Unlovable, unacceptable, weird, shunable

[mumstheword]

Is this not the basis of cbt?
You have to work to label the distortion and then find evidence against it to slowly change the beliefs.

It's been awhile since I've actively worked on cbt so I could easily be over generalizing.

Are the experiences that confirm the beliefs new or old experiences? Are your new experiences more positive? They seem so.

A spouse, kids and a couple friends sounds to me like a LOT of positive relationships, not just SOME. Maybe that's also a cognitive distortion?

If you moved a lot and hid in books on top of abuse.... are there programs or groups you can go to that will help you learn the socialization/life skills that you missed out on growing up?

Is it possible to join a book club or academics club of some kind? Hobby club?

Any of these plus the cbt work to overcome the cognitive distortions that might arise from them to give you some new positive experiences.

Thanks @Innordinate, I have been in CBT for some years now and yes, it's helping loads. I am doing group therapy, and have done quite a lot in the last 8 years or so. Group stuff helps for sure.:)

 

[blackemerald1]

n fact the communities in that area are possibly some of the most judgemental and “be like us or be condemned” that I’ve come across.

^Oh well described Sideways! Yes MTW you are throwing away other's judgement of you or learning that what they think or how they judge you are not balanced/true.

I mean you might of always suspected this but having been immersed in that type of culture for so long it takes a lot of strength to rise above it and accept that you are not part of that group/culture anymore because you don't want to be. Not because you don't fit.

I want out, but I need wellness, to get out. I know I will get there, I just have to keep working towards it.

And I agree with @Ronin I think you are pretty much out of it in the emotional and mental sense now even if you have not extracted yourself entirely from the physical.

I have been looking for a long time and even when drunk (thanks @Sideways!) still don't accept or feel I am part of any particular group. But I've been put into several groups by various ppl who are shocked when I simply don't behave the way they expect.

Maybe the idea of fitting in is over-rated and at the end of the day we are all very much individuals who struggle with acceptance regardless of our efforts to conform?

 

[Ronin]

Maybe the idea of fitting in is over-rated

IA hard belonging may be more an idea, than some objective, measurable, thing.

Something I've been playing around with, lately...
Maybe belonging is far more not about what others do /
But whose norms and rules and way(s) of life I take on as my own, and send forward?

In which you control the belong / not belong, by how you live life.

 

[Fadeaway]

Australia is not like America, people don't appreciate people who demonstrate unique talents, individual thinkers or innovators much here, they like social conformity, self effacing humour, feminism (not a big fan, it's too sexist and victim culture power grabbing for me, I am all for women's liberation though) not intelligent Aspies, who don't fit any box easily and who think for themselves

I don't think that is a cultural distortion but an unrealistic picture the media and Hollywood likes to paint as being the majority, not the minority.

That picture exists in a few cities, but not all and certainly not the type of area you grew up in which is a decent chunk of rural America. I can't speak for the south. ?

 

[Mach123]

This is great. I really liked reading this thx.

 

[mumstheword]

So, I realize that I have done some work on this distortion but I still, largely, expect and anticipate rejection and condemnation.

I'm kinda angry and unhappy about it too, coz I think I'm ok and I don't deserve it, but I expect it, in a big way.

This isn't based on me thinking or knowing that I behave badly, it's a cognitive distortion that says I'm innately less acceptable than most other humans.

That I'm pretty much, just a scumbag criminal type, no matter how upstanding, honest, kind and polite a person I may be.

That I'll never be acceptable.

That people like me, are just less liked or approved of, no matter what we do.

I realize it's deep programming. It's quite debilitating. Work is not an option, because of it. My social confidence in other people being kind, inclusive or approving of me is very low.

I am really, way too much, like the poor doggy who hides, the fawny doggo, who hides, under the table, because he/she had a cruel master, who beat them all the time, even though that doggo has a loving master now, the hiding and expecting hate and cruelty and violence and meanness remains.

I don't know what I want from this post, I don't really expect kindness or responses and that makes me sad.

I just needed to "voice" it, because it's a very sad and debilitating thing about me and I want it to lose its power to keep me down and hiding and avoiding and not living a truly productive, thriving life.

 

[Friday]

My social confidence in other people being kind, inclusive or approving of me is very low.

This is a thing?

I feel like my brain is a rubix cube, right now, attempting to parse the concept.

If I’m understanding correctly... This is something you think other people possess? The belief that they’re going to be approved of, treated kindly, and included as a matter of course?

