Point being, though, I have a pernicious habit of leaving any job right when I start doing really well at it. Once people start noticing me? I'm gone. Poof! Good bye (or more often, a simple no-show, and not infrequently I've left whole cities just to avoid the association).

Exposed. Exposed. Exposed.

Shudder. Can't do it. Even here, is very very very hard. I've almost left half a dozen times or more. Continuing to come here, even when I don't want to, and all I want to do is run... Is quasi-therapy for me. Because it scares me. And I have an iron clad rule of doing anything that scares me, until it doesn't. And I'm experimenting with the whole "connection" thing. It may be stupid. But it's new. And I'm still really bad at it. So I stay. Because I'm still f*cking bad at it, it's "okay" for me to stay. It's pushing my boundaries to stay. Which I like. Boundaries need pushing. Sure, it's just online. Sure, it's anonymous. But it's still deeply uncomfortable and extremely challenging. And painful. But helpful.

 

[Pakadlangitok]

Holy moly. Yes. I never put that into words very well. OMGosh yes. When someone is nice I get confused. When they are mean, I am not. when nice, I do not know how much to be their friend, how much to connect and not cling. I tend to cling emotionally but not physically. Like I can be totally emotinally clinging to someone and they would never ever now. I am good at keeping it contained. But it scared me so much. I clung to someone emotionally for 2 decades!!! I was not even near them . That is how bad it is.

 

[amosmorris]

Holy moly. Yes. I never put that into words very well. OMGosh yes. When someone is nice I get conf...

For sure: I think people don't ever know how much I might be feeling an empirical need for them. ..I am expert if convincing others of my emotional self sufficiency...and I hate it!...

 

[Muttly]

Oh yes, I feel awful/ ashamed. More so with compassion, or Idk the word- being treated humanely.
.

Compassion kills me. I just have no idea how to deal and all I want to do is flee.

 

[amosmorris]

My post up above should say "emotional" need not..."empirical"...ha! Typing too quickly.

I think this issue of compassion/care/affection/praise--leads to or factors in to one of my biggest struggles right now, which has to do with allowing myself to really let go in therapy. I think--I know--that I hold back on feeling all the worst stuff because I am afraid of putting my therapist in the position of having to really help me, to be fully compassionate or caring. This isn't to say that she's normally cold--she's not--but I jut think that the degree of care and compassion I might require if I really let myself be overwhelmed is something that I'm also not comfortable accepting, if that makes sense...?

Ugggggh. :banghead:

 

[Tinyflame]

all I want to do is flee.

Yes I guess either extreme it feels best to leave.

I don't think I'd expect caring, but neither would I want to speak up with coldness.

 

[Sideways]

This site, when I started, was kinda like compliment-exposure gone mad. People are nice. Even if it's not a compliment, they appreciate stuff, even when they disagree - and they say it, and hug, and aaargh!!

I managed that pretty badly at first. Told certain people to please please don't say nice things like that. My self-concept (roughly: I'm a monster) is something that occupies the gery centre of my brain. And I'm obsessed with it. People compliment me? On a good day, I can breathe through it. Most days, I run through an internal dialogue about how they don't really know me, and letting them even think nice things about me was hypocracy in it's most revoluting and unacceptable form.

On a bad day, I just stay away now, because on those days if I get anything nice or accepting, I have to go away and even the score by punishing myself.

It's a work in progress. Schema work is proving really helpful for me, because it's helping me identify the exact programmed beliefs that make things like compliments such a big issue. Knowing they're there is the first step to changing them.

Compliments bring out our self-loathing beliefs, our "I'm a fraud" stuff, our subjugation issues, our trust issues, our "what's the stick that comes with that carrot" issues, our abandonment issues.... It's just a compliment, but it can challenge lots of really core, long-held beliefs that you originally built to keep yourself safe.

We don't need that kind of safety any more. So do some digging with T to suss out the core beliefs that are getting shat on when you receive a compliment.

One step, a big one, for me? I started a Pay Yourself A Compliment (I'd link it if I had the foggiest idea how to). Flick through the first dozen posts and the message is really clear - a lot of us of find this really confronting and painful. But if you can breathe through it, it gets easier. One day, it might even start to feel good:)

 

[amosmorris]

@Junebug (((hugs)))

I was pretty good at self-sabotaging too, so I understand. I...

Thank you so so much..

 

[amosmorris]

This site, when I started, was kinda like compliment-exposure gone mad. People are nice. Even...

Actually today I think my T used the term "core beliefs"....(as in, mine are not good...)

 

[Tinyflame]

I think they should call them 'core fears' or core terrors. :(

 

[amosmorris]

I think they should call them 'core fears' or core terrors. :(

Yes. And here's another one (related I'm sure to those we have already hashed out a bit): what do I do if I am truly overwhelmed emotionally in a therapy session and thus overwhelm my T? I'd call this core fear something along the lines of...."fear that my emotions are too much for others to deal with"....or...well certainly fear of abandonment...I've panicked about this plenty and it holds me back. What do I do if I lose it? How do I lose it, personally, while keeping it together for others? I think this is somehow related to the pain of positive attention too. This idea that I can't trust anyone to fully take emotional care of me, just figure it out, if that makes sense...?

 

[Recovery4Me]

T used the term "core beliefs"....(as in, mine are not good...)

Have you clarified this with your T? What I am trying to ask - is could it be that your fear implicit drivers are heightened from conditioning and your self esteem too low, rather than that being an judgement on your essence? Or am I misunderstanding?

This idea that I can't trust anyone to fully take emotional care of me, j

:tup:I thought this above quote was healthy as it used the word 'fully'?! :tup: Except perhaps to allow trust for yourself to take reasonable and responsible emotional care of yourself. And when in doubt, therapy is certainly a plus...as well as support groups for reevaluation.:hug: