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I Feel Sick When Looked At

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Upside Down Eagle

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It's just like that. When there's a multitude of people around me (even if just on a street and everybody is moving, biking, walking) and they stare, I want to peel off my skin and puke. Their stares make me feel contaminated, the center of attention, like I'm some interesting gadget they can't wait to figure out.

What's worse is I have my own style, even when I dress completely normally they still notice me. I have been told I stand out among crowds, which a lot of people like about me, and I like it as well, but I do not like all the stares involved with it. Would be sort of nice to put tape over all their eyes so I'd feel more peace.

Also I hate it when people try to look me in the eye, I seem to have an intense gaze and people are captivated by it but I would rather they just left me alone. Most of the time I avert, shield or close my eyes when somebody tries to do that, even if I run the risk of walking into a pole.

Does anybody else know the feeling and do you know why this happens?

Warm regards
 
@Radise I am male and yes sometimes I am stared as well. This is just my guessing that perhaps people wonder how we are able to carry ourselves properly.

I know we suffer a lot and we take extra care of ourself when we are out, not to fall in other trouble. Not even by mistakenly because that can cost us a lot.

Mostly people look outward side, not what goes inside. They think if you look good, you must be good. It's not that way. They don't understand.

This is the reason I avoid crowded places. It's just too much to take for me.
 
@Radise

It's nice you have your own style. I know the feeling of not wanting people to stare. I get stared at too. Its so annoying I just stare at the floor when I walk around. I also run the risk of walking into things or people. Have you tried to think that no one will notice you when you go out? I sometimes do, then i notice they stare less :)
 
This is going to appear extremely wierd, but try to stick with me.

Can you sense the eyes looking at you?

In some of the old school martial arts, people train for years in order to develop the sensitivity to feel that, and to pick up intent.

An example from the martial arts would be the Saki Test for the fifth dan in the Bujinkan, where the candidate kneels with their back to the examiner, who raises a bamboo sword, then, without any warning and with the full intent of hitting the candidate on the head with it, brings the bamboo sword down.

Successful candidates get out of the way that very instant.

It appears to be easy to fake for youtube, however, I have a friend who has done it, and in training, I can be trying to "stab" him from behind with a wooden training "knife", and he will move just the area which I'm going for, and get it out of the way every time. There are no reflections, shadows or sounds that I can detect - he just "senses" it. Without that first hand experience, I would never have believed it.

Apparently among people who monitor security cameras, and among special forces and snipers, the concept is quite popular.

As a quick test, if you can blend in inconspicuously, in a public place and experiment by selecting someone and concentrating on them, it's amazing how quickly they become visibly uncomfortable and turn around and look right at you. Most people seem to be able to pick up the feeling, and, act on the urge to turn around and look in the direction that it is coming from. Try it. Also try by concentrating on the people with different intentions towards them (i'll leave those to your imagination and conscience) and see how they act; nervous or uncomfortable perhaps. It's all ultimately un verifiable, but it is interesting.

Mainstream science has a very hard time with this sort of thing. It is normally dismissed as fraud, without any scrutiny at all. There's an English researcher called Rupert Sheldrake who is working out scientific experiments to test this sort of thing. One of his experiments involves five friends being called upon randomly and at random times to phone each other, the one being called has to identify who he thinks is calling before the identity is revealed. On a random basis, you'd expect the participants to get it right 25% of the time, the actual results are over 50% correct! Highly significant.

OK, back to your feeling. From what you described in the becoming shy and tongue tied thread, you are currently experiencing a lot of discomfort being near to other people.

If what I have described about "sensing" is real, and if you experience it, then the feelings of discomfort could well be due to that.

I'm guessing that it might respond well to mindfulness, after all, martial artists practice for years to achieve that sort of sensitivity and call it zan shin (Zen mindfulness).

The mindfulness approach would be to acknowledge the feeling as real and to welcome it - as a feeling.

A more time consuming idea (if you are into Zen) would be to learn to achieve mu shin (empty mind) where you learn how to enter a state where you do not to give off any signals from yourself, and exist absolutely in the present, with zero thoughts in your mind. (edit: I see Sarah is suggesting that).

Hope you read this far, hope it helps and hope it doesn't come across as too off the wall.

Update:
I've just been re-watching Rupert Sheldrake giving a google talk, he said that there is a long running experiment in the science museum in Amsterdam, testing whether volunteers can sense when they are being looked at from behind. Apparently the results are positive and with about 20,000 participants so far - highly significant.
 
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Hey Anarchy,

Thanks, no it doesn't sound weird.
I have sensed what people want to do all my life, I pick up on what people's intentions are quite immediately.
However it's always just that: a feeling, which doesn't mean that I understand the feeling itself.

As a kid we used to play hide and seek. I believed that you wouldn't "betray" your place of hiding unless you looked at them. A lot of my companions made that "mistake" and were found. I on the other hand wasn't found until I yelled at them where I was. Survivor's instinct ;-)

The mindfulness approach would be to acknowledge the feeling as real and to welcome it - as a feeling.

I had a reading the other day where this sensitivity came up. She told me that I was afraid to step into it (and I am), but that I should because that's where I will find my strength. However I am scared to step into it because it will confront me with my fear and feelings of revulsion from the past.

Welcoming the feeling is quite scary then, because I have a very strong reaction to it, things I don't want to feel, and I don't know how to deal with. How do you deal with intense fear and this feeling of being sick (which I still don't understand). Unless I know how to deal with it, I'm not sure of welcoming it.

A more time consuming idea (if you are into Zen) would be to learn to achieve mu shin (empty mind) where you learn how to enter a state where you do not to give off any signals from yourself, and exist absolutely in the present, with zero thoughts in your mind. (edit: I see Sarah is suggesting that).

Wow, it's like you guys have had real-life conversations with me, this reflects exactly what I've been doing already.
But it still is good advice because I don't always do it, sometimes I forget. And then of course it "gets" to me.

It helps a lot, thank you for saying it anyway!!
 
Hi Radice,
I think that the idea of welcoming and accepting the thoughts and feelings, is acknowledging that they are within us, they are not themselves external threats to our safety, and they are not to be run away from.

running away from a thought or a feeling is like the response which you get if someone tells you:

"do not, on under any circumstances, think of a purple elephant"

I really hope that you didn't just think of a purple elephant :rolleyes:

It would have been even worse if you'd thought of a purple elephant that had yellow spots, and yellow wings too...:eek:

By trying not to think of something, you will immediately think of it, and by worrying about thinking about it, you will soon begin to worry about worrying about worrying about it, and you'll think about the thing as well.

That is a downward spiral, and it is quite easy to condition all sorts of stress responses to appear in association with that spiral.

the trick seems to be to let the thought in, with the knowledge that, although it might not be very well house trained :poop:, it won't hurt you, or in the case of you sensing intent, it is conveying important information which it is wise to act upon.

The thought or feeling will soon go. Meanwhile, you concentrate on breathing or some other grounding technique to remain in the present, and connected with your surroundings, so that you don't slip into dissociation.

That's my understanding of it - I'm new to it, so I might have made some mistakes or missed some bits out in that description.

I know what you mean about the nausea. I get intrusive nerdy thoughts, which I usually enjoy, they're usually "red pill" moments when I suddenly understand something better than ever before, or a new insight comes to me, apparently out of no where.

They're always factual, and usually engineering related (I'm a nerd, and happy to be one).

I had one a few days back where I suddenly made a connection between behaviours which I've seen in hot, tired, old or unwell sheep that someone has got too close to, and the actions that are claimed to be heroic in human wars.

I was almost sick, even more so as some of the further implications of the thought appeared in my head. I had to immediately stop what I was doing and go sit down for ten minutes and get a cup of tea to sip.

Hope that helps. If you are still up (it's almost midnight for you) sleep well.
 
