Social anxiety comes down to imagined endangerment. Being triggered by people, events, situations that are not actually dangerous yet appear impossible and highly irritating, annoying, difficult and painful to bare. It is a part of Complex Trauma, programmed guilt from childhood and wrong learned response in a form of panic reaction to triggers. It is very hard if impossible to notice triggers, amygdala hijacking, to notice other people who are manipulators and predators. Irrational guilt is controlling my decisions and automatically I repeat the social anxiety, as learned in childhood - to shut up, to never express myself and to avoid embarrassment at any cost. When anxiety kicks in I am not aware I have an imaginary audience in my head criticizing me, mocking me or making any kind of judgement, and I obey what I think others would want me to do.
Fact, TWITTER:
Sometimes you have to go through the worst in order to get to the best.
I think that digging myself out of the dirt is my fault that I am in the dirt. I do not realize that digging myself out is action towards upgrade and next level. But thanks to programming this dirt appears as shame to me, something I must hide or pretend it is not there, ignore it and not move.
Being stuck is part of trauma. This immobility is the most devastating result of life with social anxiety. I do not move, I do not make decisions, thinking I will be safe. But life will force me to move eventually. I cannot hide and pretend I will be safe if I stay silent, if I do not confront. Again I have imaginary audience in my head telling me I must be perfect in anything, I must not make mistakes, so even the action must be perfect, I must feel safe enough to take action, as per-requisite.
When someone criticizes, this triggers me into social anxiety. Someone making remark about how I do my job - and in that moment I am not aware I am triggered, I do not notice emotional dysregulation has set place, I do not notice that there is amygdala hijacking, and it is extremely hard to stay calm, I get intrusive worry thoughts that I am in danger, that I will lose my safety, that catastrophe will happen, that I must shut up or appease the bully, or even that I am weak so I must over-compensate. This is why CPTSD information helps - right at those moments I would no longer engage in PureOCD loops, but rather I would be aware that there is dysregulation taking place - that I am under hypnosis where someone is acting as jerk and I am resentful and under hypnosis. I would get any kind of idea about fleeing or fawning, but I would not entertain the thought to express myself, to act naturally and probably say, warn the person that I am not interested in their comments. I fawn in order to avoid violence and hysteria.
-What if the guy with the gun doesn't come? What if your world doesn't have to be so scary?
-You guys have always done what's expected of you. But that shit ends today.
FREE GUY (2019)
This is connected to realization that external factor: bullies, narcissists, predators, exploiters, users, abusers, borderliners, parasites, emotional vampires, hysterics - they do not follow unwritten social laws. They get away with crime. No one mentions it due to fears of their potential revenge violence and temper tantrums. Guilt is used as tool to control other people who are following the rules: interdependence and negotiation.
And then there is paradox, one of many that makes it hard to navigate away from social anxiety: that is if I study it and learn about it, it will create analysis - paralysis. This is connected to Sun Tzu: the more I perceive something as dangerous and difficult, I am giving it energy and building it up and difficult. The mind is built that way, if I notice danger in something, the brain will fight it, it will make me afraid, throwing me more of danger to solve and deal with. It is the same as viewing people as toxic. Resentment will give it more energy to people who are really toxic, I will give them power to affect my mood, guide my thoughts and influence my decisions in limiting way.
The obvious solution to social anxiety is being content with being and appearing stupid, that I express myself, that I create what I like, that I am not bothered by what other people think. This part is destroyed by triggers, flashbacks and imaginary audience - and mentally ill environment, external factor. These bring in irrational guilt and I feel like I can't fight it because my whole body is reacting to imaginary danger. This is why official resources and self help and CBT is not working - they do not offer explanation what is happening behind over-reaction. Calming myself down will not help - because I am guided by imposed and implanted guilt. There is ongoing hypnosis and CBT is not addressing this part. There is default toxic shame, being stuck and being pessimist due to brain injury from CPTSD, this is also not mentioned nowhere in the books or any official resource about avoidance and social anxiety.
(4.1.2022)
Other people inspire me to think new ideas and concepts. This applies even to negative and nagging people - only if I am aware I can harness negativity for my gain.
Focusing on symptoms is stigmatizing the totally normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal situations and abnormal events. It is blaming the target for abuse.
Stigmatizing symptoms does not help soothing and calming down. It creates more additional anxiety, hyperalertness and hypervigilance. Focus on symptoms and panic does not help. It creates fawning to others, since we do not detect external factor as issue and problem to deal with.
What I understand from philosophy and religion is that movement itself is the work of devil. This answers the question why God allows bad things to happen. This is connected with Zoroastrianism where this world is dualistic, it has good and bad entities, whereas the bad one is contracted inside the good universe and studied and monitored without the bad ones being aware of it. And it is up to humans to choose good thoughts, good words and good deeds. So the action itself is the work of devil. This is connected to trauma and social anxiety - since we try to avoid movement in order to avoid pain and hurt and violence from others. Being frozen is something that is good. However - if you do not move, you don't have life. And not having life is bad. Movement is necessary to live.
This is connected to social anxiety because we are programmed in our childhood to not move. There is shaming and guilt gaslighting as a way to discipline us, but it goes haywire - instead of becoming good, we become inoperable. We get hypnosis that we must shut up in order not to hurt other people. However we are not alone on this planet. There are parasites that will exploit people who do not move, who are silent and who do not protest. So this programing is damaging to us, even though it is envisioned as something good and positive for child. The world itself demands action. So this means I will make fool of myself no matter what I do. I will hurt someone no matter how much I try not to. I have to tolerate this in order to get over social anxiety, to tolerate the fact that I will embarrass myself and that I will cause unintentional pain by my words and actions. The important thing is to notice and to be aware why avoidance is good and why action is good. And what counter-effect they both have. Avoidance leads to distortions, as well as action, too. However if compared the action is healthy, whereas avoidance and being stuck is unhealthy. Avoidance is short term tool to heal the wounds. It is not long term place to hide, it cannot be due to mechanics of the Universe. There is no place where I can hide. I think there is when I am not aware of this facts. I think that I can be safe if I do and perform perfectly and if I ran away each time and if I avoid conflict and if I shut up, if I freeze. Nope, it will not make me safe, the hurt and pain will catch me up even when I avoid, hide, shut up and run away.
If I achieve perfection, if I have master skills in everything - I would become zombie. I would become detested, since people dislike know-it-alls. If I am perfect and I do not hurt anyone - it would mean I should be people pleaser and pushover. I would avoid having my own thoughts, opinions and statements. The world is build by incapacity for holding absolute truth. I am programmed through trauma to believe other people hold absolute truth and I must put my self worth, guidance and beliefs in other people automatically, see them as superior and gods. So if someone has all the absolute knowledge in the world - there would be opposition and resistance. The absolute truth would demand that people's brains were scanned for psychopaths so that they are excluded from society - however from humanity point of view that would be barbaric. And if enforced it may turn into violent protest, if not targeted by mafia and wealthy psychopaths who have enough money to pull strings to smother the truth.
And regarding social anxiety - the official therapy is doing exactly that: the symptoms are focus of problem, as if the correction of natural responses to fear will cure the anxiety. It won't. It will only turn the person into pushover, people pleaser, someone without creativity and ideas of his own.
I noticed whenever I face some trigger that develops into fears and panic, I get stuck. I try to solve it in my head. It seems to me that my fears are the problem, and that feeling this panic is abnormal. Nope. It turns out that these feelings of irritation, overwhelm and allergy in mind is totally normal. The only problem here is being stuck. Having intrusive worry, PureOCD, trying to resolve issues in my head, trying to get even, fighting the person instead of forgiving the jerks for being morons. Being stuck is non movement, that is the heart of distortion. To shut up, to self-censor myself. That is sickness. Not feeling sick or wrongly interpreting natural responses to abnormal people as sickness.
Masculine Theory, TWITTER:
Men
It's not okay to always be available.
Being sensitive to the discomfort, disapproval, or anger of others probably made you quick to follow every rule as perfectly as possible, afraid to make a mistake. Being so good all the time, however, meant ignoring many of your normal human feelings-irritation, frustration, selfishness, rage. Since you were so eager to please, others could ignore your needs when in fact yours were often greater than theirs.
Elaine Aron "The Highly Sensitive Person"
Mental health disorders are characterized by the presence of unusual or abnormal mood,
thinking, and behaviors that cause an individual significant distress or impairment, and
disrupt their ability to function. Impairment occurring as the result of common stressors
such as bereavement would not be considered a disorder.
What are mental health disorders?
DK How Psychology Works_ The Facts Visually Explained
(6.1.2022)
One aspect of social anxiety that I ignored up until now on this blog is part of dualism. It is part of what I actually done in real life and I was labelled by others as people pleaser, pushover and weak. I am talking about ineffective decision to morally policing other people. To judge others. It stems from CPTSD childhood where I was programmed to be perfect, to read other people minds and to serve them, I had to be perfect and perform without mistakes in order to get approval and avoid punishment. I end up with giving power to other people to control me by being perfect and if I am not I would feel guilty and fear their temper tantrums and violence. Then I presume that it is possible to do and act and perform in certain way that will prevent other people's anger. It does not occur to me that it is impossible not to get people frustrated. And that they will frustrate me back.
Also there is belief that when I feel uncomfortable it will last forever. And this gets me panicked, depressed and stuck. This thought is false. It will pass, but I do not believe in that. Then I make decisions that are detrimental and real sickness: I shut up, I self censor and I avoid with intrusive worry trying to resolve problem in my head. There is also hovering doom that I will be thrown in the streets, alone without shelter.
I am not aware that when I judge other people I am being tyrannical. And that it is cognitive distortion to expect I can control other people. And I am not aware that I learned to be hypervigilant since I grow up with people around me being moody and suddenly violent.
This is problem because if I drop my defenses and I do not speak up, I am giving myself message that it is ok for people to walk all over me and to treat me however they like.
Anxiety lumps threatening and neutral events as dangerous. There is a middle way. With being triggered and dysregulated it is hard for me to be neutral and speak up. I either shut up and feel like pushover and weak or I can engage in defense mode, which as well may lead to be hysterical since I feel exploited - similar drama that borderliners use for their temper tantrums. This is where mismatch is. Instead of focusing on panic symptoms as CBT suggests, I would rather focus on this mismatch. Inability to deal with dysregulation, inability to tolerate mistakes in myself and others. Shame and guilt that comes with someone's negative feedback which I internalize and I feel as it defines me as wrong person. I would focus on this imposed worthiness - that is triggered and implanted simply by someone's comment. I see this as hypnosis and control, mind control. People with social anxiety automatically feel like wrong, unworthy and non human, as trash - by someone's criticism, nagging and complaint, complaining. Panic symptoms are here secondary and thus non important. Removing symptoms of fear will not remove symptoms of feeling toxic shame that is activated by someone's comment.
If we accept that moral policing others is negative and dysfunctional and it leads to anxiety, hypervigilance, triggers and additional frustrations - then the obvious solution is that I have to react in the moment. Afterwards it will become PureOCD intrusive worry - which I will resolve by forgiving anyway. I can respond in the moment without drama and hysteria - but only if I am aware of moral police - so that I remove additional "attacks", resentments and drama which do not contribute to my reaction in any productive way, but only as frustration. Without additional and unnecessary frustration I can say my piece and not expect them to listen to me, without the need to be right, without the need for them to understand me and that they must obey my commands.
"Normal" and healthy people will stop doing when I warn about it. Unhealthy and toxic people, manipulators and narcissists will engage in drama and shift the blame on me. This is something I never learned with social anxiety - since it disabled me to talk with people, I would shut up in order not to rock the boat and because I was instructed by self-help books and official social anxiety resources that other people feel pain, too, that they have their own burden and I have to have empathy towards them.
I am aware that dysregulation will make me hard to function due to amygdala hijacking and hormones and chemicals inside my body making me addicted to social anxiety, by releasing stress hormones when I need to stand up for myself, and due to brain injury - being exposed to trauma will default my thinking process to being stuck and catastrophizing.
I would lean on dualism and doubt (Descartes Evil demon hypothesis). This means, if I feel that I must forgive someone and think that this person is really poor and troubled - that I add up also the opposite arguments: that this person is manipulator so that I search and document how they behave and act accordingly with both elements in mind - that I have empathy and common sense. On the other hand, if I feel my moral police judging and crusading over other people, that I add up the opposite: that holding onto irritation is ego-centric and that I can speak up with this in mind, so that I avoid losing temper when I hold on to moral police only and exclusively. This is something I never done before, creating yin-yang dynamics in my thinking.
Social anxiety is related to inability to engage in conflict and inability to express natural reaction to unfair situation such as accusations or mocking. Social anxiety is also having unrealistic ideas how I should be: interesting all the time, always on service, never annoy anyone. This creates perfectionism and hypervigilance and chronic worry. Then CBT instructions and helpful advice from strangers do the same: instruct me as if there is a perfect narrative. Also external factors such as predators and narcissists trigger dysregulation and they order perfectionism from me - by pinpointing and mocking my mistakes and flaws and by throwing hysteria when their expectations are not met. The real social anxiety advice is that I drop my safety behaviour. Such as fawning. What happens next is me in hysteria, since social anxiety prevents me from expressing my rage to unfairness and unrealistic demands from toxic people.
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| Chemicals and hormones |
 |
| External factor |
DBT teaches the skills to accept and tolerate distress and to manage disturbing or provocative emotional stimulation. The process involves gaining behavioral control, then experiencing rather than silencing emotional stress—discussing and accepting past traumatic experiences, and tackling selfblame and dysfunctional thoughts.
The four skills of DBT:
Skills training teaches people who
feel at the mercy of their emotions to
accept themselves and their thoughts
and to replace dysfunctional behaviors
with positive actions.
MINDFULNESS
Become aware of the
emotional experience—
observe rather
than react.
INTERPERSONAL
EFFECTIVENESS
Stay calm and pay
respectful attention
to other people.
DISTRESS
TOLERANCE
Use self-soothing
encouragement in
stressful situations.
EMOTIONAL
REGULATION
Choose to behave in a
positive way despite
negative emotions
DK How Psychology Works_ The Facts Visually Explained
CPT (cognitive processing therapy)
This therapy helps people to address and change negative, fear-based
thoughts—referred to as stuck points—that recur after traumatic events
so that they feel calmer and safer.
The stages of CPT are
designed to help the
individual understand
how trauma has
affected their brain
PSYCHOEDUCATION
Discuss symptoms
of PTSD, thoughts,
and emotions.
FORMAL
PROCESSING
OF TRAUMA
Recall trauma to
gain awareness
of thoughts
USING NEW SKILLS
Learn and practice
skills to challenge
thoughts and modify
behaviors.
DK How Psychology Works_ The Facts Visually Explained
 |
| Persecutory |
Humanistic therapies
This group of therapies encourages an individual to resolve their problems and issues and achieve greater fulfillment by recognizing, understanding, and using their own capacity to develop.
Humanists believe that not only is a person capable of making changes and achieving personal growth but it is their responsibility to do so. This idea places the individual fully in control of their choices and goals.
DK How Psychology Works_ The Facts Visually Explained
The experiment was terminated after six days because the guards behaved so abusively and brutally and the prisoners took their extreme suffering so submissively.
The study implies not only that all people harbor ugly traits, but also that environment and circumstances can shape behavior and attitudes—effectively altering personality.
STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT
DK How Psychology Works
Listen to their advice, but be strong to follow that still small voice on the inside. No one can hear God's direction like you. God will not give someone else more insight into your destiny than he does to you.
People will try to squeeze you into what they want you to be
JOEL OSTEEN
(9.1.2022)
With social anxiety I imagine people near me, even unknown people or people I rarely talk to, judging me and seeing me and they criticizing me or labeling me as weird, why am I doing that what I am doing, how I look, what I wear and the action itself (that may entail just standing or simply walking), if I carry something that it is weird and strange because I carry this, or accessories on me - that anything about me is subject for mocking or their judgement of disgust. That is social anxiety. CBT does not focus on this. In early 90s when they did their research, they did not based their findings and experiments on people with social anxiety, their lab rats were people with mild shyness. People with social anxiety would never agree to be studied in the first place.
Elaine N. Aron says in her book about HSP: "Arousal does not have to be anxiety, so do not accept the label 'anxiety prone'. Arousal can just be overstimulation". This means, if I feel dysregulated, heart beats, intrusive worries - that not in every case it is being triggered due to trauma or social anxiety. Sometimes I am simply processing information in sensitive, detailed, deeper way. If I label it as anxiety, I pathologize myself into imaginary illness, whereas there is none in reality. So not only I need to filter out toxic people, I also need to filter out toxic situations. Which is connected to being able to detect when I am in danger, and when I convince myself into being in danger - endangerment. This means, I am not always in danger even though I feel like in danger. So instead of over-reacting it would come to realization other people do not hate me, there is no persecution or paranoia or conspiracy. It also comes down to loving myself as I am, even though other people may label me as over-sensitive or weird or giving me commands how to be. In the past, due to external reference locus of control, I would believe whatever other person would say and automatically go along with their advice, without ever to think that they may be manipulative, totally wrong and even detrimental.
Since I naturally observe and notice anything around me from different perspectives, I will tend to judge others. Especially when they are unfair and wrong. So I will tend to believe I am good while other people are bad. This is why there are not toxic people. Paradox is if I judge and blame other people, I become tyrant, I become toxic myself. This is what real toxic people exploit in others. They exploit this catch 22 so they allow themselves to steal, blame, falsely accuse, hold their biases and logical fallacies even after they are proven wrong, and this is why they will try to elicit hysterical reaction in others, so that they will represent themselves as a poor victims.
Stuck issue.
As I understand up until now being stuck is red flag of mental illness. It deteriorates mental health. However there are three factors mutually not connected that force person into immobility. 1 - Brain injury - defaults thinking process into being stuck into intrusive worry about current issue. 2 - chemicals and hormones that get activated due to trauma where we were conditioned like circus animals or Pavlovian dogs into fear and being stuck. This include implanted guilt that is broadcasting and pumping these chemicals that affect the mood 3 - sensitivity - where our system is made to observe and analyze situation, people and events deeply - where I have no idea that I analyze due to my ingrained ability to observe anything from multiple dimensions, and when I or other people choose to label this analysis as fear, I create additional neurosis.
In any case me allowing this stuckness to be as it is, but it is up to me to choose common sense and move onto another task, that I need to do anyway, that is awaiting me to focus on it. I cannot wait to feel good enough as condition to take some action.
By people pleasing and shutting up I try to regulate other people's mood. The truth is this will not regulate them. It only seems to me because I stop moving. But they are predators and narcissists, they will never be at rest and they will never care for other people. Me being silent will not make them better nor they will prevent them from toxic decisions. It does not mean I have to be aggressive myself. It just means I have right to speak out and protest and alarm them. My choices of fawning are reaction to trauma, so I can regulate these reactions, which may entail not agreeing with someone who is speaking lies or accusing me of false accusations. By people pleasing I am relying on other people to make me happy, I give them power to control my actions and my mood - but from my perspective I am nice good person who doesn't rock the boat. I equate speaking the truth and being transparent as being rude, which is lie.
The problem with speaking up and allowing myself to be honest is another extreme. Becoming too critical and nag about anything. Also it can lead me to judgement and pontificating others. That is the point of anxiety, that I know how it feels when someone is criticizing others in abusive way.
In movie The Breakfast Club (1985) the main characters are talking honestly. From social anxiety point of view this is something impossible. It is related to reactivity and belief what other person says is ultimate truth. In reality it is not ultimate truth but I automatically take it as the final truth where my opinion does not matter. It is connected to belief that I am not allowed to talk back. And that other person is not allowed to be angry or express any negative emotions since from my point of view this makes them superior and their wants and needs something to be fulfilled immediately. And also if they are angry, that this means it is my fault and I can either fix it or go along. Piaget said there are many stages in development, and since social anxiety usually occurs in teen years, this is the stage I lack. I never experienced honest conversation versus drama and hysteria, it is all hysteria and that person who is angry must be correct without opposition or my opinion be taken in consideration. My over-reaction is important here. Not only I see other person as superior, but I also perceive other person with contempt and I want to cut contact - while in reality I cannot make distinction between manipulator and someone who is honest. In both cases I do not see myself on par.
The decisions, thoughts and opinions, perceptions and conclusions I make from this below position are distorted and this is what is at the root of anxiety. Inability to make distinction with whom I am dealing with, I label safe situations and safe people as unsafe. Also I label unsafe situations and toxic people as safe or something I must endure in order to fit on or to avoid being labeled as weird if I walk away. The lesson I missed is that I am allowed to say that I disagree. That I act and react naturally, without thinking what other person may think in advance so I self correct myself to avoid criticism. That I yell back. That other person does not hate me. That they do not hate me if I disagree with them. That it doesn't matter if they hate me, that their opinion is not the final judgement.
CBT has goalposts of getting calm and exposure as the main focus of action for anxiety. In reality, this increases anxiety. Demanding to be calm gives me the message that I am inept and other people are superior since they are appearing very calm in any situation. Also, having ritual to calm anxiety means the OCD loop where ritual is part of anxiety. Instead I would calm naturally if I knew that anxiety I feel is the process of digesting incoming information and data, that as sensitive person I perceive in deeper manner than other people, as I look all the perspective and angles and search the deeper meaning than what I see at surface face level. If I label this incoming surge of information as danger, I will make neurosis out of something that is obviously natural way how I gather information. And what helps is actually getting even more information. The correct information to make sense of what is happening helps me to calm down. Sometimes it is the conclusion that it is out of my control and there is nothing I can do. Sometimes it is about knowing it is imposed guilt that I can reject someone's data as invalid and manipulation.
Adam Grant, TWITTER:
Leadership is not boasting about what you know. It's having the confidence to admit what you don't know.
You don't need to assure people that you have all the answers. They just want to know that you're committed to finding a solution—and capable of guiding a group toward it.
Mind Haste High, TWITTER:
Psychology Fact:
Things start working out for you when you stop complaining and start taking control.
"A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them." - Carl Jung
Fact, TWITTER:
Research finds that the more a person understands their own value, the less likely they are to be discouraged by critics.
(18.1.2022)
Narcissist, abusive, rude and controlling people are very scary for empaths and traumatized people who did not choose to develop false persona as they did - and it is key to understand that inferiority complex and toxic shame does not allow us to see when someone is loud, obnoxious and scary - that this is only a front. This is acting. This is not real. It appears very real. It appears as normal and better and superior sprinkled with violence and unkindness. But it is only well rehearsed mask, it is fake. When I do not realize it is fake I subconsciously think and believe I am inferior and people who are loud and aggressive are better because they are able to scream and throw temper tantrums - and thus I shut up. I obey. I appease. I fawn. Because I bought into this mask, thinking it is real. This scary mask appears as real scary and dangerous monster to me.
When I see it as mask, I can talk back or leave. I can stick by my opinion. I can be on par, as if I am talking with someone familiar, without panic attack, without need to over-compensate my lost confidence that is gone due to fear of mask.
I learned that non relevant advice is detrimental, especially from external reference locus of control, where I do not have ability to doubt others and see them as ideologists, someone who is speaking from ideas, not something they experienced themselves in real life.
There is a lot of false information unwittingly being spread by people. The most obvious harm is found in "advice" given to HSP people. Taking things personally is usually scorned and described only from one angle. The person giving such advice is usually not aware of external factor (manipulators and dark psychology) and that in fact the opposite is true: people who accuse others to be too sensitive are usually the ones who are extremely over-sensitive. Narcissism is deep wound masked by aggression and violence. So such people will cover up their own extreme over-sensitivity with attack and blaming others for being over-sensitive. The truth is that they are spreading drama themselves all the time, however they spend much time and energy to successfully cover up their own over-reaction with screaming, temper tantrums, yelling, kicking and screaming - which is accepted in society as something normal and good, masculine and strong especially if it is perplexed with cursing and mocking of other people. Then others are afraid to confront the lunatic and everyone is relieved not to be the subject for bully - by complying and shutting up, whereas the target is being scapegoated as "the (over) sensitive one".
Often it is told that narcissism and codependents are on the same spectrum. Where both are trauma based, and narcissists project their injury on others, while targets are receiving it and taking the abuse as own fault. From this perspective it is more clear why I would feel stuck when I feel criticized. Narcissist also take everything personally but they will never admit it, they will project their fear in the form of anger and rage. From the perspective of social anxiety, then the fears and intrusive thoughts appear as personal, as if it is connected to the person, it feels like personal attack. If someone is unreasonable, I will have hard time standing up to that person and speaking my mind because I perceive both abuse and abuser as correct automatically. In the same way, the narcissists will perceive other people around them as the one to blame automatically. While the "normal" people without trauma will defend themselves and thus ward off the blame and abuse, the codependent will take it without a word. If I am aware of this dynamics, I can break the hypnosis of subservience and automatic obeying. These attacks are at the core of trauma and social anxiety. It is this that the socially anxious person is afraid to experience and find it unmanageable.
This is the reason why it never occurs to me that I document the abuse. Instead I am focused on surviving - because the same as narcissist, I perceive the hurt as justified, normal, big and acute. Something that is larger than life. Drama beyond this world. I simply buy into mental illness of disturbed individual who throws temper tantrums. Narcissist will try to suck me into drama triangle described in codependent relationships. I am not aware that I can speak my mind without drama and explosions. That I can choose my words how I will speak them, as oppose to react in fear or shutting up. I don't have to lecture about it and seek approval.
Social anxiety is therefor linked to narcissism, it attracts it, it is suitable target for narcissistic abuse, it stems from narcissistic abuse. Learning more about narcissism will help in understanding our own fears and panic attacks and people.
For example, if we do not avoid people and stand up to them (which may even mean to listen to their stories) we may actually learn that they do not feel embarrassed by a lot of things which are normally labeled as embarrassment. Then, if you confront them with the fact that this is abnormal, they will react in rage, since their narcissistic injury is being touched. If I have external validation mechanism, I will shut up, because my self worth is placed in other people, if they are angry from my perspective it means I am the cause of problem and it is my responsibility to fix it. Whereas if I have self worth place inside me, I can allow myself to doubt whatever the other person is saying - that perhaps they have hidden agenda. I can allow myself to possibility that this person may be lying. Narcissist has a plenty of self worth inside them, in so much they do not allow idea or any possibility that they may be wrong and that they have to change (unless it personally benefits them). Codependent and socially anxious person with external validation has the opposite: that they are wrong by default and that they are not allowed to embarrass themselves, make any mistake and that they have to take external instructions about anything in life. Both forms are unhealthy, whereas the narcissistic one is active - and thus it will be valued by the society as better one, since on the surface level it brings the results. In reality narcissists are parasiting over kind and nice people whom they abuse and exploit.
The complexity with narcissism is that they are not always angry and rude. Sometimes they appear as friends, someone who is honest, someone who appears authentic. Sometimes they appear extremely sensitive and vulnerable and needy - which serves as agenda - as a hook for codependents searching to fix someone in need.
So I would be careful with people who appear very bold, very honest, talkative, that they appear to easily throw off conventional social norms that appear charmful and funny, at least at the surface level. The easiest anti-dote to narcissism: being honest, objective and stating the facts and voicing out the elephant in the room will reveal how these people react to your words. If I am codependent I will shut up, I will not make conversation and I will take their mocking as proof I am invalid. Instead when I have self worth inside me, I do not shut up, I do not self-censor myself. Narcissists hate transparency. They will not and cannot stand honest people. They must be the only one who is speaking the "truth" and their version of truth is the only reality that is allowed.
This is where it gets complex. If I engage in Crusading wars against narcissists - thus I will become narcissist myself. This is what makes them thrive. The normal and healthy relationships with people include honesty and transparency, no hiding, no self-censorship. It is about being truthful without attacking anyone or cutting them out of your life just because they do not agree with you. It is reasonable to accept the act of door-slam only when someone is abusive - exploitative, unkind and violent. If someone thinks differently, if I block this person just because of this, I am narcissist. It is not healthy. This is where social anxiety comes into play. From socially anxious point of view, especially when it is in acute phase of avoidance, I will see everyone as enemy and I will take everything personally, I will believe that people hate me - and if they are not kind, I will door-slam them. Whereas some people who hold their boundaries, who stand up for themselves - appear as very dangerous to me, from trauma based mind, while in reality these people are simply honest, they do not carry the virus of violence and tyranny inside them. From socially anxious and avoidance point of view, I am unable to make this distinction. I lump it all together. I see anyone resembling to trauma as serious attack. That is where my over-reactions come from. And if I do the opposite, as classical CBT suggests - that I welcome everybody in and to be friendly with everyone - I will turn myself into pushover, people pleaser and fawning as default reaction to people.
What I learned from my experience, is once I stopped self-censorship and started to speak up my opinion and being honest, very often people would tell me that I am full of anger and rage. Even though I never used curse words or used Ad hominem - somehow I was blamed and accused to be angry, even in cases when I spoke against the person who is angry. This is because narcissists will project their own inadequacies onto easy targets. As codependent or socially anxious person in the past I would shut up immediately and believe in other people's criticism, I would soak up their accusations as true and I would never question that they may be lying, projecting and gaslighting. This is why it is important for socially anxious people to learn both about trauma (CPTSD) and narcissism, since narcissistic abuse is the cause of this trauma in the first place. All the psychological blockages in life, being unable to manage life, and everything that frightens me is stemming from narcissistic abuse, being exposed to long term psychological abuse since childhood.
External reference locus of control, so much at the core of toxic shame, social anxiety, inferiority complex and seeking approval from others, people pleasing and being stuck in what other people think about me is at the core of all issues and mental instabilities and blockages related to social anxiety and avoidance. Thus the more I discover how I enforce it, the quicker I will be able to make and bring decisions that are more healthy and fulfilling. With external validation I make decisions based on what other people may think. It has empathy, however many people are not being honest, and some of them are behaving toxic with dark triad energy and their hidden agenda to exploit others. So whenever I have an image of some person judging my action I am about to take, it is external referencing, it appears as flash of image, flash bulb image, and I might obey it automatically without ever stopping and thinking whom I listen to. I may not perceive it as implanted guilt and toxic shame at all.
Sooner or later everyone encounters stressful life experiences, but HSPs react more to such stimulation. If you see this reaction as part of some basic flaw, you intensify the stress already present in any life crisis.
This deeper processing of subtle details causes you to consider the past or future more. You "just know" how things got to be the way they are or how they are going to turn out. It can be wrong, but your intuition is right often enough that HSPs tend to be visionaries, more conscientious, cautious and wise people.
It is important not to confuse arousal with fear.
And often we think that our arousal is due to fear. We do not realize that our heart may be pounding from the sheer effort of processing extra stimulation.
I really suggest trying to view it as neutral.
HSPs must spend far more time trying to invent solutions to human problems just because they are more sensitive to hunger, cold, insecurity, exhaustion, and illness.
Since most non-HSPs do not seem to enjoy thinking about such things, they assume we must be unhappy doing all that pondering.
Spend enough time putting yourself out there in the world - your sensitivity is not something to be feared.
Carl Jung believed that when highly sensitive patients has experienced a trauma, they had been unusually affected and so developed a neurosis.
Preferring toughness, the culture sees our trait as something difficult to live with, something to be cured. HSPs differ mainly in their sensitive processing of subtle stimuli. This is your most basic quality.