If I waited until I believed people were going to be kind, inclusive, or approving I’d never have done any of the things I’ve loved most in my life, nor even leave the house, most likely. I’d never have met my dearest friends, or earned my place, or done any good, or fallen in love, or had much fun, or done anything meaningful at all.

I believe you, when you say you DO possess this confidence, sometimes. I’m just sort of stunned by it. It’s cool, just very very foreign to me.

 

[mumstheword]

Update: I still live in the same community. I do yoga and councelling in the next town over.
I am more of a loner, in terms of social life than last year, but I see more of my adult children now and my partner and I are closer than ever.
I think that I HAVE made a lot of progress on this cognitive distortion. I just started councelling with a new T.
She is not from around here. In fact she is English and has moved up here from Sydney. I am a bit scared of her treating me badly, which, I think is what prompted me to repost on.this thread.
I think, seeing someone new, is stirring up this reaction and making me aware of the CD it stems from.

I reread this entire thread. Thank you to everyone who contributes to it. It's really, really helpful and gives me heart.

I am going to be courageous and stick with this new T and try to work through some more of this Cog Dis with her, even though I'm scared, at the moment.

 

[mumstheword]

As a matter of co

This is a thing?

I feel like my brain is a rubix cube, right now, attempting to parse the concept.

If I’m understanding correctly... This is something you think other people possess? The belief that they’re going to be approved of, treated kindly, and included as a matter of course?

If I waited until I believed people were going to be kind, inclusive, or approving I’d never have done any of the things I’ve loved most in my life, nor even leave the house, most likely. I’d never have met my dearest friends, or earned my place, or done any good, or fallen in love, or had much fun, or done anything meaningful at all.

I believe you, when you say you DO possess this confidence, sometimes. I’m just sort of stunned by it. It’s cool, just very very foreign to me.

As a matter of course? Unconditionally? No. But to earn it and be given one's due, perhaps. It just feels as though, somehow, that's for other's and not me.
Crazy huh?

My guy gets me and loves me, but he is someone whos been.kicked around as much as me, at least as much, probably more.

My kid's love me and they need me. But other's? I guess I'm really frightened of more bad treatment, demoralizing treatment.

This T I just started with? I find her a bit frightening, but I'm going to persevere.

I want to prove myself wrong. I want to see if I'm, maybe, a bit more acceptable or kindness-worthy than I feel I am.

I know that I don't treat other's unkindly. I do think unkind thoughts though, I'm not above that, but I am much more in avoidance and fawny when pushed or confronted than fighty.
I kind of despise my fawnyness. It's not to be trusted. I'm too desperate to be liked, or not hurt, or something. I don't blame people for finding that repulsive.

The childhood emotional abuse and violence and constant uprooting from the mother, abusive behaviour from the females in my family and mum's associates are at root of it, I know, so no wonder an english T (all those female relos, mum and both grandmothers were/are born in england) this new T, is stirring up this anticipation of unreasonable disparagement and demoralization and bullying.

As for pushing forward to new or old friendships or work opportunities, nah, I just feel too vulnerable and I am struggling to believe that I, myself, as I am, can be actually liked enough or safe enough, in those situations. It's stuuuupid. Coz I do like myself. I'm ok, I know it.

I'm smart, kind, capable, pleasantly tempered, courteous, etc, but somehow, "other people are too dangerous, and, for some reason, want to hurt me, exploit me and then discard me" uuughhhhh, what a dumb thought/engrained cognitive distortion!!!!!

Oh and @Friday? I've done all that stuff. I've worked, I've loved, I've been out in the world since a really young age. I get that. I didn't wait for any kindness or hand ups, I was incredibly self reliant and pushed through, worked hard, didn't let others views of me stop me, I totally get that, so I'm not sure we aren't on.the same page here.

But now? I feel too beaten down, by having to work so hard and be treated the way I have been. But like Sideways pointed out, earlier, in this thread, I live in a VERY maladaptive, crazy making, far from any kind of normality, kind of community, so that's probably a significant factor.

 

[mumstheword]

I envy nth Americans. I used to think, like many leftys, that people from the US must be "up themselves" to think their country was the best, but now I think that they were/are just saying it how it is.

You guys, in the US live in a country with 3,000,000 other people!!!! Like, there's people everywhere!!! In our whole, vast, much of it deserty, continent, we only have 20, 000 people.

