(19.9.2020 first draft)
After PureOCD (understanding every painful, repetitive and compulsive thoughts that brain's throwing in is actually chemicals in brain going haywire - that appear and show up as realistic thought process in my head), Social Anxiety, Avoidant Personality Disorder there is another piece of puzzle:
toxic shame and egocentrism.
With toxic shame coming up being compatible with PureOCD:
'toxic shame' as the source of need to control everything which come out in my case as internal critic or intrusive thoughts
John Bradshaw talked about egocentrism but I ignored his message because it was not clearly explained, to me it was about being selfish - so I immediately ignored it as false:
Egocentric thinking means that a child will take everything personally. Their egocentricity is like a temporary door or doorknob, in use until strong boundaries can be built.
In the same time, I got into discussion over You tube, some of messages were:
it
is knowing you need to know your limitations in need to survive.
to
become vulnerable. Come out of hiding, to tell how they feeling
clean
up your side of the street. Take honest
look at wrongs you have done and make amends
Being
in service of others. Being helpful to others.
some of my comments about this Toxic shame topic were:
I've read wikipedia definition of egocentrism last night, still didn't get the part how to rebuild own ego in order to protect oneself - because this area about ego is like chinese / japanese language to me, it is completely strange, unknown and surreal, i cannot relate to it, comprehend it and put my hands on anything that I'd be in position that i can start to build upon. Because I've got huge problem with other people's angry behaviour and people being aggressive, witnessing violent acts and aggressive emotions from them, it causes me complete mental meltdown. I take it 101% personally. And I can't get rid of the shame when I'm exposed to such people. It completely mess up my thought pattern to being negative and depressive and wrong by default. Being empath doesn't help to protect from it either -other than to avoid anything that scares me.
I think it's the surroundings that may be in some cases a breeding place for toxic shame? I see pattern in how most people expect you to be perfect, not making mistakes and if you do make mistake you get punished by curse words, experience random hate acts or mocking. Maybe this behaviour is contageous like a virus?
quote from too nice book related to egocentricity view:
"what are you imagining others are like? Harsh, judgmental, critical, quick to reject, intolerant, and dismissive. This makes you super anxious because their opinion means a lot, often more than yours does. That means not only are they jerks, they also have a ton of power over you"
I got response:
Maybe if someone is being aggressive you could simply state that the behavior is something you won’t tolerate. You can say this calmly and respectfully.
My response was:
This is where it get complex. I have huge problem about this part of responding. I know it is best to talk my feelings out but I can't. I don't know how. I don't know how to express, what words, how to formulate a sentence. I just shut up and feel excruciating shame. This is where it get even more complex - The aggressive people (at least here where I live) if I try to speak they start to yell and do whatever to shut me up. So they don't give you a chance to talk, some of them turn around and walk away after they spilled their shame, hang up the phone or keep verbally abusing, which makes my defense very hard and it seems to me useless. Most of them magically create an environment where you can't talk like an adult with them, it's always me being in a situation like a little speechless baby that needs to be scorned. At least this is how I experience uncomfortable situations with others.
Oh that's just how I see from my point of view other people, unknown people. All my life negative experiences coming as one single ugly experience of people ashaming me. This is what I expect that person would react when I need something from someone, when I am in any unknown social situation - that people will freak out just because I bother them by asking them a question - so I mostly avoid social situations.
Looking back, I see it as default behaviour for other people - that it is normal behaviour for other people: to be nervous, nitpicking, nagging, cursing, yelling, screaming, because this is what I've been exposed to from early age. By my parents, narcissistic grandmother, I've been beaten up in kindergarten by caretaker (literally coming to me when we were sleeping and slapping me out of no reason), being bullied in grammar school to be sissy because I didn't know how to play soccer or any sport, scorned by kids I played with so I started to avoid in general, then teachers in general were very nervous (school, driving school, additional learning through courses) - slapping us in early grades, yelling and screaming as a way of teaching. I've been to military too - again the same pattern of yelling and screaming as a default behaviour - outside of training exercises. And finally at work, random mobbing.