The way to come to tolerate and then enjoy being involved in the world is by being in the world.
But what is fun? Be careful not to let the non-HSPs in your world define that for you. For many HSPs, fun is reading a good book or gardening.
Strategies for Overarousal:
Witness your overarousal.
Love your overarousal.
Elaine Aron "The Highly Sensitive Person"
(20.1.2022)
Crab mentality tells us that some people will stop progress and getting out to better place. Also, brain injury and mental instability is marked by being immobile and being stuck. Therefore it is good to move and be progressive and to learn and have knowledge. And I have noticed if I spend time learning about anxiety and narcissism, that is also has a way of being stuck and immobile. If I do not move, if I am not active that is the problem. Also if I realize that inferiority complex makes me seek external validation and external reference locus of control - then devoting my time in the external all the time is not good. If I spend too much time seeking knowledge, I will get chronic worry and I will be hypervigilant. If I understand that I can rely on my present and accumulated knowledge, I do not have to devote extreme time hours in searching for panacea for life. This means I have to accept that I will not be perfect, that I will make mistakes, and that I am not able to know everything. Something that is hard to accept since due to trauma I want to be perfect, I want to avoid making mistakes, being embarrassed and attract other people's criticism. Therefore, instead of panic search for the correct way how to manage life, I have to be able to accept myself as not being smart enough. Without knowing that I cannot understand and know everyhing I would feel extreme shame when I do make mistakes and when I do not know the best course of action and when other people ashame me for making a mistake. So I should also be now aware that I cannot expect perfection from others, too.
Other people's reaction is critical for social anxiety. This is deep trauma bonding. This is hidden external reference locus of control. Other people's reaction when I make mistake. When I do not fulfill my duty or job perfectly because either I do not know how or I know how but it is related to fears which block me - such as asking for information and service from angry person. Without self worth inside me, I get frozen and for example I do not remember to pinpoint and voice out the elephant in the room that someone is tyrannical and unreasonable.
I would try experiment suggested by self help books - to write out the negative predictions, mostly that stem from cognitive distortions. Related to over-generalizations or seeing the world as black and catastrophizing. That I list out what I think is the worst thing that would happen - to see how traumatized I am. The point is that I realize that I do have weapon of speaking out and voicing out the elephant in the room, whereas in the past I would shut up and ignore when someone would accuse me of false accusations. Due to external reference locus of control and trauma bonding I would perceive other people as gods and superior, and it never would occur to me that other people are prone to biases and logical fallacies. Especially when they would accuse me of being too much, too sensitive and gaslight me into being weird for existing.
I see dualism as ongoing concept that is related with social anxiety. I am talking about double binding. That whatever I say or do can be interpreted in wrong and different way. This dualism and double binding allowed me to believe in external referencing and trauma bonding - since the abuser would propose their view of reality and their perception about anything in life - and they would explain what is wrong and negative about me - and I would believe it. I would not be able to see that due to dualism, there is the opposite truth to anything, and that they are wrong. I would go along with other people's diagnosis, their perceptions and explanations as if solid truth. And I would be in countless situations where I knew better but I shut up due to fear of other people's temper tantrums and lack of defence in words, that they are incorrect. Narcissists exploit this dualism in their favor. They twist anything that happens in blaming the other people around them and dualism allows them - if anything is looked from tunnel vision and from particular angle, everything can be explained in negative and blaming terms. When I place self worth inside me, which means accepting my flaws and mistakes, I am able to defend myself knowing that dualism is on my side. I do not have to accept other people's shame and guilt so easily without critical revision of proposed accusations. Also being aware of trauma bonding and intrinsic locus of control I am in good position to be open, to be aware that I might be wrong, and that I can change my opinion. As always, the best way is to be objective and stick to transparency and facts. What I see looking back is that other people are not so smart, and they are not able to look anything in life from multiple point of views and different angles - and they would get enraged with me for providing alternative viewpoints. Like 2D creatures who would get irritated if 3D entity would explain their reality, in the same way the ego-centric person will get irritated when presented with cognitive dissonance. From my people pleasing pushover and fawning persona I would get scared of other people's reactions, since my self worth would be placed on them. I got to break trauma bonding. Other people cannot know what is best for me, and they are not gods.
With Elaine Aron's book HSP I understand that the problem is my explanation of panic attacks and fears and uncomfortable symptoms that I experience in life. I know now that instead of going along with fears and labeling fears as dangerous, it is better to label it as neutral. As something natural for someone who is highly sensitive. Easier to say than done, since I did read this book long time ago, and yet from situation to another situation - I did in fact had no choice but to get scared of fears and panic attacks. It was almost impossible to label it as sensitivity and stimuli process. Now I know this was due to toxic shame and external referencing. This inability to view excitement as neutral and strange and uncommon way to process events. However I did notice that from time to time I would be able to perceive my fears as stimuli overload - and I did manage to view it as neutral in spite of trauma bonding and believing labels thrown by other people that I am oversensitive or whatever they described me. In some situations I would get incredibly calm instead of being swept by anxiety and belief that everything is black and I am doomed.
The trauma bonding and external validation and external reference locus of control is at the core of social anxiety. The social anxiety part is that I observe, perceive and view anger as problem. I perceive someone criticizing as issue and hypnotic order to fawn. Without anger and with a lot of toxic shame I am unable to defend myself and speak the truth. Due to narcissistic abuse, I believe that either I can throw temper tantrum or be passive and ignore the abuse. As if there is no middle way: voicing out the elephant in the room without drama and explosions. From this trauma hypnosis I perceive defense as something very bad, something I should feel guilty about and embarrassed.
Trauma makes me believe that I can either by tyrannical or to shut up and self-censor myself and ignore the evil.
So the trauma makes me over-react. Then I am afraid of panic - which leads me to avoid life. I believe that I cannot manage life and it is connected again to toxic shame - believing I am inept, and that other people know what is best for me. Which obviously does not work, even when I am not aware of trauma bonding - which then I heal and manage through avoidance and immobility. So the whole point of me seeking the truth and rituals of overthinking that keep me stuck in worry PureOCD loops of intrusive worry is that I find the way out of being controlled by trauma. What I learned up until now it that other people do not hate me, that it only seems to me because I am able to perceive anything in life from multiple dimensions - which most people cannot handle without throwing temper tantrums. Also that when I shut up and self-censor that I fawn and people please. Instead the only way to handle people is to be authentic and honest. Also what I learned to deal with trauma is although I am always open to learn and to grow - that the first and foremost goal is to accept myself as I am totally, with flaws and mistakes and being undone. Instead of toxic shame - which is hallucination, that I do like myself for even being inept and stupid and weird, and that I am ok with not being ok.
As if there are two parallel fronts that I wage war, and I am not aware there are two parallel timelines where the fear and anxiety is making me panic. At one front I am engaged with trauma and triggers into Polyvagal Theory and hypervigilance and chronic worry. Another front is being highly sensitive - where fears and panic are not fears and panic, I mislabel them due to societal bias and thus I create fears and panic from the mislabeling. I hallucinate anxiety and I am not aware of it. While with trauma I engage with anxiety and I am not aware I have anxiety, it appears as normal trend and daily fluctuations of events. With trauma I am expected to make certain actions - such as engage in actions and being aware of fawning as trauma response. Without trauma information I would default to external referencing and trauma bonding. With being highly sensitive and mislabeling anxiety I am expected to view stimuli as neutral and accept my hyper-awareness and not accepting society labels and norms - that I should party all the time and that I should be strong and appear strong and give impression that I am strong without flaws and vulnerabilities. I see the great source of dualism and double binding complex going on here. If I try to seek solution to people pleasing - it would be wrong since I do not accept myself from stimuli process point of view. However if I do not seek the reasons why I fawn automatically - I would continue making decisions that are detrimental for me, that would build up stress and resentment with time and inability to face life.
So your task in life is much harder: to know about those glances, those silent judgements, and still not let them affect you too much. Most people confuse sensitivity with shyness.
Sometimes in your past you entered a social situation (usually overstimulating to begin with) and felt that you failed. Others said you did something wrong or did not seem to like you, or you failed to meet your own standards in the situation. Maybe you were already overaroused, having used your excellent imagination to envision all that might go wrong.
Overarousal is not always due to fear. Thinking it is fear can make you feel shy when you are not.
Calling yourself shy is negative. Calling yourself shy is self-fulfilling.
Your heart may be pounding for any number of reasons having nothing to do with the people you are with. So go ahead, ignore the other causes (if you can), and have a good time.
Discomfort is temporary, and it gives you choices. You can put up with it, leave the situation, change the social atmosphere or ask others to, or do something else to make you more comfortable.
Never underestimate the power of simply acknowledging to yourself that you are overaroused.
It is the greatest secret to getting the arousal under control.
You can tolerate high levels of stimulation.
Arousal does not have to be anxiety, so do not accept the label "anxiety prone". Arousal can just be overstimulation.
The Highly Sensitive Person, Elaine N. Aron
(22.1.2022)
I see social anxiety as inability to accept unknown people without feeling anxiety. To perceive strangers as dangerous. It is like expecting judgement and attack and anger because I am not perfect or I am considered to be conceited.
So - don't be one. I shut up because I am scared. I learned I should not shut up. Being afraid and being triggered by judgemental and critical people is trauma. Instead of following learned pattern as defense - avoiding, shutting up, fawning - I simply go as would "normal" people would. Having normal reactions. If nobody is attacking me, there is no reason to reject automatically others. If nobody has been jerk to me, there is no reason to avoid automatically. I would say that trauma erases the ability to see reality and people objectively. It erases the ability to have natural reactions and I substitute them with learned responses based on panic. I avoid as protective measure, and in the same time I stay when someone is aggressive and unkind, whereas it should be the other way around.
The greatest goal in overcoming social anxiety's detrimental aspect - being frozen or fawning - is that I feel at ease and on par with other people. I found wrong and unintentionally unhelpful advice to be great blockage in understanding social anxiety. Especially with internalized toxic shame where I perceive other people as the only and exclusive resource of judgement what is correct, what is right and what I should obey and follow. I realize now that most people have no clue, they only have a mask and they play a role, especially narcissists and borderliners, they make pretend to be in control and in charge, but they are guided by covering up the injury and toxic shame telling them they are totally inept.
I knew that people pleasing is my number one problem long time before the crucial discovery which breaks apart people pleasing mentality in form of antidote by knowing the concept of external reference locus of control and Socrates postulate that no one knows anything.
Luckily I have saved the advice and instructions about people pleasing 8 years before I realized trauma bonding and CPTSD information that really explains people pleasing.
I would break apart each instruction one by one, so that everyone can see why incorrect and half baked advice can be detrimental, unhelpful and keep you stuck in labyrinth:
1) "you train people to be thoughtless"
This advice for people pleasing tries to use shame and guilt in order for you to stop saying yes to people automatically. It won't work. People pleasing is hypnosis, this cannot be turned off at the press of the button or just because you explain that people will take advantage of you. Instead, this advice adds up toxic shame - belief that I am inept and that other people are so clever that they abuse and use others.
2) "already is good enough - too much too freely"
This advice again tries to abuse guilt tripping and explanation that I have been taken advantage of. I find out that borderliners are going along with these types of "advice"- they exploit personal information given to them in order to shame the target, thus they themselves can appear superior.
3) "you'll do the same for me" "reciprocity"
This advice is instruction that I have to exploit others back. So instead of natural communication, I am suppose to carry intrusive thoughts and hypervigilance inside my head wherever I go, and calculate all the give and take dynamics. Totally useless advice when you are altruist and help others because you want to without expecting anything in return. Superb advice for egoist who are helping others as an agenda.
4) "not caring whatever thinks of you"
Typical advice for people pleasers is that you should not care. Well, highly sensitive people do care, their brain is different than the most of people and they have empathy. Without some degree of fawning and people pleasing and going along with others - we would become tyrannical narcissists who try to have their way or highway with others. It is being difficult person. Not caring about others is selfish. What this advice tries to say is that you should not be preoccupied with criticism. But without the information about trauma bonding and Stockholm Syndrome and explanation that your toxic shame is making you depended on others, along with body being trained to release hormones and chemicals in order to make you stuck with codependency, with brain injury due to long term narcissistic abuse - this advice is useless and it only has stressful after-effect, where now you have additional neurosis to worry about - being unable to shake off someone's opinion, comment, criticism. I learned that shaking off what happened in the past is best done through letting go of resentment - that you totally and fully forgive the wrongdoings - at such depth and extreme that you forget all about this person, as if they never existed at all. If intrusive thoughts happens again - I simply remember that I forgive them whatever they have done and case closed.
"do what you love - won't feel void, emptiness"
Again, this advice does not explain that you are unable to do what you love due to toxic shame, integrated and internalized belief that you are inept, unworthy and wrong by default.
"care what people think = you live existence of other people lives"
But this advice does not explain how not to care. It does not offer explanation that resentment is mental illness and hypnosis, hallucination just as toxic shame. And the only way to get rif of pouting and grudge is through total forgiveness - if it is in the past and I am no longer in contact with the criminals who done me wrong.
"you have no reason to care"
This advice is false actually. There is reason: being conditioned like Pavlovian dog into submission, or circus animal in performing fawning in order to appease the narcissistic abuser. Our hormones and chemicals are pumping as we try to do the correct thing, when we stand up for ourselves, chemicals are influencing our moods and influencing guilt overwhelm that is used as hypnotic tool to be subservient to perceived authority. Also, brain injury caused by brain damage done through being exposed to long term narcissistic abuse. There is physical brain deformity due to being exposed to relentless criticism 24/7 and adult hysteria in early age when child brain was unable to process it in any other way other than developing immature ego defense mechanisms. That is solid reason to care.
"try and see fallout is never as great as you think it is."
Again, people pleasing is hypnosis. You cannot try to snap yourself out of hypnosis because you are not aware you are walking zombie. Confirmation bias keeps us stuck in our beliefs and perceptions. Trying to see anything - will go through lenses of thwarted and distorted perception - coined in trauma abuse and internalized toxic shame. Trying is futile without CPTSD information inside us.
"people don't think much of you as you think they think of you"
This is half truth. Very often kind and friendly people will attract narcissists and manipulators, exploiters and untreated unrecognized mentally ill people - and this external factor is not like normal people. This is why they are external. They gaslight others. They wear mask of being human being, but their only goal in life is to dominate and be superior and grandiose. To achieve this narcissistic goal means thinking and observing the victim. So, yeah, if my hunch is that someone is praying on me, it most probably is true. They are predators. They got predator name because they observe and think and look for weak links in their targets, they are zoomed in their game, not because of empathy.
"addiction - enslave"
Another half baked advice. Addiction is not my choice. Thus, I cannot stop people pleasing at the press of button or simply knowing about it. Addiction is programmed through childhood abuse, being neglected and being exposed to hysteria and criticism in age when making mistakes is normal - because you do everything for the first time.
Fact, TWITTER:
People tend to confuse being mean with being honest.
 |
| This is how cognitive distortions work and it's accurate description of trauma, (C)PTSD. I used to label this phenomena "copy-paste" mechanism but 'Always limit your global variable changes' is a way better description |
Shame proneness (i.e., experiencing shame in a trait-like manner) and internalizing shame coping styles (e.g., withdrawing/attacking one’s self when feeling shame) predict distress, psychopathology, and nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) among emerging adults.
In this study, we proposed that shame proneness and internalized shame coping would link perceived parental invalidation and psychological distress to NSSI functions among emerging adults.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2167696817711350?journalCode=eaxa
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy is an excellent resource for understanding severe emotional dysregulation, where it may come from, and how to gain skills that help manage it and even mitigate the extreme emotions a bit over time.