Where I live it is perversely "lefty", a bit like California or Colorado maybe?, only mainly rural and without the giant, wealthy industries. Only small towns and tiny villages and farmland and national parks, but not cold.

Not good for employment opportunities, not good for morale, really not good for Aspie Gnostic Christiany types with cptsd like me.

So, I have my work cut out for me.

I need to learn to drive, yup, I don't yet. Don't look down on me, I've had a crazy life and much of it extremely unwell and still doing a lot of stuff.

(I think) People don't really get what it's like to have autism AND developmental and adult trauma. It's a different ballgame, again.

I would be an artist/farmers wife, if I could choose.

 

[blackemerald1]

Hey @mumstheword Australia's population has just pipped upwards of 24 million. But even if it was 24 people - the numbers don't really make a lot of difference. As usual quality very much triumphs quantity. Or it does here I'm thinking.

You live in a small community - known to have some narrow views on things but so do people in the city. Bigots and anything ot are just as prevalent in large populations but they're perhaps able to be anonymous because they can hide within the crowds.

You're finding it lonely? Hard to connect? Unable to find your tribe (as they currently say)? Unrelated and unrelatable? So do people in the city. In fact, take a deep dive into the problems in cities and there are just as many disconnected people of all status walking the long, lonely walk and wondering what the f*ck they are doing and what they can do about it, if anything.

I need to learn to drive, yup, I don't yet. Don't look down on me, I've had a crazy life and much of it extremely unwell and still doing a lot of stuff

^I hope one day you do learn to drive because well then you will want to get a car and then you may discover what a pain in the ass cars are. :sorry: Sure, you get to decide some things about driving but mostly it's all got to do with looking after the damn car because after a while it starts to own you. If you want the same kind of freedom of movement they provide. But honestly, getting that licence and then getting the car sigh... = money + responsibilities. Oh, and having people ask you for a ride to somewhere lol...

I would be an artist/farmers wife, if I could choose.

^It seems you have a good guy. Why would you ever want to be the wife of anyone with a specific profession? I've been the daughter of one and the wife of another. Not saying which btw... lol.. and neither was nice and I'd not choose either again.

What's with the wife thing? I don't understand.

 

[mumstheword]

Hey @mumstheword Australia's population has just pipped upwards of 24 million. But even if it was 24 people - the numbers don't really make a lot of difference. As usual quality very much triumphs quantity. Or it does here I'm thinking.

You live in a small community - known to have some narrow views on things but so do people in the city. Bigots and anything ot are just as prevalent in large populations but they're perhaps able to be anonymous because they can hide within the crowds.

You're finding it lonely? Hard to connect? Unable to find your tribe (as they currently say)? Unrelated and unrelatable? So do people in the city. In fact, take a deep dive into the problems in cities and there are just as many disconnected people of all status walking the long, lonely walk and wondering what the f*ck they are doing and what they can do about it, if anything.



^I hope one day you do learn to drive because well then you will want to get a car and then you may discover what a pain in the ass cars are. :sorry: Sure, you get to decide some things about driving but mostly it's all got to do with looking after the damn car because after a while it starts to own you. If you want the same kind of freedom of movement they provide. But honestly, getting that licence and then getting the car sigh... = money + responsibilities. Oh, and having people ask you for a ride to somewhere lol...



^It seems you have a good guy. Why would you ever want to be the wife of anyone with a specific profession? I've been the daughter of one and the wife of another. Not saying which btw... lol.. and neither was nice and I'd not choose either again.

What's with the wife thing? I don't understand.

Lol, call me old fashioned, I guess.

I've never been married and probably won't get too. I've been with the guy I'm with for many years, but we didn't move in together by choice. It was necessity and poverty that drove us to live together, and we are both parents, so, well, that should speak for itself.

Yeah, well feminism has done a lot to undermine the joys of a loving marriage, I guess, but I have no doubts about the man I'm with. It's been 10 years now.

I couldn't do the farm thing myself, that's for sure, and I'm not skilled or built for fencing, setting up irrigation, building, horticulture or animal husbandry, but he is.
I'm skilled at cooking, health care, various art forms, various healing arts, that sort of thing, so, not the farmer, but certainly the farmer's female companion and perhaps mother of his children, if I'm lucky enough to be blessed like that.

And yes, loneliness is a human condition, I wasn't really referencing any special onus on that for myself exclusively, it was more the employment issues of a low population area, it is a thing.

I guess I'm feeling guilty for being unemployed and making excuses for myself.