So at 43 I don't know how to deal with nervous people. It hurts and pain stays afterwards. Even when they are not aggressive to me, it feels irritating to me to witness such people (when someone is angry, cursing, yelling, violent). I literally feel like I have no walls and any weather condition goes right through me and creates damage. I have no idea how to build walls. I think being aware of toxic shame will help me with that.
Without toxic shame knowledge I explain the hurt by I agreeing with aggressive people automatically - since other people rage is what I learned all my life as normal. People who yell and scream are like superior and I am inferior just because I am at receiving end.
Yeah, I tend to generalize incidents and see it as prevailing event. Now I know it is due to egocentrism (huge revelation to me) and unhealed trauma.
So,
the timeline would be:
4yo - trauma
12yo - avoidance, personality disorder, pureocd - unable to build boundaries, no house, any outside weather has impact over me personally, take everything outside as it is inside of me.
43 - learned about purocd techniques ERP, ACT, learned about social anxiety is not issue but its avoidant behaviour that is problem. and lastly - the view of others and myself is skewed due to egocentrism.
You tube video HowTo Understand People Egotism Vs Egocentrism helped me to formulate;
Problem with Egocentrism:
Egocentric
is inability to put in other person place.
Doesnt
think about it or no interest to put in other people shoes.
Most
guys successful in busines are not ego centric, they cant be. You
rely on customer feedback, taking that in account, how you rank on
value, being able to expand.
Ego
centric will not be able to hear about value. How to appeal to get
what they want.
Most
people in power - Egoist with low empathy have very good
understanding of people and they don't care. That is dangerous
person.
egocentric
person they have no idea about people around them. They
dont realize you exist.
They
talk over your head, jump in front of you in line.
People
in music art tends to egocentrism, what gives them their gift is
channeling that.
Egocentric
– the worlds owes them something.
Victim
mentality is ego centrism.
It also helped me to compare with the other side of problem scale, unhealthy egotist to get the full picture and distinction:
Egotist
see the world as fight for their own interest.
Egotist
understand people well but put himself above others, still
understanding people and know how to get things from them.
Person
with low empathy – most come from traumatic childhood. They learned
not to have love for other people.
By
12 they are little monsters, machines, pressing buttons to get what
they want from people.
and my comment;
I've realized by avoiding people I actually hurt them because I do not share my knowledge and keep my point of view to myself which might help someone actually? This revelation was dramatic realization for me regarding my avoidance pattern behaviour, totally unexpected twist in how I see relations.
Just in defense of sensitive people like me, ones with huge empathy, we don't ignore people because we hate them, it is just the opposite. We expect that people hate us, we feel toxic shame, inferiority complex, we are very ashamed of being who we are, so we learned at early age to hide, avoid and we got skilled how to ignore people in order to survive painful feelings of toxic shame inside, being wrong by default, in the core.
So the correct way is being healthy egotist. It is the step "normal" healthy kids learn at 12 yo. I didn't learned this part due to my choice to avoid people:
Create
win win scenario.
Giving
them what they want to certain degree. Helps if you have goals. Focus
on your interest. Selfish but still being ethical about it, compete
hard in business but dont cheat people.
Looking
for your interest but giving people what they want. Being happy
helping other people. Taking care of peopl,e and having ethics.
Look
for your own interest, ok to be selfish, get the things you want by
adding values to other people, creating win-win scenario.
Making
your clients happy. Solve problems, making ys more attractive, adding
value to your friends, business opportunity to busines in your
network.
but
put yourself first. Have empathy, add value. That's long term
mentality.
Short
term mentality is just cheat someone.
Long
term is how i make this person client for life. Or how do i make this
really good relationship. Instead of pretending. Those things tend to
come back to you.
This last statement is what being authentic. What Zoroastrians mean when they talk about being honest. It is not to belittle or to be rude at all.