Now, What is Biosocial Theory?
- DBT’s biosocial model is the theory of how symptoms arise and are maintained.
- It is a no-blame model.
- The equation for the biosocial model: emotional sensitivity plus an invalidating environment equals pervasive emotion dysregulation.
- Emotional sensitivity is inborn.
- An invalidating environment is one in which a person does not fit. It does not have to be an abusive one.
- The biosocial model is transactional in nature.
Validation: The recognition of a person’s thoughts, feelings, emotions, and behaviours as valid and understandable.[1]
Invalidation, then, is the rejection or dismissal of a person’s thoughts, feelings, emotions, and behaviours as being valid and understandable.
Invalidation can cause significant damage or upset to a person’s psychological health and well-being. When a person feels invalidated, it creates the belief that their subjective emotional experiences are unreasonable, unacceptable, or insignificant.
The invalidated child is likely to develop pervasive feelings of insecurity and later difficulties in healthy emotional expression.
In both children and adults, invalidation can be traumatic. It jeopardises one’s sense of existence and self-worth, leading to feelings of anger, shame, guilt, and worthlessness. Such feelings can negatively impact an individual’s day to day functioning, and can lead to psychological health conditions like depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).
Invalidation can cause an existential wound that goes so deep that can be perceived as threatening one's* right to exist. This can scar and stay with a person throughout their lives if not addressed and healed through adequate psychotherapy, psycho-education and effective tools for self-management and self-validation and of course healthy relational validation.
Validation starts with the self.
How do we practice self validation?
Self-validation is a distinctive DBT skill that focuses on accepting the emotions you are experiencing.
If you have trouble regulating your emotions, then you probably have a hard time accepting them in the first place as well.
You feel sad, or angry about something that happened around you, and you immediately tell yourself "I shouldn't feel like this, I should know better". So, on top of your primary emotions, you build other negative secondary emotions as a response. This can be a very exhausting and uncomfortable process. Learning to self-validate your emotions will help you cope with the overwhelming emotional process. The author Sheri Van Dijk ("DBT Made Simple") breaks the self-validation skill into three steps: acknowledging, allowing and understanding.
reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/comments/q8x36n/looong_biosocial_theory_emotional_validation_vs/
https://behavioraltech.org/resources/faqs/dialectical-behavior-therapy-dbt/
The study authors say that these findings suggest that maternal criticism can impact children’s adaptive development. “When viewed within the context of reinforcement learning processes (Nussenbaum & Hartley, 2019), the current results suggest that children of critical mothers are not responding to environmental experiences in a way that promotes learning from those experiences,” James and her team write.
Still, if the findings are replicated, James and her colleagues suggest that targeting parental criticism through family therapy may be one way to alter children’s responses to rewards and losses, potentially impacting risk of psychopathology.
https://www.psypost.org/2022/01/brain-imaging-study-finds-parental-criticism-disrupts-childrens-adaptive-responses-to-rewards-and-losses-62412
C.G. Jung Foundation, TWITTER:
"No psychic value can disappear without being replaced by another of equivalent intensity." - C.G.J.
Invalidation feels like criticism of your character, which deeply impacts HSPs and increases feelings of anxiety and depression, which HSPs are more susceptible to experience. Invalidation can also feel like gaslighting, a form of manipulation and emotional abuse, where one really starts to question which is true: their emotional experience or the invalidation.
For many, invalidation starts in childhood. A highly sensitive child growing up in a family where chronic invalidation occurs may begin to believe their feelings are “too much,” that something is wrong with them for feeling deeply, or that expressing their feelings is burdensome and unwanted. These then have the potential to become beliefs they carry about themselves into adulthood.
Invalidating statements from your childhood can certainly continue as an adult. An invalidating parental voice turns into an invalidating inner critic. For example, have you ever told yourself to “stop being so emotional,” “get it together,” or “stop being such a baby”? This is now you invalidating your own emotions.
What Are the Effects of Chronic Invalidation?
due to their kind, giving nature, some HSPs may attract narcissists and their need for admiration, validation, attention, and control.
When you experience chronic invalidation, it’s hard to decipher a healthy and appropriate form of emotional expression versus something that’s not. You may find you normalize invalidating experiences without even realizing it
Codependent on your partner. Emotional codependency is when you view your worth as dependent on how your partner responds to you.
When your self-worth is impacted by invalidation, you may find yourself seeking a relationship where you receive love at least “some of the time” or settle for what feels “good enough.”
While it’s great that HSPs are so empathetic, codependency takes it to a whole other level.
Experiencing chronic invalidation can cause you to feel like none of your experiences or feelings are valid or worth mentioning.
Once you recognize that a relationship is invalidating, it’s important to leave that relationship (or relationships).
Start identifying healthier, supportive relationships to have in your life.
https://highlysensitiverefuge.com/hsps-you-might-be-suffering-from-chronic-invalidation-and-not-even-know-it/
Master, TWITTER:
Be understanding, but don't be blind.
HSRefuge, TWITTER:
Trauma is anything that is too intense for your nervous system to process in the moment.
(30.1.2022)
Trauma bonding and people pleasing is related to Maslow needs - that due to most often finances I must not rock the boat. People pleasing than appears as I admire the abusive person. And that is a label. There is no admiration, it is fear from becoming homeless and without resources and shelter to live.
I would like to change my perspective on anxiety and fears and panic and inability to move due to these. It seems that it is not anything that society labels too quickly and that I copy paste as label, too. It seems extra stimuli is really neutral. There is no drama as it seems on the surface. Once I accept myself in total, this mirrors in how I perceive things, people and events that I label as scary. They start to make sense - that they have history and reason why they appear scary.
From social anxiety - I never tried the opposite behavior, so I never tested what would happen if I do the opposite from my usual habitual mechanisms such as shutting up. I would notice that for example if someone is bullying me, what such person does when they are in place of being bullied. Their response is - you don't know me. From anxiety perspective I try to be fair and I am conditioned to be passive if someone is aggressive and these two combined make me trust and take whatever the loud person is talking as ultimate truth - whereas I have no right to defend myself and advocate my side of the story. Since there is no ultimate truth - the correct approach is that you do not know me, you cannot know another person. You can only label others. And then if we accept those labels, we are surrendering our autonomy and government into other people hands. This is external referencing locus of control - putting my self worth in other people hands by shutting up and believing their words and labels as truth - that I never put in doubt and I never speak the truth: that no one can know another person. People are prone to biases and quick conclusions and thus logical fallacies to quickly label and describe and give meaning to the unknown and ambiguity. Most often these descriptions and perceptions are wrong. If I want to make any communication and relationships with other people - whom I will never fully understand - this means that I have to filter people through placing doubt on whatever they say, while giving them trust beyond the shadow of doubt in the same time. I can look for red flags and never justify the abuse or normalize abnormal behaviour. If I give myself self-validation in full, I can do the same for the other people. Self-validation does not mean approval, it simply means acceptance. "Dehumanizing other people crosses that line." If I put automatic and full trust in others, I will miss red flags and I will normalize the unacceptable behaviour.
From the narcissist point of view - they will quickly label their targets as snowflakes and weak and impose guilt upon them to enforce self-censorship of their targets. So if traumatized and abused person ever speaks up - with external reference locus of control, they would believe their captors that they are correct and that they should shut up, since bully appear strong and collected, while the abused person is somehow "irrational" and hysterical when reacting to narcissistic, psychological abuse. The truth is that hysterical reaction is normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal situations and abnormal events.
Even moreso - self advocacy means that we state our opinion, without self-censorship, since no one will. From traumatized Stockholm Syndrome mentality it appears as if narcissists will protect and that they will advocate and offer safety and safe harbour against the cruelty of the world. The price for this is shutting up and taking up the abuse and hysteria and irrational behaviour from abusers.
The truth is that we need to self advocate. This is reality of life.
"If everyone could have everything they wanted whenever they wanted, there would be no such thing as politics. Instead, we have to compete, struggle, compromise and sometimes fight for things."
quote from the DK The Politics Book
That is the truth. Toxic shame makes us believe we are unable to compete, or that we are too weak to struggle and that we are unable to compromise since the abuse taught us that we cannot compromise with someone who will never backtrack and negotiate - and definitely toxic shame makes us believe we are cowards and unable to fight - as if it is black and white perspective: of either total passivity or at another extreme - total explosion and wars, as if there is no middle ground.
It is like people who are abusive, loud, obnoxious - no one will tell them in the face because people are afraid of temper tantrums and arguments that lead to nowhere - and then this loud person will start to think that he is always correct, and silence of others is approval that anything this person thinks and does is normal and approved.
Or, media - due to fear of law suits will not publish all truth. We will be served censored small narrow minded reality - and that will appear as total reality - if I am not aware of Confirmation bias.
Or, movies and fiction - they will never incorporate annoyances and obstructions in their stories because the author is either not knowing - so he is either not aware how to describe or solve the problems, nor the author is aware of all potential loopholes and little details that lead to nowhere - so either due to total ignorance or deliberate ignoring - the story will come out distorted and unrealistic. Problem is for the viewer who takes this story inside - it will appear as reality, since all the events will be taken as facts, while in the real world circumstance would be totally different. If I start to label my experiences based on this skewed reality - I will live in delusions without being aware I base my reality to labels, fictional facts and improbably reality that I have taken as norm and standard. This is what is happening with social anxiety. Bad experience from the past became the norm and standard.
By the same logic, when something irritates me, from my perspective I will get dysregulated and end up with amygdala hijacking and trauma response. From my perspective I will not be able to observe that the same thing that irritates and scars and scares me is not scary or irritant to other people. I am not being objective, I over-react if the experience of irritation is not universal. It is the same as if someone gets irritated for statement that is generally accepted as true - there would not be emotional charge with it, I would not feel threatened. I need to get to that place where I am not bothered any more.
I do not check up, especially when dysregulated, while I should remember to gather knowledge. I do not experiment. I follow one side and I self censor myself - for example, I demand myself to be strong, that I follow instructions instead of my common sense.
Socially anxious people feel the blame for being over-sensitive and then pathologize their worries - while in fact there are a lot of people who appear "strong" - and they also notice details, however they cleverly package their multiple, incessant and still annoying nagging and critics and howling in a some form of humour. It is still defense mechanism.
C.G. Jung Foundation, TWITTER:
"The conscious mind allows itself to be trained like a parrot, but the unconscious does not — which is why St. Augustine thanked God for not making him responsible for his dreams." - Carl Gustav Jung
Men Unleashed, TWITTER:
If you don’t have any haters you’re playing it too safe.
Boyan Slat, TWITTER:
Problem-solvers take an issue and cut it up into small, solvable chunks.
Problem-sellers do the opposite: bundling various remotely-connected issues together into one big, scary problem.
The consequence is that problem-sellers make problems look insurmountable when they're not.
Fact, TWITTER:
Studies have suggested that gifted people often have bad handwriting because their brains are working faster than their hands.
(3.2.2022)
It is said that I do not allow hysterical person - narcissist to steal my attention, that I do not react. And that they will not be open to cooperate and discuss anyway. They gaslight. This is how they steal focus. It is similar process with brain injury and being stuck. They create either honeymoon phase with lies and attention or drama and conflict with danger - in either way it is hijacking of attention. Then my thoughts go into intrusive worry loops and I am not even aware I am stuck in chronic worry cycle.
I noticed that socially anxious people get a lot of labels and diagnosis that appear as if they are exclusive only to social anxiety. Such as personalization. And due to social fears - you actually never test what happens when you are the one who is criticizing others - when you know some truth and you explain your point of view, while the other person is clearly wrong. There is never breaking of the ice to see that "normal" people also hate criticism, that they perceive neutral words as threat and aggression and allergy over-reaction. And they also have personalization issues, too. Too often when we learn about social anxiety, it soon turns into blame and shame for having cognitive distortions and it appears as if only I have them and everyone else is happy and chirpy and react normally without anxiety twisting their perceptions. Well, they also exhibit socially anxious traits as well. We never test them what happens when they are confronted by us, so we never see this other side. We only see happy and chirpy and sound people since we do everything we can not to enter into conflict with them. By people pleasing them and doing everything not to rock the boat, I miss the chance to learn and see that other people have far serious and demented and more shameful and embarrassing traits, exhibits and behaviour issues than our social anxiety.
Being stuck is tricky. It is being trapped in intrusive worry and catastrophizing - however the problem is that it is hard to recognize this when I am actually stuck in intrusive thoughts, immobility and pessimism. From my perspective when I am stuck it appears as if I am moving (car wheels turning in place), that I am solving something and that I have goal that appears as optimism. It is hard to recognize it, especially if I am dysregulated or in some aggravation state.
I noticed that when dysregulated, I perceive punishment as something the worst that could happen. The embarrassment and others seeing me abused as the worst thing. However I do not notice that there are courageous people who can take it, or some bold people, or people who label themselves as alpha and get into risky situations on their own will. The burden of being punished and embarrassed is too great. I know it is linked to guilt and shame. But I can't shake it off. Until I see someone who does not care, or does not have any emotional links or financial, security losses linked to their punishment. I can check this the best at the movies - where the main characters are un-effected by other people. And there is no end of world if they make mistakes.
Me perceiving the embarrassment is too great. It is way to extreme, how I see it and how I explain it and my reactions are linked to over-reaction.
That is why emotional dysregulation is the best description for this state - it promises the end. Without Complex Trauma information I would not know what is that. My cognitive distortion would explain me this will last forever and that is the end of the world if I make mistake or embarrass myself.
Again, explanations are the crucial factor how I would be dysregulated. I noticed that other people's explanations also play crucial role in this perceptions. With external validation I would never notice that other people are full of delusions and their explanations are completely wrong and that I should not listen to them at all. Instead I would soak all that up without ever even considering to doubt what people are noticing, explaining and ordering around as solutions. People don't know the best. They pretend, they are full of biases and they are jumping to conclusions, full of logical fallacies. With internalized toxic shame and dysregulation, it is natural that I listen others and that I transmit their explanations about life as if true and as if they apply to me. Without doubting that they may be intentionally or unintentionally wrong, I would sink in mud - and I would not know what is wrong. I would blame myself, not other people.
When I put to use Descartes Evil Demon hypothesis onto other people - I notice that other people advice should be questioned and agenda behind it, too. There are a lot of alpha male channels and advice - that I believe younger men listen to, resources are very popular. As I interacted with some over media, I noticed that they lack psychology aspects and lean on narcissism - for example that women like drama and they hate weak men. For someone who is insecure and without confidence and with a lot of external validation - I can see how this "advice" would soon turn into parasiting over "weak" people that appears as victories in the person who tries to be confident and strong by over-compensations. Not only that, as I followed the resources over media, it didn't got always covered up, the truth what is behind it. It is marketing, it is Machavellianism behind, there is agenda to gain a lot of followers and exploiting their perceived inadequacies. This is great example how people with external reference locus of control can get tricked and exploited. People use their need to validate them, that they listen to others for guidance - even though this guidance leads to abusing others.
Social anxiety is psychological trial to create psychological safety by learned ego immature mechanisms from childhood, involving trauma lessons, too. Such as people pleasing. It is the brain's best choice to match personality on one side and perceived threat (triggers, flashbacks, imaginary audience, events similar to CPTSD trauma) on the other side. The idea is that I get like by everyone by not rocking the boat and being silent, not voicing my opinion when someone accuses me of something false. What I do not realize is that I am not making peace. I am inviting bullies and manipulators to exploit me. What I perceive is that I need to get more anxious and more pushover since the threat is out there. So I do not see that I am inviting the threat and I let it stay. My silence and effort to keep peace with everyone renders red flags useless. I position myself as prey and I attract predators. Toxic shame tells me I am inept and other people are confident and competent, but what happens is that inept and incompetent people exploit people who are silent - to appear competent and strong.
