SRS Does the world need f ups?

[phoenix1105]

I only ask because I sure feel like a member of the fucked up life club and need to find some kind of reason beyond and bigger than myself....

I have posted now and then about my fucked up existance, you can look em up if you care. Basically I should be a contributing member of society. I have a Masters Degree and worked six whole months before I cracked and quit. Granted I had a screwed up childhood, but who doesnt these days. Two and a half decaded of therapy hasnt helped much.

Then my over powered brain got the idea that if physicial illness and symptoms could keep me from working, that was the ticket. So somehow my brain has produced illness and syndrome that have kept me not working, and in pain, for something like five or six years. My mom was good enough to take care of me, pointing out another advantage in life.

Somehow with all kinds of good things and people in life I am a chronic screw up. I am scared of getting a job almost as much as I am scared of the dark... I take enough benzos and pain meds for a small family, all doctor Rx'ed though. All I do, and I am not exaggerating is sleep, eat a little, watch movies, and see doctors.

I seriously think I have to be fucked up just to balance out the karma or something in the universe. So tell me I am just crazy or something. I hear that from the docs more than enough.

For a long time, probably as long as I can remember, which isnt saying much, I questioned why I am here. And for as much time I have thought about killing myself. My brain, again, has been my worst ally as I can think of a hundred different medication combos to take to stop things without pain. It is like I cant even be motivated to kill myself. Anyone out in internet land want to try and take a stab at telling me something new about my situation that might not have been said before?

 

[Diesel66]

if you can't be a hero, be a warning for others.

 

[FunkyMunniez]

youre only going to be as successful as you're driven to be. the world doesnt really need fuck ups as you put it, but you don't have to be one either.

 

[FunkyMunniez]

also, for what it's worth, there are many more ways of contributing to society than getting a 9-5 job.

 

[deusexaethera]

Do you actually know what you want to accomplish with your life? Or are you waiting for someone else to offer a set of goals that happen to sound good? Fulfilling someone else's expectations for you will never be as satisfying as fulfilling your own expectations for yourself.

 

[deusexaethera]

Also:

Occasionally I come across a Demotivator that actually gives useful advice. This is one of them.

 

[amze]

You sound, SORRY.

You have the ability to be successful in life and happy, it's a choice. It requires patience, learning to love yourself, and realizing the unique opportunity you have to experience LIFE. You only get to do this once (as far as we know) and you're putting it to waste. You've earned a masters, you're obviously smart enough to succeed and do anything you set your mind too. I think there's got to be more to this, obviously you have problems from your past. But they aren't going to fix themselves, you mention therapy like it's all on them to make things different. They're aiding you in fixing yourself, but the bottom line is you're the one who holds the key to your own happiness. You're the one who has to make realizations and appreciate everything you have, and have going for you. See the beauty in things, experience the world around you, try to find a job that makes you relatively happy (even if it's a lower income) I know that's difficult, most people hate their jobs. But they use that money, to fund whatever they do enjoy, hobbys, vacations, good times.

The past is the past, the past is NOT who you are. You need to learn and grow from the past, take the good from the bad and move on. And if there isn't any good, then exert that negativity into positivity and give yourself a better brighter future. The balls 100% in your hands.

Think about it this way, the entire universe is nothing. Everything is NOTHING, and NOTHING is everything. Stop viewing it as a burden to be alive, be grateful. You could of been born in a 3rd world country, you could of been born with a severe mental illness or physical illness that kept you from graduating school and getting something respectable like a Masters Degree. A lot of people would kill to be in your shoes. The universe is a wonderful and mysterious place, and the human experience should be viewed as an honor. Make the best of it, enjoy your life, don't wither away at your moms house popping benzos in the dark bro. GET OUT THERE AND BE SOMEBODY! (Chappelle Voice)

 

[phoenix1105]

You know, it is kind of interesting... I have a real problem feeling much of anything other than the negative aspects of feelings. Honestly I cant tell you what would make me happy simply because I dont know what happy feels like.

I know that might sound weird and messed up, but I really cant tell you what happyness is to me. I have a great mom who would do anything to help me, but it is like I dont know where to start. I dont have any goals or asperations to speak of, yet i am extremely smart, aside from sppelling

 

[MattThom01]

Have you seen/considering seeing a psychologist or psychiatrist for your anxiety and other issues?

 

[deusexaethera]

You know, it is kind of interesting... I have a real problem feeling much of anything other than the negative aspects of feelings. Honestly I cant tell you what would make me happy simply because I dont know what happy feels like.

I know that might sound weird and messed up, but I really cant tell you what happyness is to me. I have a great mom who would do anything to help me, but it is like I dont know where to start. I dont have any goals or asperations to speak of, yet i am extremely smart, aside from sppelling

You will never be happy until you decide for yourself, by yourself, that you want to do something specific with your life, and then you go and do it. That is the only way to feel the kind of happiness you claim to lack.

Maybe your mom is great, but she shouldn't be helping you. You're not a boy. Make your own decisions and deal with your own shit. Don't even ask her opinion about things anymore, just use your own judgement. Getting by as best you can using your own judgement and abilities is called being an adult.

 

[phoenix1105]

Let me say that I appreciate the responses thus far and that they have been thought provoking.

To MattThom01 question, yes I have seen many different proffesionals in this realm. An interesting note is that the Master's Degree I have is in Social Work. The job I had after all my graduate work was doing therapy with rape survivors and has probably been the most positive time in my life. My other degree, not that it really matters is a BS is Physics. Quite an eclectic mix wouldn't you say?

To deusexaethera : You make a lot of very valid and correct statments. Dont think I am disagreing with you, just trying to get more info. How do you find that inner drive or fortitude to change things when you don't know where to begin? I have been getting SSI checks from the govenment for a while now and have money saved up. I still have my car and furniture from when I lived alone.

One of the major hurdles I face, or maybe it is self sabatoge, is my health. I broke my back in a car accident a few years back as well as having some rare mitochondreal DNA issues that effect my bone density.Now granted if I could find a job working in the mental health field I would probably do great, at least from the outside looking in. I can read people like no other and my family always comes to me the resident fuck up for advice. Ironic isnt it.

The thing standing in my way is me. It always has been and always will be until I can learn to deal with my fears of failing, not being good enough, and a general total lack of any self confidence. I know the problem is me... but I cant seem to find the energy or inner strength to deal with my demons. I guess that is what troubles me, and others. I have so much to give, but I scared of my own proverbeal shadow to the point I ran away from life. Does that make any sense?

 

[Spiritus]

You have to meditate upon these things. In your waking day, your access to the deeper levels of your mind is closed off to you. You literally must become drowsy and that is when you have access to the inner levels of your mind.

This is really the best way to deal with your problem because you take that free consciousness that you possess and comb over the situation that causes your terror and you start to see little things that you don't notice, and they all add up.

For example, just then I had a dream about me smoking marijuana with my friends in high school. A friend had died and we were sharing some of his weed that he sold. I looked into a beautiful girl's eyes, she was a wretched stoner in a jacket because of the very cold Canadian fall.

It goes deeper and deeper then that. Afterwords I meditated on it and seen all sorts of little things. I detected my nervousness when I was telling a story, which drove me to stare directly into the girls eye when she was telling a story. I detected how I didn't even want to be talking but felt the need to. I detected everything that worked in the background to produce the scene that was there.

I haven't smoked weed in years but I relive the same old scenes in my dreams and so do most people. This is often why you see people who talk about high school with great importance even 20 years after they've been there, it is because those dreams have a big impact on them and anything that impacts the beginning of your day will have a impact on your entire life.

So this is very important. Most people hate to give much thought into the little things that produce the scene.

Remember that how you start your day is very important.

You have to get off those stupid pills. I took benzos and other medications for many years. They are stupid and when I look back on my life in that period, it is a huge fog. I couldn't feel things. You need to be sober to experience life full on. It is not proper to live life through foggy glass, you will regret it. It took me about 6 months or more of withdrawal in order to get over those damn pills and it was very painful but worthwhile.