Also I learned about
Piaget's
Theory of Cognitive Development, he says: at age 12
We
now think we understand why people behave the way they behave. As
result we can become more compassionate.
Also,
Vygotsky's
Theory of Cognitive Development How Relationships Increase Learning
He talks more about communication and connection with others is important in growing into adult:
Only
those learning with assistance of a capable mentor can reach full
potential of their ability. By giving students practice in talking
with others, we give them frames for thinking on their own.
With all these information coming at me in the exact order as presented here topsy-turvy - I got piece of puzzle that was missing to me. It explains a lot of unknown areas that I dealt and encountered in my life and I couldn't get and understand it. I couldn't put my fingers on it, reach out and grab it, it evaded me. If someone is angry - it had impact on me. I got scared - because that is lesson I learned and I never learned better option because I avoided from being 12 yo. I couldn't understand how to get friendly - with everyone? Treat all people the same, I got the message. If someone is angry and yells - he is respected more because they scared me - the result is: having no friends, with toxic people surrounding me. If someone is rude - healthy option would be knowing I can be selfish, that allowance to be selfish are the walls I was missing. Egocentrism would be being scared of telling the truth, if someone complains, shutting up immediately. People nag and complain always, and don't like others to shut up. Especially the loud ones - I was afraid of them the most - and yet they are the ones that you can be brutally honest with and spill everything in their face, they will handle it, they deserve to hear the truth. They are awaiting for it. To me as egocentrist that seems counterintuitive.
I didn't learn at age 12 how to treat people and how to communicate in healthy way. Since I was surrounded by toxic instructors - I learned that other people are trash automatically. If they look funny, it's ok to judge them by their appearance or the way they look. This is the message I got from classmates and certain family members, cousin - toxic surrounding. I got no message how to bond, how to treat someone, how to complement someone - no message at all about how that is done, and it is common thing to do. I over compensated with being people pleaser, always ready to help, since I saw it in media that this is normal behaviour, but I didn't understand the complexity and the reason behind such behaviour (win-win scenario). What I would learn instead of healthy view is skewed other toxic people's egocentric mentality - that is the message from toxic others that I could comprehend very well, for example, if someone is angry, it is because of me, I am somehow mystically connected with other people nagging, they don't understand something, it is me that is the cause. I get that message a lot in the school and through education. Adult people don't think that way, it is archaic, unrealistic. Ancient Greece philosophers said, we can't presume to know everything - we are not Gods, we are human beings, it is ok to have faults, vulnerabilities, not being perfect. Buddhism teaches us we can't label stuff - it will limit us and our understanding.
It is about accepting scary people, accepting what seems to scare little child the "ugly" people, people that are kind yet appear at first look "revolting". Talking to them and getting to know them. Or simply being kind to them. Greeting people. Egocentric person would overlook such people and friendly behaviour towards them. That kind of mentality, twisted thought pattern will result in having zero friends and ruined life and having tons of anxieties and weird phobias and multiplied relationship problems. I can be selfish, and there is unwritten contract between people, treat people how you want to be treated. Be the first one to be kind and expect positive outcome. Me being selfish is ok. A big lesson that I missed - It is not wrong to learn how to be healthy selfish. Taking care of others after me being selfish as the base of it. I would be pushover and people please because I was afraid to be selfish, been taught that is big no-no. I read the book about that but I didn't get it that there is a healthy spectrum to egotism and healthy spectrum of selfishness.
This knowledge about healthy selfishness leads to new concept - unknown to me - to have human reaction that is totally unacceptable to me - natural reaction to stress and rude behaviour. I saw it in the movies and I couldn't understand it. How to re-create that or that I am allowed to and that I have strength to react and speak out. As very shy sensitive I couldn't speak out, I would open out my mouth and nothing would come out. I would know what to say later, when I would be in my safe zone. I didn't have knowledge about me being ok to be selfish so I didn't have solid standpoint to defend myself - to react to injustice or someone's wrong accusation.