From this place I do not self-validate myself. I don't see myself fit in. Thus I feel inferior and I am not on par with other people, especially loud and obnoxious. What I do not see is that alarm system is both trauma triggered, but also due to sensitivity - I process stimuli more deeply, which is nothing to remove or pathologize. Whereas I do try to remove and pathologize my natural reactions. What I do not see from anxiety tunnel vision is I am called to be natural, be myself and do life the way I am doing it. Without decisions based on pathologizing myself. I pathologize myself by over-compensation, trying to appear without fear or trying to evade being embarrassed.
CPTSD is when someone said it is dumb what I did - when I did something on the job for example. I react embarrassed. On the outside, there is no display - I appear calm. But inside I want validation, but I am not aware I seek approval from others, due to internalized toxic shame. Inside I feel like explosions and wars going on. I want validation from that person who annoys me and makes me feel panic and I perceive them as extremely rude, I want them to say I did great job, that it was smart and intelligent. Whatever I do I give my best, I put energy and I observe and see it from multiple points of views and angles. It is not my quirk or pointless words or careless thought that I spoke or did. Now it is trigger when someone complains about it and I am unable to separate myself from emotions. I am dysregulated but I only feel shame and guilt and I don't know what I feel and why - I only feel panic attack and I want to run, hide and avoid people.
I understand that social anxiety is related to higher IQ. Noticing what is wrong and being aware of your consequences in the future affecting people negatively. In the same time, it is not negative - it gives me possibilities to plan better and smarter. If I do not give in to panic.
I also noticed that with social anxiety I feel communication more deeply. It means a lot to me. Relationships, too. It is not something I see as superficial. Instead of panic, I would try to see it as calling. There is some deeper meaning behind it - that is related to my purpose here and what to do with my life. It is obviously related to social settings and interactions since this is where I feel the most fear.
Also, I noticed that social anxiety goes both ways. I influence other people. And they feel anxiety from me, too. They may label me as over-sensitive but you have to react too in order to notice this. They feel anxiety when I assert myself and stand my ground. And my reaction to difficult people is seeing behind their mask. Bullies may sniff out codependents and people pleasers, but having social anxiety means sniffing out fake people. I would say that pathologizing social anxiety symptoms would make me to shut up and ignore red flags that my anxiety is signalling me.
Paradox is that often being labeled as over-sensitive comes from people who are extremely sensitive. However they express their over-sensitivity through abuse, yelling, screaming and hysteria - as if it is acceptable form of communication. No one labels that as over-reaction. That is elephant in the room. This is seen and perceived as strong. It isn't really, it is not strong to belittle someone, to curse and throw temper tantrums. That is weak. And it is those people who are the loudest at labeling quiet people as the weak ones. They are projecting their incredible sensitivity and weakness onto others, easy targets - those who try not to rock the boat. I think this should be addressed when it happens.
How to Calm any Angry Person in 90 Seconds with Doug Noll
this is counter-intuitive. 1 when you are around with emotional upset ignore their words. If you pay attention to words you are likely to get triggered and upset. It becomes just voice. Frees up your brain to do other things. 2 read emotional data field of this upset person. Let your unconscious brain process. Emotional words will start floating into your consciousness. 3 reflect back emotions with simple use statements. You are so frustrated, you will disrespected. You feel betrayed. No questions, no causations. Stick with reflecting back emotions.
The amygdala and related limbic regions involved in emotional neural circuits is inhibited and they both happen at the same time. One is activated and other is inhibited. And it literally takes 90 seconds for the brain to reverse its poles, from enraged to calm.
It sounds crazy but that is how we are hardwired and it works like charm every single time.
People will feel grateful for you to listened to them. Reflect back emotions. Practicing more difficult situations, it takes 6 months and it is counter-intuitive, you are interrupting people to tell them what they feel. That seems like violating conversational norms. You are not violating conversation because you are listening. When you are listening and reflecting, you can interrupt as much as you need to. Other person will not feel you being rude, other person will be grateful. It is amazing to watch.
Urge to fix, problem solve, that is form of invalidation caused by anxiety. When somebody is really emotionally upset, for those who cannot manage their anxiety or unaware that they are anxious, only fact that person is upset, they want to fix it. Brain says if i can stop you from feeling whatever you're feeling i no longer will feel anxious. All that problem solving fixing stuff is basically caused by emotional unawareness of one's personal anxiety. So you attempt to sooth your own anxiety by fixing the other person. Which of course never works. It only makes things worse. Better way to do it is to reflect back those person's emotions, you are sad, frustrated, upset, that will calm down, sooth your own anxiety that you are calming other person down. Common problem that people have when they're confronted with somebody who's upset, or emotional or angry – they try to fix things, or they try to appease or try to rationalize. Try to justify, explain. None of that works. It doesn't work because when you take frame of reference off speaker and put it on yourself , speaker not being heard makes speaker even more upset. We always have to reflect back from the speaker frame of reference which is why we use you statement, instead of i, we reflect speaker emotions, not our own. It has most profound effect on you, on listener. You come to this person with deep tranquility and calm. Relaxation – this is way not to stress. No matter how chaotic, you are never lost for words, intervention, works every time. There is no reason to get upset any more.
If you try to shut down people emotions and expressions who they are you will screw things up. Allow people to express themselves and allow them to be who they are.
YT Balance Me!
C.G. Jung Foundation,TWITTER:
“I don’t aspire to be a good man. I aspire to be a whole man.” - Carl Gustav Jung
C.G. Jung Foundation, TWITTER:
"The first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego, the second half is going inward and letting go of it."
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| Whomever you give your trust, you also gave a sword by which they defend or destroy you. |
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| It is not always the smart one whom plays smart on others. |
Adam Grant, TWITTER:
The sweet spot of worrying about other people's opinions is caring enough to learn from them, but not so much that you conform to them.
It takes humility to rethink your views in the face of disapproval. It takes integrity to put your personal values above social approval.
Robert Greene Bot, TWITTER:
When our emotions are engaged, we often have trouble seeing things as they are.
Archaeology & Art, TWITTER:
Be cheerful, enjoy your life! The mosaic, which is likely from the 3rd century BC(?), is believed to have served as an elaborate centerpiece of a floor located in the dining room of a wealthy man’s home. It says "ΕΥΦΡΟCΥΝΟC" which means joyful, full of happiness, cheerful.
"Find out what a person fears most and that is where he will develop next." - Carl Gustav Jung
(11.2.2022)
Joining reddit I learned about other people with social anxiety. From my ego-centric perspective I believed all socially anxious people were trauma bases, or at least that they were aware of trauma. And that they are leaned to learn how to overcome and navigate through social anxiety. I was shocked to find out that many of them complain and don't care for solutions, even when solutions are simple or if they might discuss solutions and problems with solutions and problems why something is not working for them. Also I was expecting that there will be individuals who actually don't have social anxiety however they diagnosed themselves - when they are actually narcissists and borderliners. Also it surprised me that some of them - even though they experience anxiety - they lack empathy. That part shocked me. They know how painful it is when someone is rude - yet they are not bothered by being rude to others. I might say that these types are not so much anxious and they can function more in being active and proactive - which is sign of healthy behavior, even though their mind is toxic and rooted in passivity and immobility and giving up. So they might be prominent in research - since they do not mind being tested - their activity allows them to go and meet doctors and they might not have issues with being in groups and being questioned and they don't mind being in the spotlight. Thus solutions and descriptions will be based on narcissists, borderliners and people without deeper empathy - as people who truly suffer from social anxiety. Social anxiety is inability to be in social settings. These people found solution to their social issues by being jerk to others, attacking others, as any abuser is, being abused becomes abuser.
That was one thing that I realized about community of socially anxious people that I was not aware before.
Another thing is actual biggest blockage that they have.
Surprisingly very low number has issues with hysterical people. However this may be because they never analyzed themselves, they do not know the real issues, they mis-label their fears and it is too painful to be aware of that what is bothering them truly.
In retrospective, most of them are extremely afraid and have problem with "being rejected". Which is medical mishap - someone in medical community decided to lump vague term in "rejection" which is not scientific. It can mean a lot of things, it is vague, thus it is amateurish choice of word. Right after this pet peeve, the next one is "saying the wrong thing" and "not knowing what to say", "not knowing anyone". Again, I do not understand how can someone be blocked by blurting the wrong words - and without being aware it is because someone might attack them because of it. It is lack of self- analysis.
Why would rejection be the worst? If someone is difficult, rude and obnoxious - their rejection would be solving the problem, it is like the garbage would take itself out. The real problem would be that they not reject me and that they stay in connection and thus in relationship with me and they keep ongoing abuse, conflict and drama. That you cannot get rid of them. You can't shake them off from your mind because of PureOCD and they do not leave physically unless you move or quit. Their rejection would be perfect solution to this. It seems to me that official medical resources that based their research in early 1990s based on shy people also continue to give poor analysis of social anxiety - this they invented this "rejection" description that is vague and non-scientific. It can mean a lot of things, and it is actually wrong word to begin with.
Joining reddit social anxiety threat - now being exposed to criticism - made me also realize that there are a lot of borderliners - and now I see in real time how they function. They start with criticism immediately, but they package it very cleverly in vague disagreement. Then they extract personal data. Then they start to generalize and they project generalization on me. They cut contact when being honest and kind to them - they seek conflict and drama and that I lose my temper - that makes them feel good. They don't care if I am left with fears and anxiety about contacting people. They also exhibit only one symptom of social anxiety and they are very talkative - which is definitely not trait of social anxiety. This was surprising discovery, since I knew what borderliner is but it is still incredibly easy to miss red flags immediately- and without being in social settings I cannot learn this. I cannot build immunity and start to filter out toxic people. From my perspective, I lump it all together - people who have low skills, people who are under panic attack and people who have no empathy. They all appear the same to me, and I am open to them all. Due to external reference locus of control I invite them all inside and consider them friends.
I also realized that being with people gives me a lot of energy. It energizes me. This was surprising discovery, too. As I know so far, this is part of extroversion.
Socially anxious people will not talk or brag or complain out loud. If they do, they will be quickly criticized for being "too weak". What I see at reddit - that people complain and have no anxiety at all for being rude to others. That is a sign that people who hang there have no social anxiety. I think classical CBT was based on such people who appear socially anxious, who are very talkative and have no true issues in socializing. True social anxiety is fear from speaking up. I think these talkative abusers are doing the damage to people with true social anxiety on so many levels. First they appear as spokespersons for social anxiety- so it is no wonder that I encounter videos on you tube with people who had bad experience with people pleasers. I think this masked diagnosis is doing damage because it gives false message to people about what fear of people really is. I know that these abusers are wounded themselves and that attacking them is the same as being abuser. This is why it is wrong to respond to them with the same weapon. This makes us into difficult position - at first you are not aware that this is toxic person, and then you cannot get rid of them by using toxic methods that they are using - attacking, shaming. I see cutting contact as the best solution and trusting yourself, being fine with yourself, and that includes protecting your space and sanity and soul by being genuine, open, transparent and authentic. I see this as the best weapon that will not cause wars and explosions.
Narcissistic abuse and borderliners (hating and smearing, hysteria and using personal information to hurt others) is my trigger, it is something I have to be recognize. I do not recognize it, I miss red flags, and I believe that whatever they say is true. It works both ways, as I learn. They also think the worse about what I say, this is why they are over-reacting and throwing hysteria. They jump to conclusions. When I know this, I can defend myself. They will say that I am prosecuting them, they are projecting their agenda. They will say that I am rude, even though I didn't say any rude word at all. They will make accusations and they will make victim of themselves to get sympathy from people around. This is another reason why full blown attack is useless. They are excellent at manipulation and since they don't have social anxiety - they have no problem in making contact with people and talking behind your back against you. So if you do something that resembles as fight response - they will use this natural anger as proof that you are monster and someone who is attacking them.
Nathan A. Rodgers, TWITTER:
You'll feel more control over your life when you stop waiting for things to happen and start making them happen.
C.G. Jung Foundation, TWITTER:
"How important it is to affirm one’s own destiny. In this way we forge an ego that does not break down when incomprehensible things happen . . . that endures, that endures the truth, & that is capable of coping with the world & with fate."
What Happens When You Don't Fear The Narcissist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXwALIzLKow
Fear is based on lack of trust. Narcissists are not trustworthy. You should fear the narcissists – because of their lack of trustworthiness – they can lie easily, say on thing, do another, no protection for you, have destructive, can be mean, angry toward you to come out super strong.
Speaking up. Have low levels of self disclosure and least amount of contact with these individuals. If you don't fear them, they will keep coming after you. They wear you down continually, gaslight you. It is necessary to have fear that lead to proper boundaries and self care. You don't want excessive fear that you lose yourself. Narcissism itself is based on fear based living. Narcissists live behind false self. They concluded long time ago they cannot be authentic. They cannot afford being honest about themselves towards others. Constant cover up is their fear. Recognize there is insecurities that drives them. Conclude i don't fear their opinion of them. It means it is about them, it is about their over arching pessimism how they engage with life. Drop your need to persuade. With lack of fear you can become more decisive. You realize I don't want to rearrange my life for narcissist.
Alien Scientist (Jeremy Rys), TWITTER:
Who decides what is misinformation and what isn't?
- Resentment - It is mind virus code, causes mental instability long term, short term it feels good, and it is hypnotic emotion, where pouting and holding on to grudge is detrimental, leads to hysteria
- Voight-Kampff test - HSP with social anxiety have inner mechanism that detects fake people
- Toxic shame vs toxic shaming - internalized toxic shame is hallucination, while toxic shaming is trauma abuse and trigger
- Sherlock Holmes - that I become scientist and detective in the same time. Observe, collect facts and find clues what is causing the disorder and check/test if is there disorder in the first place, am I over-reacting or find the real truth and lies
- Deep process stimuli - that other people told us is panic attack, actually is natural HSP mechanism, there is nothing bad. I can view it in neutral.
- Kind vs nice and good vs rude - where when I am nice & good: will see everyone as friends, unable to filter out manipulators. When I am kind: I will be able to reject, block, warn and alarm. In both cases I will make sure other person is fine, I'll clean my mess. However when nice I will go extra mile and seek subservience and pleasing and be afraid of physical & verbal assault from others, while when being kind I will also take into consideration my interest, too. Being rude: fight response, short fuse, hysterical, no empathy, own agenda is important, no consideration, no thinking about other and effect of own words on others.
- NPC wojak - When I try to be nice, when I hang on panic and people please others in order to avoid their wrath, when I try to be perfect and do everything without mistake to gain approval - I don't gain anything, I become faceless background character without spice and persona.
- Devil on the shoulder: can appear as angel, obligation, rule social norm, fatigue, guilt, shame
- Guilt - it is controlling emotion, people use it to gaslight, control and hypnotize easy targets into doing agenda and exploitation. Ask them who are they to set rules about anything? Who sets up the rules in general? There are no rules. Why would your opinion be better and more valid than mine? It extrapolate self interest and agenda - because it should be general interest, interdependence. Give and take in equal amount. Guilt is only one sided, there is only take and exploit the target.
- Putting in focus - When I analyze something, I make it bigger, thus I pathologize life and normal process, and I create problem out of nothing, I create additional neurosis and anxieties and chronic worry. This is why Wu Wei is natural and better approach - the goal is to live without chronic intrusive worries and chronic intrusive thoughts. This is double binding because without awareness I cannot change faulty and detrimental ingrained wrong decisions, learned through abuse, immature defenses.