I have no problem with anxiety nowadays, I can work fine. Fitness is very important, I'm sitting next to over 350 pounds of weights. They only cost me like 50 bucks, so it doesn't hurt to invest in home fitness equipment.

You have to digest your personal story through meditation, at the same time you need to stop thinking about it when you're not processing it on some deeper level.

http://gnosticteachings.org/books-b...y-psychology/1064-the-psychological-song.html

Everyone has their psychological song and it is what fortifies your fears. You expend huge amounts of energy just obsessing on your own situation and that energy should be diverted towards your own personal healing.

Where your mind goes, your life becomes. Let it go towards healthy food, chaste living, fitness, meditating upon your defects and problems, positive music, volunteer work, paid work, building confidence. Learn how to laugh. The person who does not know how to smile or laugh has less control over themselves then the person who laughs like a jackass.

 

[deusexaethera]

Your access to the "deeper levels of your mind" is never closed off to you, it's just overwhelmed by the flurry of activity in the prefrontal cortex. Rational thought is highly productive and also very intensive, hence it is given priority when the body is awake. Meditation is just the process of clearing the queue of things you need to think about, so you can pay conscious attention to the undercurrents of instinctive thoughts and reactions happening in those "deeper levels of your mind".

Which is to say, meditation is useful, but it's not mystical. There are perfectly legitimate biological reasons why people need to set aside time to meditate if they want to know what's going on, literally, in the backs of their minds. Fortunately, as you practice it and establish stronger neural pathways between sections of your brain that don't normally interact directly with each other, you'll get better at knowing what's going on in the back of your mind without setting aside time to meditate.

 

[deusexaethera]

To deusexaethera : You make a lot of very valid and correct statments. Dont think I am disagreing with you, just trying to get more info. How do you find that inner drive or fortitude to change things when you don't know where to begin? I have been getting SSI checks from the govenment for a while now and have money saved up. I still have my car and furniture from when I lived alone.

I occasionally mention here that I lived alone in a small rental house two blocks away from the beach during my last semester in college. It was a make-up semester, so all my friends had already graduated. My social connections consisted of a girl I was interested in but she had a boyfriend, and a grouchy middle-aged guy who I'd see walking around the block a couple days a week. Other than that, I might as well have been living in the Cabin at Walden Pond, for all the meaningful social interaction I had with people.

It was a very painful semester, because until that point I had never lived entirely alone before. I was really depressed, to the point that I came full-circle and started sleeping on the living room futon with the TV on, similar to what my roommate did during my first semester in college. I guess now I know why he did that.

Anyway, it was a useful experience for me because I was forced to decide everything for myself -- not just the normal stuff like what to wear and what to eat, but when to get out of bed (or whether to get out of bed at all -- I only had class two days a week, and I didn't have a job), what I would do with my day, etc. Being forced to make decisions like that also forced me to pay attention to little hints of personal preference that previously had been overridden by the strong, well-developed, and sometimes well-reasoned preferences of the people I spent time with. While I was scared to live alone for years afterwards, that bit of practice in making ALL decisions for myself without influence made it a lot easier to set goals later on.

I can read people like no other and my family always comes to me the resident fuck up for advice. Ironic isnt it.

It's not ironic at all. You're a "fuckup" because you're so good at paying attention to others that you don't know what you think, need, want, etc. That attention to others gives you a long history of "clinical observation" that you can use to give useful advice to other people, who are too busy doing what they want to think about what they're doing.

The thing standing in my way is me. It always has been and always will be until I can learn to deal with my fears of failing, not being good enough, and a general total lack of any self confidence.

Few people are actually afraid of failure. Many more people are afraid of being successful, because they think they will be bound to their success and unable to change their priorities later if they realize their lives have become unbalanced. You can ALWAYS stop being successful if you want to focus on something else. You can ALWAYS quit your job, sell your house, and live in a conversion van while you tour the country. (one of my friends is doing exactly that.) Nobody will complain about you giving them the opportunity to be king of the hill instead.