Egocentric (child, adolescent) would feel irritated by other person - might react by yelling and cursing, expressing their irritation, but they would not get to know that other person. They would (wrongly) read their social media posts and draw conclusion about that person - that is ridiculous and futile, childish way to meet a person, to get know a person- any healthy person knows that social media is fake. The information there is a projection, power point presentation, it is not reality. Ancient Greek philosophers discovered that people are doing this lazy copy-paste action in their heads and thus draw false conclusions about anything - you see something, you don't bother to do research and deeply get involved, but you use previous archived experiences , connect that unrelated knowledge with a new phenomena and draw false picture without being aware you distorted your own reality. You don't check with the others - but by fitting a few minute details into all picture by force, you find similarities that fall into your distorted perception and accept this as reality. That is not healthy. We should communicate. If for some reason we can't - then in that case you just accept the idea that you might be wrong with your conclusions - because they are not tested in fully. That process of thinking is a lot healthier than just simply assuming.
(23.9.2020)
How to build walls:
Learning Logical fallacies
My comment on one video about attainment and ego:
People who experience trauma in childhood don't develop their personality fully, they are stuck in egocentric spectrum. The healthy - grown up part of spectrum is healthy egoist. At the extreme spectrum of egoist/egocentric are narcissists. We need supply, we need attachment, we need attainment. Dalai Lama said - "Desire must be there". Buddha preached about middle way, golden path - he actually talked about being healthy egoist.
Medieval age is teaching us - if you devote your life to God only exclusively, you will get plague and stop science, discovery and growth. That is not healthy. That is an example of being egocentric.
You can't help the poor if you are having severe case of social phobia, being avoidant, closed, and separated from others - being egocentric - you can't help anyone.
Being detached and not caring about the world is unhealthy. Being stuck in darkness, believe in oblivion, solipsism - that also is not the way because you may experience big crunch one day - and you will be forced to be evicted out of your safe zone, safe universe you created for yourself. Sartre talked about that - to find a purpose in life.
Since everything in existence is in movement - branch tree that is spreading and evolving and growing - we are forced to grow - we have no other healthy choice but to work toward being healthy egoist, it is healthy choice, finding sustainable and healthy system for human being - healthy egoist is the only way.
(27-9-2020)
my PureOCD comment
This is very crucial - ERP.
What happens when I try ERP. It helps. Then why I don't repeat it=?
I tried it, it helps in a moment, but later I tend to forget about it. And I found out why. I tend to have the same mental images and mental intrusive thoughts (which Pure OCD is the best to use as description) that flash through my mind - and they cause my pattern of overthinking and feeling overwhelmed and depressed that nothing will be ok. I think it is mixed with toxic shame. This is PureOCD at its core.
For example, I have flashes in my mind of either my own experiences from the past (or even future imagined!) where people verbally abused, were very rude to me - and I didn't know how to react, this images come to me extremely strong and I feel egocentric, I take them personally as if they define me as person. And either I think about it or not - I feel horrible inside and can't get rid of that feeling of dirtiness inside. This is what Pure OCD for me is. I feel contaminated and dirty inside. I supposedly do not perform any action (I don't perform counting, physical checking for example), it is just this pervasive feeling of default core unworthiness from within, my core being. And I can't get rid of it, it doesn't go away.
I am aware of personality disorders (i have avoidant PD). I know that during my childhood I learned wrong responses and wrong tools to protect myself (for example to be people pleaser and pushover and saying yes, let people use me - and be very afraid what they think about me, other's people opinion). I know about egocentric - that I should heal by going more to healthy egoist spectrum. And yet I feel toxic shame inside no matter what. That feeling of everlasting toxic shame for me is PureOCD.