- My own advise giver - purpose of psychology is that I stop seeking instructions, only knowledge as Piaget said - if I solve someone's problem I take away his ability to solve it himself. I can give him tools but the rest of job should be on the individual. The end decision is mine - with unprecedented and ambiguous matters why would my rules be better than yours? Perhaps you hold the unique solution that works better and without poison and effect that long term would be toxic. Mistakes are natural part of learning. I can hear others and decided what to take and be responsible for mishaps and learn from them. In trauma we learned that there is only one side, only one way to do anything and it must be perfect.
- Delayed gratification - that I do not have to have pleasure right now. I can wait. I can be patient and get reward later. Being HSP this part of waiting is easy, I just have to remember to put something on hold and wait.
- My opinions - are the only thing I can control. Once I understand that there is no ultimate truth, I can stick with my analysis and conclusions, I can stop endless loop arguing with I disagree, without explosions and drama. With being HSP, I toss and turn every subject in my head, from multiple angles and dimensions, it is over-analyzed, it is correct. If I pathologize over-thinking, I will not be able to allow my deep stimuli and IQ to do its lab job.
- Loose up the Controlling triggers - I manically try to control my opinion by fawning, shutting up, self-censorship in order to not to rock the boat. I can allow to loosen up this control. Due to trauma programming I think I am guilty and that my actions cause abuse and chaos so I fawn to avoid hurting other people, as I perceive it so I shut up. This is wrong perception. Allow to be aggressive, boring, repetitive, thoughtless, stupid and dumb - I think if I shut up that people will respect my for my silence and approve me. No, they will hate me and I will turn into NPC Wojak, philosophical zombie. I know I am not annoying and I have self imposed boundaries and good taste, I know when to stop. I do not need additional restrictions.
- Clues - in the end, it is the other person that is the cause of distortion. They will try to put blame on me or others, my job as Sherlock Holmes detective is to prove them wrong without hysteria and explosions, proved they are wrong in their gashlighting and their endless arguments based on their fantasy narcissistic ego-centric world.
- Free advice vs expensive advice - they will be different. So I can doubt anyone giving their opinions over their shoulders. With social anxiety I believe anyone and everything they say due to external locus of control and toxic shame and exported self worth in other people, trauma bonding.
- Paradox of analysis - if you expose yourself to analysis - it will seem everything is wrong with you- while others do not have those problems at all. they have it - they hide it well or they are unaware due to low IQ.
- Everyone has social anxiety - Their levels and intensity is much lower, and it seems that our social anxiety symptoms are ours, and that the others are (super) confident and they don't have anxiety. That is lie, because others worry however they express it through yelling and screaming which is socially acceptable in sick, narcissistic world. Others have intrusive thought but they have no idea about it, and they express it through nagging and complaining which is accepted in narcissistic society as the sign of strength, macho, alpha, virility, being intrusive and bullying is ok. They also have what they perceive as secret and hidden methods to appear "strong" and confident, they will not admit that these secret methods include being Gestapo and hurting - causing pain to others.
- Imaginary audience - discovered by Piaget as one of final developmental stages of growing up. Due to abuse in childhood, socially anxious get stuck at this stage. It appears now as triggers and flashbacks, the imaginary criticism and being in spotlight, being observed and judged by one or more people - known or unknown, it is connected to I do not belong wherever I am. That I am stupid, that I must go away and hide and that I am too much and I bother others with my presence. This type of audience appears in situations and environment where I do not know others, may be strangers in the street or neighbours. However in job situations, this audience phenomena is connected to I am inept, that I am fake and that I do not belong here, that I must quit and my work is trash. And that I do not count and that I am not competent enough to hold this job. This will propel me to exceed and to be exploited and never say no and I will fix others, take their jobs, this will cause me to develop codependency.
- Imaginary cruelty - I imagine that my actions, words and opinions and comments and criticism will be cruel to others (just as all comment appears painful to me) so I do not set boundaries. I label my truth, my inner voice inside that wants to comment and speak what is really going on or solution to some problem, I will put label on this as voicing out the elephant in the room - will be cruel to others if I speak it out. This fear to be cruel to others by being honest is social anxiety in its core. And this I can manage to lower and allow myself to express myself.
- Fake social anxiety - Machiavellians will wear social anxiety like badge when it fits their agenda. We can expose them by recognizing signs that they are cruel to others. Socially anxious person is afraid of other physical assault - where fake ones will be blunt, honest and they will explain that they are strong, they will mock someone being wuss, quiet. They pathologize socially anxious symptoms.
- Expressing myself - is part of self validation, self worth being inside me, as oppose in other people. When I express my inner voice. With social anxiety I express my needs through the lens of other people, I put their expectations first, and I try not to appear cruel to others, thus I self-censor myself and I shut up many times when it is totally necessary to speak up. I prune it off before it is grown and bare fruit. I do not let buds come out, I chop it off in order to make life pleasant for other people (due to trauma bonding). With social anxiety and trauma almost all my actions are defined through other people. How I behave, act, do, talk. I am allowed to get more of what I think is fine and ok, whereas society may appear to judge as rude and unacceptable. When I express myself I can modulate and change things I don't like, so I am in green chart of Polyvagal Theory. When I am hyper or hypo aroused, I do not express myself, I live in survival mode. It seems to me that other world is happening to me and I must be defensive, obey or fight it. It is like veil over my face, looking through the gaze.
- Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve - means I will forget all these helpful tips. In the end it is about self expression and having inner GPS to guide me, with mistakes and flaws and with being cruel to others, something I try to avoid, in acceptable limits. Some situations require that I am forceful and that I appear rude.
- Veil over my eyes - when I am ego-centric, in panic, with amygdala hijacking, when I am triggered - I will not see world clearly. Everything will appear as if I look through the gaze. So my actions decisions and words will be skewed and filtered through expectancy of abuse, that someone will attack or punish me if I do something unexpected, unapproved, original, new - it must come through the lens of external approval.
- People who appear confident and bold - they express themselves, they allow their natural reaction, it is not filtered through what other people expect, low empathy, they are ego-centric, they see ability to put yourself in other shoes as weakness and being wuss. They are also triggered but it appears differently than in social anxiety and their reactions are different, but follow the same logic as anxiety. Since they lack deep stimuli process, they can easily overlook details and they will appreciate if you point it out- think of them as molehills coming out to surface, their eyesight is used to tunnel vision, not multiple dimension space. That is why they get in life - they go to tunnels, while socially anxious people can fly - go to and go through any direction at any given moment: able to be floating in space.
- People who are toxic vs clueless people - people without social anxiety can be divided in those who basic groups: those who are aggressive (rude) and those who are disciplined enough to appear nice, and they are trained to be good citizens. The latter ones will be easy targets when they meet true psychopaths. Also the latter ones will employ protective measures that socially anxious people avoid: yell, scream, being bluntly honest and attack back at others. Narcissists hate transparency, so they will be naturally repelled to them, and they will turn to easy targets: people with anxieties and inhibitions.
- Accepting - when I self-validate, in the same time I will accept other people as well. This will lower my expectations and remove disappointments, it will remove cognitive distortion to control other people, and I will have even more understanding toward people who are silly, weird, boring, stupid - when I accept these rejected parts of myself as ok.
- Not accepting - External factor crosses the boundaries of what is not acceptable. Dehumanizing other. I have to be scientist to discern real from imaginary threat. To observe if my trigger is based on the real assault or is it my trauma making me distort reality - seeing danger where I am not threatened in reality.
People with empathy will pay attention to other people in order to avoid being cruel.
However people who lack empathy will care only about oneself. They can be cruel to others and they are often cruel, other people do not interest them much and they are not interested in what other people think as reaction to their being "honest".
خالد, TWITTER:
People just want to laugh at anything they don't care what is happening
- Willard Scott
“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.” - Carl Jung
"Psychology is a preparation for death. We have an urge to leave life at a higher level than the one at which we entered." - C.G. Jung
Just because a person doesn't talk about their problems doesn't mean they don't have any.
people have literally said to me: you’re an idiot. when i get anxiety about it, i think wow their life must be so pathetic with so much displaced anger that they’re taking out on me, glad i’m not then. because that’s probably the truth, and it saves me from having my feelings hurt by someone i shouldn’t care about the opinion of.
Psychology says, people don't necessarily change, they just become who they were supposed to be which comes with growing up.
You have to be odd to be number one. - Dr. Seuss
A prominent public health leader in a meeting said they prefer the term “social toxicity” instead of “racism” and now…I’m unwell.
Detachment doesn’t mean that you own nothing.
It means that nothing owns you.
Psychology says, the best things in life are usually found when you are not looking for them.
Easily offended?
Easily manipulated.
The more intelligent you are, the more annoyed you're likely to get by people in general, but at the same time keep quiet to avoid an argument.
Every time you give in to something you know is wrong your soul bleeds.
There comes a time when you have to stop crossing oceans for people who wouldn't even jump puddles for you.
“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.” - Carl Gustav Jung
A study found that those who go out alone and those who go out in a group have the same amount of fun.
The cells in your body react to everything that your mind says. Negativity brings down your immune system.
The point of reviewing your mistakes isn't to shame your past self. It's to educate your future self.
Rumination is recycling old thoughts about what went wrong. Reflection is looking for new insights on how to do better.
In order to proceed anywhere in life,
You have to be willing to be a fool first.
Conflict is the beginning of consciousness.
M. Esther Harding
"Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge." - C.G.J.
If you're happy, who cares what other people think.
Once I break the ice, I can learn not only that the world will not end, but I can see mechanisms and I can learn tips such as recognizing Ad Hominem and ignoring it by calling it out as Ad Hominem - and then ignoring it. Personal remarks lead to nowhere and they are intended for people with lower IQ to insult others into emotional reaction where they can beat you up with temper tantrums and toxic shaming and narcissistic abuse.
Also I learned that on one hand I set up my authentic self by expressing my opinion - will draw attention and criticism. And then certain narcissists will accuse me for hurting them, that I am bad. If I believe them, I can start thinking that I must trust everyone, to the point that I believe their words and it never occurs to me that they are lying. They are abusing empathy in order to get by with their truly abusive behaviour. Again, I see Descartes doubting everyone as solution, even my own thoughts, my own conclusions and perceptions, reactions, rules and obligations.
This goes both ways. With this realization I can see that actually people whom I perceived as rude, angry or arrogant, aggressive - were not at all this. If they stand up for their beliefs without attacking anyone or exploiting others, they are not dangerous. I perceive them as dangerous with socially anxious panic inside me. Anxiety lies to me. It thwarts and distorts my image of people. Anxiety will lump good and bad people together. Cognitive distortions that comes along with anxiety will tell me that if someone exhibit one trait that can be viewed from certain angle as arrogant - anxiety will make me see it as aggression and rudeness.
With entering into reddit social anxiety discussion, I realized that most people with social anxiety do not have social anxiety. Especially the loud and vocal ones. Supposedly they have fear from people, but they attack and accuse others without any inhibitions. Others, who are silent, do not read posts that are related to solutions - which is visible with likes and dislikes count. Post that mention complaining and worry loops get much more hits than posts that are directed to practical solutions to social anxiety symptoms. Also these vocal borderliners and narcissists - they hide behind facade of social anxiety. This was huge discovery and huge surprise. But it makes sense - this is the breeding ground where they can freely abuse others and present themselves as solution: someone to complain about and mock others who try to find solutions.
All this explains why people with real social anxiety do not get "noticed" as they described this from others. How could you expect to be noticed by "others" if you are negative, if you complain, if you nag, if you see everything in black and when you react negatively to healthy decisions? I understand this is toxic shame effect. It is like anxiety makes you drown and if someone comes along, you pull them under with your panic. Of course others will avoid you, and the only person who could put up with your panic are broken people, manipulators and exploiters - narcissists and borderliners who lack empathy and care for others.
I also learned at reddit that people with social anxiety, or who self-diagnosed themselves with social anxiety who are now vocal and very socially interactive, without any inhibitions - that they are very crude in their statements. They perceive foreign and unusual information as threat and they have a lot of their own explanations and statements to confirm their Confirmation Bias. They build themselves delusion and they believe in it. I see this in narcissist and bordeliners at the extreme. This is why it is useless to argue with them any further, if it is obviously they want to fight, complain and destroy other person. It also shows that people who remained silent protected their mind from being molded into narcissistic delusion world filled with false perceptions and hate towards other people. So surprisingly, instead of empathy and understanding - there is a lot of narcissistic abuse and invalidation from the vocal participants. They love to mock and invalidate and label opinion that triggers their narcissistic injury. Post can be about self love and self validation and they would perceive it as dangerous and personal attack. In the process they are abusive to others, by their temper tantrums and unreasonable anger they shut up other participants into silence and social anxiety.
So this is the reason why people who "overcome" their social anxiety are silent. It is the drowning of panicked person and their negativity and stubborn perceptions that are very aggressive, they want others to accept it and validate their false realizations and feel distress when people walk away from their unbearable desire for acceptance and validation. Except for narcissists who thrive and collect and farm this disordered thinking into their advantage and as a way to gain admiration.
So people with social anxiety are surprisingly very aggressive, especially those who chose to deal with it through narcissistic abuse, false persona and attacking others, blaming others.
One example is topic where person opened thread about inability to make presentations and that teachers should be educated about social anxiety so that they do not ask for students to make presentations. In conversation, this person describes social anxiety as "fear from future" - where it is obvious that this person never read any medical book about social anxiety in life. So, in the same time, with struggles with social anxiety - they cannot find 10 minute time to google the cause of social anxiety - yet they somehow expect that society will be so kind and thoughtful to spend their time to study someone's mental issues? Which by the way are wrong - since classical CBT is based on examining narcissists and borderliners posing as socially anxious people. All the results and conclusions about social anxiety are not about socially anxious people at all. So someone was suppose to study something that is not even researched. To top it all of, I said this person that perhaps the teacher themselves might have social anxiety also. And this person replied nope, that they are all confident. And 20 minutes later, some teacher replies that he has crippling social anxiety so much that it makes him throw up. So we have person who is nagging and complaining about social anxiety, does nothing to learn about it and has developed narrow minded and ego centric beliefs that he hold on to with great stubbornness and is unable to give up on their beliefs, yet expects that society will change for them so that they could feel not afraid. Totally unrealistic, childish and pathetic really. It really is like drowning person - you try to help him, and he will pull you under the water due to panic.
I noticed that toxic shame makes me shut up- I identify talking as dangerous act. Also I equate flaws with proof that I must shut up. As if trait or characteristic is equal to the order and command to be passive and take in abuse from others. This is programming from abuse.
I was convinced, programmed that I must be friendly with everyone and anyone. This is my baseline belief and perception. So even if someone accuse me of being argumentative, opinionated or pushy even - even when I do not use any aggressive words, it never occurred to me that I can freely tell and accuse the other person for the same thing! Communication is two part - if I am stubborn, than you are also stubborn for not giving up or acknowledging the difference. I always gave up, shut up and self-censored myself. It never occurred to me that I can say I disagree with you. It had to be either shut up or enter into explosion and drama, as if there is no alternative. This is something I missed in childhood to learn. With isolation I never had situations to encounter and learn functional way how to handle this kind of conflict when someone is projecting their stubbornness. And Socrates said that person who speaks the truth is the most hated. Also, if I have learned and read a lot, I will know topic more, so I can speak those facts - the person who never read it will not believe me, and the further discussion is futile once I establish that the other person is not interested in facts nor learning. Instead with social anxiety I would shut up and self censor, I would feel like I am not right as person, and that the other person is more experienced and better than me. It never occurred to me that I am allowed to block this person and that their explanations, labels and their clarifications are totally wrong, and it would be even dangerous to accept it as truth without any scientific research if they are correct. I would simply give up and feel bad about my worth instead.