 

[Spiritus]

Well Deus, I respectfully disagree and once again press my original advice towards the OP.

 

[deusexaethera]

The funny thing about that is I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm using different terminology to explain why the idea you suggested is a good one.

 

[phoenix1105]

Again I thank all those for their posts and thoughts. I am not sure how to respond, other than to digest and really think about what you guys have said. I met with my therapist today and like usual didnt seem to help too much. I asked him if he could answer one simple question.

I, as well as others want me to give up the only thing that seems to keep me from falling into what seems like a bottomless pit, benzos. I know I need to get off of them. The question is this: If you want to take away what is the only think that helps me deal with anxiety, the xanax, then you have to put something, something in place of it to deal with those feelings.

I mean hell i know of rehabs that can put me into a chemically induced coma so I can get through the withdrawl. But you have to give me something to fight that anxiety within me, because I cant do it by myself right now. If that makes sense.

 

[Spiritus]

Well deus, I am absolutely disagreeing with you because you mentioned some things that I very strongly disagree with.

For example, you say that meditation is not mystical. I disagree, I consider it mystical and magical.

You say that it is good to meditate until you get to a certain point and then you won't need to meditate any longer. I disagree, I think we should begin slowly with meditation and step up our efforts in it. Perhaps after a couple of years one would spend 8 hours a day meditating, and I would say bravo, go longer if you can.

So our opinions strongly conflict with each other. There is nothing wrong with this, a variety of perspectives is a good thing and especially in a place like this. I just think it is proper to respect that we really are quite different and not really saying the same thing, despite the honorable notion of trying to find common ground. It is just not there.

--

Deus. Those benzos will cost you. I struggle even now to plow away and attack the unsocial side of me, to really dig in on a neural level at my weaknesses in that area.

Benzos quell that anxiety and allow you to do things that you cannot dream of. Your health does start to fail after a couple years because of that though and you should start planning to heal up from it.

If you continue on indef. then I'm pretty sure you will end up a wreck and coming down off them anyways. Better sooner then later.

I remember one guy at my work telling me that "those things put holes in your brain". I knew that much wasn't true so I ignored his advice, but now when I look back on it I wish I had cut out taking the pills a bit sooner, would have saved time.

You do need a rock to cling to besides "mother's little helpers".

You have to decide what is best for you based on your own personal idiosyncrasy.

It is a waste of time for me to recommend that you "take up the cross" if you do not have any spiritual inclination.

You have to find something though and sooner rather then later.

Knowledge? It's always a safe bet.

It can turn you insane though so be sure to learn how to laugh, and don't become some know it all ignoramus, no one will be able to stand you.

Music? Art?

A hobby?

Your work?

Find some hobby that you like doing that helps stabilize you, a place you can retreat to.

Gaming is not helpful for this because it only helps provide isolation which worsens the problem, as it does not provide the impressions necessary to help you work on your own brain. To help you fight against that fight or flight response.

So work on creating a sort of system where you manage to get out in society and challenge that sector of your brain, meanwhile you can come back and retreat to a place for stillness, to regroup and prepare for the next excursion.

Whatever you do is not in vain; your brain always becomes better at whatever task you are doing. You will never be the best socializer, but you will be good enough to overcome and manage the problem. The problem will not stop you from living life, if you make good efforts.

Keep in mind that you can sabotage your own efforts through poor behaviors.

Just slowly build it into your natural train of thought to try and challenge yourself and expose yourself to the outside world.

Pride is a big obstical for you, you do not want to be humiliated.

We have to get over ourselves while respecting and being aware of ourselves and limitations... again I refer back to the article on the Psychological Song, we waste a lot of energy worrying about ourselves.

It's challenging to give advice on this issue because it is not a simple one but you have to build up a multi pronged "attitude" that has a real and active presence in your real life, practical life. Keep that in mind...