OR
I have "artificial" images - usually from some drama art movies (usually European) where lead character is in some economic depraved situation, raped or abused severely without friends and prosperity - -this comes and haunts me, and again I take it as proof that life is not worth in general and everything sucks - surroundings and people. (This is why I hate and I avoid to watch any European drama movies, too depressing and sick). They just hypnotize me too easily into depression. And once again, it is inside my mind, it overpowers everything inside me and I tried to be happy - which I see as PureOCD - compulsion from inside to clean myself - and this is actually supported by media and society, mentality of people: that we must be happy all the time, that we must not talk about problems or else be scrutinized and abandoned...
This all mixed with depression and I don't have sufficient non stop energy nor will for ERP or ACT (which I know that are healing tools and that they work).
Other than ERP, when I found out about egocentric mindset - I realized my healing should go in a way becoming more egoist - it means opening up to people. See them better, not just run away in the instant, talk with them, not being isolated and give a chance for communication with them.
Before, I wouldn't put comments like these on YT for example, I thought it doesn't make any difference to speak my mind.
(3.10.2020)
I've been listening to Mark Twain's "Mysterious Stranger" and this part made me think and realize, that if we went through emotional trauma during childhood - and got stuck in egocentric thinking mode, never growing up - we think like children all the time. It is like word is black and white. People either care so much for others, they are so involved in their lives- perplexed and glued. Or they don't care about someone. And this is how we accepted to see relationship. While this part of the book opened my mind - to truth - that people don't care about people in that intense level as I think they do. Neither should I. It is like I get microscope with other people and I observe them on the cell level. I am not aware that I should step back and see the whole person. I thought I must do that because I was taught this is the only way. When you look in media, relationships between actors are connected, otherwise you wouldn't get drama, movie or anything comprehensible. Even Seinfeld - where there is no plot at all. This adds to egocentric point of view - that we must invest in other people and we expect others must evolve in ours lives too. Like it is given. That is unhealthy point of view.
Mark Twain, Mysterious Stranger:
It is true that they are nothing to me. It is not possible that they should be. The difference between them and me is abysmal, immeasurable. They have no intellect. Nothing that resembles it. Men have nothing in common with me, there is no point of contact. They have foolish little feelings and foolish little vanities and impertinence and ambitions. Their foolish little life is but a laugh, a sigh and extinction. And they have no sense, only the moral sense. Can you imagine an elephant being interested in spider, carrying whether he is happy or isn't or whether he is wealthy or poor or whether his sweetheart returns his love or not. Or whether he is looked up to in society, or not. These things can never be important to the elephant. They are nothing to him. Man is to me as the red spider is to the elephant. The elephant has nothing against the spider, he cannot get down to that remote level. The elephant is indifferent. If it came in his way and cost nothing - I have done men good service but no ill turns.
(6.10.2020)
One you tuber said the same thing about people not caring on another unrelated topic:
Everyone knows that the final stage of human intelligence is to simulate
other minds that will then watch your every move and disapprove and
shame you for every moment of your life until your last breath.
Which made me come to conclusion from egocentrism - that it appears that other people are hating us. It appears to us that we are annoyance to others. And then we hide, shy away, hide, shut up, been afraid of conflict, feeling inferior - because it appears like others can't stand us. I now know this attachment is like sponge on surface - it sticks to others as if they are higher beings and something is wrong by default by me - since they have arguments. And what are those arguments - they appear that they don't care. And why should they care - if everyone cared on such deep level as we do, everyone would feel anxiety, avoid and be paralysed. This was my comment:
Interesting,, this made me think - What if it only appears to us like that?
😮
But in reality - people don't "care" deep down about other people (people don't care how their words might impact others for example, they don't carefully choose their words since it would lead to analysis paralysis, people are not so involved into other person as much and at the intense level as it appears to shy person) - so it appears like others are aggressive and that they are ashaming others?
This might become even complex with toxic people like narcissist who are really ashaming others, and then to the victim it appears like the whole world is full of people who are ashaming each other in daily communication..? While in fact they..don't.