If people engage in Jordan Peterson self help instant guru advice like seeking what is wrong inside and thus engaging in Pure OCD and narcissism building of fake persona by focusing on perfectionism, due to ego-centrism of narcissistic urge to be "strong" and superior than others, it is hard to realize that rejected parts will soon turn against other people as well, limiting and destroying relationships with people who do not fit into imaginary narcissistic delusion of narcissistic ideal - someone ridden of natural learning mistakes and flaws that are not flaws at all.
I noticed that borderliners and narcissists criticize others (and accusing others of being critical) by actually trying to control the other person, to obey their standards as if they are the rulers of Universe and that every person must think and behave as approved by them. This is because they see themselves as rulers and entitled. That is the sense of entitlement and they see in other people threat and danger, since they do not think the same because different opinion can be threat to expose them as fake and aggressive.
I see this exposure to argumentative and opinionated individuals like narcissists and borderliners as toxic in long term. It is not healthy to argue all the time, in the loops, it makes you feel resentment and there is constant nitpicking and seeking what is wrong. This serves no purpose to solve actual situation, since shutting up and going along with request and orders by abusive people who label others as argumentative in order to shut the target up, will only increase the abuse - self censorship does not rock the boat, it only gives the green light to continue and enforce the abuse.
Let's say as experiment in thought - let's say that we go along with narcissistic criticism and inner critic demands - let's say that we do and act in every single way that they find and crusade against perceived mistakes and flaws - you will become in the end slave to someone's ideals which are based on illness, superiority complex. You will become philosophical zombie, faceless person without own identity with constant feeling of unworthiness and deep toxic shame for having all these flaws and mistakes that could not be forgiven, approved or validated, but only rejected and stifled deep down out of sight. Many of these rejected parts serve their purpose for particular situations in life, such as blocking toxic people - and you are making harm if you do not accept yourself completely, without any conditions. If you are kind and non violent person, there is nothing to fix. All things that are connected to self-awareness and self improvement come from experience and evaluation and being focused on growth, not criticism and judgement and persecutions. It is about building up, not destroying parts of yourself - those parts that are not pathology at all. If I have fears and anxiety, this is because of some kind of trauma or wound, I cannot destroy fear by pretending to be strong and better and superior to others - this is fake and leads to being argumentative and opinionated and difficult to live with, it leads to destruction of relationships. By building fake persona, narcissists try to impress and gain validation from others, not from inner self. This leads to inferiority complex issues such as superiority complex. Constant chronic worry and hypervigilance not to be discovered as weak and wrong.
Narcissists are convinced that self awareness means being "aware" of own mistakes and parts of self that are "wrong". This leads to chronic worry. There are millions of things that are wrong. Perhaps billion. We are not intended to be gods. We can't grow if we prune ourselves by pruning parts that are not meant for pruning anyways. We can prune only parts of ourselves that will not cause organism to wither. Being focused on positive and good, by maintaining it and building it up, not by destroying it through pathologizing ourselves.
Why would it be so hard to love, accept and validate? Narcissists have been abused and their abuse wound is fear from being "weak". They are sick, their brain is sick yet they believe stubbornly in their own sick thoughts and these sick ego centric thoughts are capable only to produce violence and destruction since they are not based on love. To them, in their heads, it will appear as Crusade and "strength" and "defense" and "protection". This is why they seek quiet and calm and nice people as their targets, to parasite over them. In their heads they see every single person as weak and inferior, so they only seek those quiet people who will not oppose them. In narcissistic mind, quiet and nice people are seen as weak - as any other person around them - however they will interpret kindness as both weakness and proof of their own superiority and strength. Their Confirmation Bias will lie to them that their methods of destroying mistakes and flaws is working since they found easy targets to rule over. They perceive their abuse as correct and normal way of living, they do not see it as parasiting others.
Narcissists seek to destroy others and they will pick on easy targets, people who went through abuse and who were modeled to shut up and self censor themselves and take the abuse as normal event (learned helplessness).
With social anxiety my frontal image is the worst case scenario, but I do not see it as the worst case scenario. It appears as real and true possibility of what will happen, and this blocks me. The image appears so big in front of me that I have no argument nor I can say that I doubt it, it is overwhelmingly big and fills up the screen - every aspect of my thinking. For example, when I had deep driving phobia I would imagine the road rage images - and they would prevent me from driving. I knew in my mind if I get into car that it would happen, and if I did go to drive, I would have huge panic attacks. Afterwards, I would sign sheer luck for not letting it happen and I would expect new event with dread. Same with social anxiety. My full frontal image that blocks me is hysteria and aggressive attack and inhuman treatment that is too painful plus it is connected to survival in form of finances, shelter and basic needs such as food or hygiene. As if I would lose job, home and end in the streets - just because I experience someone's temper tantrum - whereas it would be too painful to experience and thus domino effect of suicide idealization would occur, or that I would be physically attacked and removed, so I would not have money to have place to stay or any living necessities. That is my social phobia.
With this image that causes panic, with external locus, with toxic shame - I am unable to call it out as bullying. I am unable to literally speak out the words what is happening when someone is rude. I try to protect their feelings from getting hurt - even though I would transparently describe, objectively without drama and explosions, without ad hominem, without aggression - describe what they are doing being hysterical. I am unable to do that, I feel shame for them when someone is difficult.
This is something functional and healthy to do - that I call it out as bullying.
I never do this and thus I am stuck with abuse. And this is where the anxiety and distortion will come on surface - because I can evaluate like scientist whether someone is really rude or am I triggered? Is the other person really aggressive or is it my trauma explanations over-riding the reality?
Also, with this statement and evaluation - I can conclude whether the other person is over-reacting and acting superior - or am I over-reacting and acting inferior. Perhaps the other person is not arrogant - sometimes truth and cognitive dissonance seem as attack and aggression. The difference is in Ad Hominem and personal attack - if there is no personal remarks and unnecessary accusations that have no root in reality and in topic - it is probably other person being frank and considerate. Ethical rudeness is rudeness. People always can sugar coat, and they show whether they care for relationship and interdependence, or whether they are abusing the truth to feel superior over their target.
1) people who advise this are also calmed and collected when they are triggered on their own situations - they are not, they also over react and they are not collected. No one is. They lie.
2) I will be better person and that everyone will notice and that I will be rewarded. The opposite is true. Nothing will happen if I shut up or if I speak up. The other person will try to repress the drama and exposure to objective description and transparency due to shame of what they have done. If I shut up, they will repeat the behaviour later on. So it is better to react and learn what happens and what is the best way to respond, with experience - not by withdrawal and isolation, including in my own head.
(21.2.2022)
How do I handle disagreement? That is key question how to detect social anxiety. If someone has anxiety in social situations but doesn't actually have social anxiety - the problem will not be handling disagreement, their problem will be focused on attack and de-valuating other people and their opinion. These people will try to find solution by searching term social anxiety, they will self diagnose themselves with social anxiety - but they do not have social anxiety, they only feel anxious when they are rude to other people and they want to resolve this healthy shame for being jerk to other people. Then they will join online arguments and they will scare people who really have social anxiety into submission and they will offer their wrong and detrimental advice as ultimate truth - and bring shame to others who are desperate to hear in which direction to go in social situations. All they get will be narcissistic advice to wear mask, stifle your symptoms and invalidate your alarm system inside by focusing on either totally ignoring abuse or provoking and fighting it. Both these reactions will provoke more abuse. If you stay silent - abuser will take it as green light to abuse more the next time, while reaction to Ad Hominem arguments is what feeds the insecure person, and they are good at provoking and smear campaign, this is what they dedicate their lives to do, to suck energy from people around them and live on submission of others to their threats and intimidation.
On the other hand, with true social anxiety I am unable to handle disagreement. I see others as superior while my opinion is non existent. Due to self worth being exported in other people, I do not have agreement with myself about what is what I like want and need, there is no decision, no thoughts of my own - only what other people would approve and no opinions inside myself to begin with. That is social anxiety, having toxic shame and having self worth exported in other people approval and external validation.
Instead of building fake persona and mask that is fragile and depended on approval and validation, I would seek social anxiety resistance in ability to have humility to be ashamed and criticized yet still standing by myself, my mistakes and flaws and advocating any part of me that is non violent or kind no matter how much rejected by myself and others. To have humility to be judged means not responding with Ad Hominem, responding to disagree. While standing with my rejected parts means accepting them and approving them as valid responses to mistake and circumstances and events outside of my control. Knowing that I did best I could with limited knowledge I had at the time. And repeating it if necessary.
With self validation I can see social anxiety as entity that I respond with functional responses or it is detrimental due to ineffective immature responses. Social anxiety itself is not negative and it is not something to destroy and replace with, it is neutral. Social anxiety is delicate alarm system, and it is up to me that I do not get manically scared by both alarm and triggers that triggered the alarm itself. If I react to social anxiety as scary, I will unwittingly allow it to lead and control me. I will put it in primary focus. Instead of handling matter at hand (for example narcissistic abuse), I will focus on the alarm system and pathologize it, while I will suffer secondary blow by ignoring the triggers that are setting it off. When I am focused on panic, I become ego-centric. I am focused on handling symptoms and I pathologize worry. This is the prime center - trying to survive. While in the same time, I am not aware that I am ignoring people around me, I fail to form connections and to help someone who is in grave and greater danger than me. I focus on bad person while I ignore good ones. In my panic I am convinced I am alone and that I am under attack - and I am not aware that my thinking is skewed by anxiety, that I am stubborn in my thinking. This part is not in my awareness. Without panic I would doubt my thoughts and others and I would form new or current relationships with others, instead of ignoring them or even not being aware of them.
It seems that my codependent need to fix others, to inject my advice and opinion and discovery comes from the need to make friendships. Somewhere along the abuse and trauma experience in past, I learned that in order to be part of society I must proved right and useful. As if I do not matter if I exist and if I talk and do my stuff. In addition to that, I must be right and to correct others, as rule over their wrong thinking. I know from before that I cannot control other people and that people are not ready to accept message until they become ready to hear it. Nevertheless I wrongly learned the lesson that I am worthy if I continue to form conversation with someone who is not interested in well being not listening to me. As if I am obliged to have connection and talk with them. Thus I end up making other person into project, a task to complete, something to fix - where they will be uncaring and they will get more and more irritated by me, perhaps they have their own abandonment issues themselves and they do not cut conversation shut down, but I get wrong impression that they are interested in what I need to say. I am totally unaware of this unhealthy dynamics and this is something I never learned growing up. I do not cut and stop when it needs to be stopped, I feel hooked, fixated and stuck in unhealthy toxic connection - but from my perspective I see it as my duty, honor and validation if I stay when something is obviously not mutually respecting and healthy. Then I focus on the bad, while in the same time I totally ignore good things and people around me, I do not see their needs and focus as important at all, as if they do not exist. Thus narcissist steals my energy and focus and attention by me focusing on their hysteria, hostility and negativity, and inability to communicate in proper manner.
It is said that I reflect in other people myself - when I feel irritated by them. That is true. But there is also External factor. Sometimes people are judgemental towards ourselves based on lie - either told by others or by lies in their own head. So they are attacking us with delusions or outright false information. There are situations when this external factor happens, and I will feel injured and irritated - however there is nothing to reflect, since the injury was caused by false information that appear real in aggressor's head. If I think that their unfair reactions is somehow connected to my rejected parts (for example my own intolerance) - I will internalize toxic outer external element that does not belong inside me. I would be careful with mirroring beliefs, that outer world reflects my own world. In some cases, it does not. It is mirroring illusion, delusions and someone's projections and fantasies that have no connection with anything about me, or inside me.
When I am in codependent fix others mania, my perception is that people or person on the other side is in need, and that they are hapless and unable to tend for themselves, I imagine my past self and I rush to help. In reality, they are anything else but my imagination, most people do not want help, they want to extract help, information and service in order to use it to abuse others with it. They want to abolish their healthy shame for doing wrong to others in order to extract information intended to shame relief as shortcut not to work on themselves and be better individual. I do not need to fix such people. It is not my job, they only want to exploit my codependent reaction to neglect.
I've created the Reddit community - Navigating Social anxiety, CPTSD and Avoidance
r/SocialAnxiety_Ideas
It is a sensitive matter to raise the possibility that the way people have been conditioned to live their lives may contribute to their illness.
Dr. Gabor Maté, When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress
We want to be the authoritative person in our own lives: in charge, able to make the authentic decisions that affect us.
“So why did you have to learn boundaries later, the hard way?” “I knew boundaries, but my mother did not. That’s what most of our fights were about—about her inability to recognize where she ended andI began.”
it is a permanent part of their daily experience to be encroached upon by others. However, that is a reality they have learned to exclude from direct awareness.
For those habituated to high levels of internal stress since early childhood, it is the absence of stress that creates unease, evoking boredom and a sense of meaninglessness. People may become addicted to their own stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol, Hans Selye observed. To such persons stress feels desirable, while the absence of it feels like something to be avoided.
The research literature has identified three factors that universally lead to stress: uncertainty, the lack of information and the loss of control.
All three are present in the lives of individuals with chronic illness.
Many people may have the illusion that they are in control, only to find later that forces unknown to them were driving their decisions and behaviours for many, many years.
The stress literature amply documents that helplessness, real or perceived, is a potent trigger for biological stress responses. Learned helplessness is a psychological state in which subjects do not extricate themselves from stressful situations even when they have the physical opportunity to do so.
for example, someone who feels stuck in a dysfunctional or even abusive relationship, in a stressful job or in a lifestyle that robs him or her of true freedom.
Self-regulation, writes Ross Buck, “involves in part the attainment of emotional competence, which is defined as the ability to deal in an appropriate and satisfactory way with one’s own feelings and desires.”
“don’t be so sensitive” are what children often hear
The idealized cultural symbol of rationality is Mr. Spock, the emotionally crippled Vulcan character on Star Trek.
Emotional competence requires
the capacity to feel our emotions
the ability to express our emotions effectively
distinguish What we want and demand from the world needs
Stress occurs in the absence of these criteria, and it leads to the disruption of homeostasis.
Dr. Gabor Maté, When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress
"We cannot change anything unless we accept it." - Jung
People who overthink actually make better friends. Overthinking is associated with empathy, the ability to care for others.
You don't owe any more loyalty to an employer than they show to you.
If they're willing to fire you without cause, you have every right to leave without guilt.
If they're not willing to invest in your well-being and success, you have no obligation to invest in theirs.
"I shall not commit the fashionable stupidity of regarding everything I cannot explain as a fraud." - Carl Gustav Jung
the immune cells attack the body as if the latter were a foreign substance, just as the psychic self is attacked by inward-directed reproaches and anger.
A cornered animal turns to face his pursuer with a fierce display of rage. Anger may save his life, either by intimidating the hunter or by enabling the prey to resist successfully.
For anger to be deployed appropriately, the organism has to distinguish between threat and non-threat. The fundamental differentiation to be made is between self and non-self. If I don’t know where my own boundaries begin and end, I cannot know when something potentially dangerous is intruding on them.
The necessary distinctions between what is familiar or foreign, and what is benign or potentially harmful, require an accurate appraisal of self and non-self. Anger represents both a recognition of the foreign and dangerous and a response to it.
Recognition is a sensory function, performed in the nervous system by the sensory organs. We may rightly say that the immune system is also a sensory organ.
The immune system must also have memory: it needs to recall what in the external world is benign and nourishing, what is neutral and what is potentially toxic.
the flare-up of disease forced patients into avoiding stressful interactions. The body says no.
A fundamental concept in family systems theory is differentiation, defined as “the ability to be in emotional contact with others yet still autonomous in one’s emotional functioning.”
The poorly differentiated person “lacks an emotional boundary between himself and others and
lacks a ‘boundary’ that prevents his thinking process from being overwhelmed by his emotional feeling process. He automatically absorbs anxiety from others and generates considerable anxiety within
himself.”
When the Body Says No - The Cost of Hidden Stress by Gabor Mate
of stress.