<grin> Yep! I'm 6'1, and have wicked blue eyes that seem to grab people (born with em, so I don't care, but that electric blue with the gold ring attracts a lot of people). If I'm not actively playing invisible, I'm striking. Not pretty, but striking. Pretty and striking is even worse. Ugh. It's why I haven't fixed my nose. It's been broken so many times that it skews the symmetry of my face. I can mess with the symmetry further by tilting my head, cocking an eyebrow just a smidge, & misaligning my jaw. lol. Not so that I'm grotesque. People are naturally drawn towards both the beautiful & the ugly. My mission is to blend. To disappear. To be unnoticeable. So neither pretty nor ugly. Forgettable.

I spent several years learning how to play invisible. Most of the time, it doesn't take any energy, it's just what I naturally do after years of practice (but when I'm on edge, and too tired to care, or living in the past in my head and it's all I can do to stay present... I forget to do it). Part of that is eye contact. Most people are fairly clueless (they can't read micro expressions, don't understand body language), but they respond to things they see but don't see. Like those micro expressions, pupillary dilation, and in what direction your head is tilted, and who looks away first.

If you're ever interested in some of those tricks, let me know. It's a fun game in its own right, but it's also proven useful from time to time.

_______

ETA... I'll put them in my trauma dairy sometime in the next couple days.
 
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Hi Friday, I know it's Radise's thread, but if you don't mind sharing with me too, yes please, I'd be very interested. I seem to have been getting attention from some narcissistic bullies lately. Ways to stay beneath their (and anyone elses') targetting radar would be very welcome.
 
I have my "going out yet want to be invisible" accessories...a hat and dark sunglasses. Yes, I am one of those people who has no qualms about wearing sunglasses inside. Actually, I do it quite often. I have that thousand yard stare that I use to look right through people. I can walk through a crowded store and stare *through* everybody I see. I have no issues with extended eye contact, but I know that most do...I sort of use this to my advantage. I don't have a style that sticks out, but I do have long golden blonde curly hair, so that gets me enough stares.
 
Just had an interesting conversation with my ex. She said that she is only realizing now (she is in her 40s) that she has grown up unconsciously using stealth mode all of the time.

What follows is not a suggestion that anyone here does this - far from it. I'm putting it here as a possible opposite end of the invisible / stealth mode spectrum.

We discussed a woman who had attached herself to my ex (and who she's managed to shake off now, but not before she'd tried to score with several of my ex's male friends and neighbours). This woman is not good looking, certainly not striking to look at, the lower end of average height, brown hair, probably less than average looks, heavy smoker, not fat but very physically un fit.

The woman constantly gave off strong and totally inappropriate subliminal sexual signals, even the very sober 75 year old next door neighbour turned into a giggling teenager in the woman's presence. we were joking that the woman could probably transmit sexual vibes through a bhurka.
 
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Whoo, I got an episode of brain fog, so I read your posts but didn't reply for a while. Sometimes trying to think just doesn't work out for me. I did read your posts though.

@FridayJones haha yeah so you know exactly what I mean. I don't like to follow conventional fashion, so I guess together with my eyes, I'm a striking appearance as well, well at least people will always look at me in a very intrigued way. Yeah I am interested to know the skills of blending in, will be checking out your diary then :-)

Yes, I am one of those people who has no qualms about wearing sunglasses inside

That seems like a good strategy except I would still see these people looking at me, haha. I think they would stare even more, if I started wearing sunglasses inside. So while they couldn't see my eyes, I would still feel like an insect being dissected. That's how their stares feel. Really invasive. Oh, I used to wear a baseball cap, but that then again would send me into my comfortable "hiding" attitude, which sends me spiraling straight down into worse distrust of everyone.

Maybe I also send out a vibe though. The more of a vibe you radiate, whether it's a good or a bad one, the more people will notice you. In the past few days I've remembered to not look into people's eyes and that's it, problem solved. I look past them and that makes it more bearable. I'm still wondering why their stares make me sick though. Food for thought.
 
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