These are unconscious beliefs, embedded at the cellular level. They “control” our behaviours no matter what we may think on the conscious level. They keep us in shut-down defensive modes or allow us to open to growth and to health.
I have to be strong
The core belief in having to be strong enough, characteristic of many people who develop chronic illness, is a defence.
It’s not right for me to be angry
If I’m angry, I will not be lovable.
I’m responsible for the whole world
I can handle anything
I’m not wanted—I’m not lovable
I don’t exist unless I do something.
I must justify my existence
I have to be very ill to deserve being taken care of
Liberation from oppressive and stressful external circumstances is essential, but that is only possible if we first liberate ourselves from the tyranny of our ingrained biology of belief.
In children whose environment chronically conveys mixed messages, an impairment occurs in the developing apparatus of the brain. The brain’s capacity to evaluate the environment is diminished,
including its ability to distinguish what is nourishing from what is toxic.
For people unused to expressing their feelings and unaccustomed to recognizing their emotional needs, it is extremely challenging to find the confidence and the words to approach their loved ones both compassionately and assertively.
Pursuing the seven A’s of healing will help us grow into emotional competence.
Acceptance is simply the willingness to recognize and accept how things are.
Awareness. We repress our emotional intelligence in order to avoid an ongoing war with the crucial people in our lives, a war we cannot possibly win.
Anger- the repression of anger is a major risk factor for disease because it increases physiological stress on the organism.
Autonomy. we find that the people at greatest risk are those who experienced the most severe boundary invasions before they were able to construct an autonomous sense of self.
we define what we value and want in life at this particular time from a place of internal self-reference; the locus of control is from inside ourselves.” Autonomy, then, is the development of that internal centre of control.
Attachment is our connection with the world. Seeking connections is a necessity for healing.
Assertion. it is the declaration to ourselves and to the world that we are and that we are who we are.
assertion may be the very oppositive of action, not only in the narrow sense of refusing to do something we do not wish to do but letting go of the very need to act.
Affirmation. When we affirm, we make a positive statement; we move toward something of value.
The first value is our own creative self. Everyone has an urge to create. The second great affirmation is of the universe itself—our connection with all that is.
When the Body Says No - The Cost of Hidden Stress
Book by Gabor Maté
Leaders who refuse to hear criticism choose not to learn.
The higher you climb, the more people hesitate to challenge you. Silencing dissent is a step toward becoming a dictator.
A culture of voice begins with admitting gaps in your knowledge and rewarding those who speak up.
C.G. Jung Foundation, TWITTER:
"Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes." - C.G.J.
Trauma is caused when we are unable to release blocked energies, to fully move through the physical/emotional reactions to hurtful experience. Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside.
The salvation, then, is to be found in the body.
Potentially traumatic situations are ones that induce states of high physiological arousal but without the freedom for the affected person to express and get past these states: danger without the possibility of fight or flight and, afterward, without the opportunity to "shake it off," as a wild animal would following a frightful encounter with a predator.
survivor, Peter Levine points out, may remain "stuck in a kind of limbo, not fully reengaging in life."
Shame, depression and self-loathing follow in the wake of such imposed helplessness.
(foreword by GABOR MATE, MD)
Once you've accepted your flaws, no one can ever use them against you.
People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. - Mark Twain
social engagement. In addition, this capacity allows us the intrinsic ability to evoke a sense of being safely "at home" within ourselves, at home where goodness resides.
Being stuck, after an actual or perceived threat, means that one is likely to be traumatized or, at least, to find that one's resilience and sense of OK-ness and belonging in the world have been diminished.
the vicious cycle by which fear and immobility feed off each other. It is what engulfs and traps us in the "black hole" of trauma.
It is essential for the client to feel the sensation of running. Running without inner sensing has only limited value.
When acutely threatened, we mobilize vast energies to protect and defend ourselves. If our actions are ineffective, we freeze or collapse. Such a state of shutdown and paralysis is meant to be temporary. Humans, in contrast to animals, frequently remain stuck in a kind of limbo, not fully reengaging in life after experiencing threat as overwhelming terror or horror.
The Greek myth of Medusa captures the very essence of trauma and describes its pathway to transformation.
In the Greek myth, those who looked directly into Medusa's eyes were promptly turned into stone ... frozen in time.
If trauma is to be transformed, we must learn not to confront it directly. If we make the mistake of confronting trauma head on, then Medusa will, true to her nature, turn us to stone. Like the Chinese finger traps we all played with as kids, the more we struggle with trauma, the greater will be its grip upon us.
The golden sword represents penetrating truth and clarity.
What is revealed here is the dual nature of trauma: first, its destructive ability to rob victims of their capacity to live and enjoy life. The paradox of trauma is that it has both the power to destroy
and the power to transform and resurrect.
hypervigilance and a tight constricted posture are powerfully compelling. They trigger us to prepare our bodies for action, to locate the source of threat and then to respond immediately.
both the experience of paralysis and the critical self-judgment about "weakness" and helplessness are common components of trauma.
People who lack solid early attachment bonding to a primary caregiver, and therefore lack a foundation of safety, are much more vulnerable to being victimized and traumatized and are more likely to develop the entrenched symptoms of shame, dissociation and depression.
all too frequently trauma is inflicted by the people who are supposed to protect and love the child.
Shame becomes deeply embedded as a pervasive sense of "badness" permeating every part of their lives.
When one is flooded by rage, the frontal parts of the brain "shut down." Because of this extreme imbalance, the capacity to stand back and observe one's sensations and emotions is lost; rather, one becomes those emotions and sensations.*
* This is a central dilemma in working with so-called Borderline Personality Disorder.
To become self-regulating and authentically autonomous, traumatized individuals must ultimately learn to access, tolerate and utilize their inner sensations.
Cut off from the primal sensations, instincts and feelings arising from the interior of their bodies,
they are unable to orient to the "here and now."
Therapists must be able to help clients navigate the labyrinth of trauma by helping them find their way home to their bodily sensations and capacity to self soothe.
premature focus on the sensations can be overwhelming, potentially causing retraumatization.
For many wounded individuals, their body has become the enemy: the experience of almost any sensation is interpreted as an unbidden harbinger of renewed terror and helplessness.
With a gentle rocking back and forth, oscillating between resistance and acceptance, fear and exploration, the client gradually sheds some of her protective armoring.
the experience of pendulation, the body's natural restorative rhythm of contraction and expansion that tells us that whatever is felt is time-limited ... that suffering will not last forever.
People learn that whatever they are feeling (no matter how horrible it seems), it will last only seconds to minutes. And no matter how bad a particular sensation or feeling may be, knowing that it will change releases us from a sense of doom.
Where before, there was overwhelming immobility and collapse, the nervous system now finds its way back toward equilibrium. We cease to perceive everything as dangerous, and gradually, step by step, the doors of perception open to new possibilities.
In an Unspoken Voice_ How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness, Peter Levine
Fact, TWITTER:
Cut negative people out of your life. The people you spend time with influence your attitude and thoughts more than you think.
Fact, TWITTER:
Emotions are contagious. Unpleasant or negative emotions are more contagious than neutral or positive emotions.
individuals learn that when they experience the physical sensations of paralysis, it is with less and less fear—each time trauma loosens its grip.
Trauma could appropriately be called a disorder in one's capacity to be grounded in present time and to engage, appropriately, with other human beings.
Porges's polyvagal theory of emotion illuminates the pathways for recovery and integration.
Porges's theory states that, in humans, three basic neural energy subsystems underpin the overall state of the nervous system and correlative behaviors and emotions.
Phylogenetic Hierarchy of Response Strategies
Nucleus Ambiguus (or -Smart") Mylenated Ventral Vagal System communicates emotional information through the face and throat and Is...also the "social engagement" and communication system.
Sympathetic Nervous system sends information to the limbs and.....Supports "Fight or Flight".
Vagus Nerve and Dorsal Vagal System receive and transmit information from the viscera...and is Responsible for "Immobilization" or "Freeze" Response.
Highly traumatized and chronically neglected or abused individuals are dominated by the immobilization/shutdown system.
acutely traumatized people are generally dominated by the sympathetic fight/flight system. They tend to suffer from flashbacksand racing hearts, while the chronically traumatized individuals generally show no change or even a decrease in heart rate.
These sufferers tend to be plagued with dissociative symptoms, including frequent spacyness, unreality, depersonalization, and various somatic and health complaints.
According to
the polyvagal theory, being in shutdown (immobility/freezing/or collapse) or in sympathetic/hyperactivation (fight or flight) greatly diminishes a person's capacity to receive and incorporate empathy and support.
The researchers found that the amygdala, the so-called fear or "smoke detector," lit up with electrical activity; at the same time, a region in the left cerebral cortex, called Broca's area, went dim.
Like a veil thrown over the skin to secure its modesty, the screen partially removes from the mind the inner states of the body, Antonio Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens
"It became more intense, but then it started to settle down on its own."
She is now beginning to self-regulate by moving through activation/deactivation cycles.
We believe that if we feel the sensations, they will overwhelm us forever. The fear of being consumed by these "terrible" feelings leads us to convince ourselves that avoiding them will make us feel better and, ultimately, safer.
The more we avoid them, the greater is the power they exert upon our behavior and sense of well-being.
Our minds will stay on overdrive, obsessively searching for causes in the past and dreading the
future. We will stay tense and on guard, feeling fear, terror and helplessness because our bodies continue to signal danger to our brains.
these red flags(coming from non-conscious parts of the brain) will not disappear until the body completes its course of action.
Trauma is the great masquerader and participant in many maladies and "dis-eases" that afflict sufferers. It can perhaps be conjectured that unresolved trauma is responsible for a majority of the
illnesses of modern mankind.
quote from the book:
In an Unspoken Voice_ How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness, Peter Levine
Daily Dose of Psychology, TWITTER:
Psychology says, People will be "disappointed in you" when they can't manipulate you.
Daily Dose of Psychology, TWITTER:
Psychology says, the less you care, the happier you will be.
Daily Dose of Psychology, TWITTER:
Psychology says, You can have a happy relationship once you are happy alone.
Daily Dose of Psychology, TWITTER:
Psychology says, Learning how to detach yourself from toxic people is self-care.
CHASITY LONDYN, TWITTER:
When you value yourself, you move different.
Master, TWITTER:
Trust your vibes, not their words.
psychology of mind, TWITTER:
What people say is often a reflection of themselves, not you.
It was important that I validate his legitimate fear
Primate (neocortex) level: Thinking, conscious memory, symbols, planning and inhibition of impulses
Limbic, mammalian level: Feelings, motivation, interaction and relationship
Reptilian level (brain stem) : Sensation, arousal-regulation (homeostatis) and initiation of movement impulses.
Pornography and eating disorders are two sides of the same coin—disembodiment and objectification. The less the body is experienced as a living entity, the more it becomes an object. The less it is owned, the further it is divorced from anything having to do with one's core sense of self.
A visit to the gym reveals a similar story.
In an Unspoken Voice_ How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness, Peter Levine
(3.3.2022)
I noticed that I can make decision - smart and better and healthier decision in many areas that are not blocked, there is no fear, there is no opposition - I simply choose worse or bad due to habit or non awareness. I also noticed that I am able to make better decisions when I am calm, and when I am secure in myself, and when my decisions are not secretly governed by what other people would think.
I wait for others to make decision, to get approval for something I should approve and make decision about. Afraid of other people will think. So I cannot be angry at others for not allowing me to be me. I gave up my control for the fear of others thinking well of me, and to soothe others into not belittling me if I do something unusual, or decide to do something orthodox and different. I wait for my brain to feel good enough and then take action, I wait for other people to approve me before taking action - so I stay stuck and immobile.
Other people can influence my thinking process. This is called emotional dysregulation and amygdala hijacking. Other people's behaviour, words, how they interact can have influence on my well being - since they pull triggers and I get flashbacks of original trauma of abuse, neglect and invalidation.
I noticed that other people can influence me through toxic shame already placed inside me from trauma. Then I will believe anything what other person is saying without ever doubting them - thus they control me. I base my decision on their advice, thinking, opinion since I never ever doubt that they might have secret agenda, or that they might be sick or that they may have toxic shame inside them that is making them pretend to be superior and strong - and thus appearing dominating and better and valid. This way, other people can influence me.
Now, how I conclude what is important - not other people advice, yet my self worth that is based inside me. With self worth and ability to doubt others and myself I can attain more clarity, instead of automatic hurrying into making decisions based on someone's words.
So I can become aware of what is wrong by doubting others. Then I can react - and this leads to conflict. This is the reason why social anxiety is connected with confrontation, conflict and narcissistic abuse. Because fear of criticism happens when someone is cruel, aggressive, difficult and one-sided, violent and non-negotiable, when someone is not listening or has no mental capacity to understand what it is being said.
With toxic shame I shut up and self censor myself, thus I do not express my opinion. This part is tricky. If I choose to shut up because I am afraid of conflict but I mask it by keeping peace and not rocking the boat - I will actually be doing immature ego defense mechanism of pretending there is no problem - and this can lead to people pleasing and fawning. Other people will exploit me, I will give up on my opinions and needs, and I will not know what I want and what is valuable to me. Instead I give up and let other people decide. That is unhealthy. If I stick with my self worth and ignore or block person because I see that the other person is not communication neither wants interdependence - this is healthy. These both have the same result - choosing not to argue - however the latter one is healthy because inactivity is to protect my values, not to forfeit them. This means I will keep doing what I find as correct. If I choose not to argue to sooth and calm other person's anger - I am allowing this person to control me. That is codependency, it is me being pushover, and it is not healthy, it leads to moral injury.
How I express my disapproval and process conflict is something I can get skilled at with exposure. This is why Classical CBT enforces exposure - they believed that people will be able to get on their feet and struggle and manage conflict on their own. However toxic shame interrupts this process and instead of resolving conflict through communication, what happens is people pleasing, fawning and being taken advantage of. It ends up with me reacting to life instead of living it. It ends up with me limiting my choices and decisions and never doing what I know from inside, is correct thing to do. With self worth I can communicate - and with time I can learn how to do it more effectively. For example when I disagree with someone, instead of resentment I can use thank you and use my own examples. With toxic shame I am unable to use my own examples due to shame and secrecy and hiding and covering up my weaknesses. Paradoxically this makes me even more weak, since I allow myself to be ashamed by my flaws and mistakes for thinking about them as catastrophe and something shameful, as learned through trauma to invalidate myself.
And actually that is the exact spot where problem is hidden: me learning how to communicate effectively. This limits me in being genuine and it makes me shut up and self-censor myself. I avoid from explicitly voicing out the elephant in the room - and thus I create disorder, because I do not address issue. I try to be nice. I try not to come off as arrogant and narcissistic because I think if I describe accurately other person's behaviour and what they have really done, that somehow this makes me a bad guy. For example, if one person is claiming that he has found the cure for social anxiety by taking action - I will try to explain that creating routines is creating more anxiety. And this person will say that taking action helped him to feel confident. Now in order to not hurt this person's feelings I will adjust my words and I will never say it out lout that they are creating fantasy world and they are creating delusions and making themselves make up world without fears, that they are building themselves castles in the sky and they are actually basing their beliefs on a fantasy freedom, fantasy that there is some magical cure for all problems. This avoidance of being direct for the fear of being rude is problem itself. That is self-censorship and this is tricky, since the other person will often react in negative, aggressive and narcissistic way, this is tackling their narcissistic injury - and as a result I can lose my temper, too. That is because such people create their defense mechanism by abusing other people and shifting the focus on shame, blame and guilt, onto the other person. The correct way would be to speak the truth, voicing out the things I label as rude. This means I have issue of what is the definition of being rude. This is murky, that area is unclear. I go through life believing I am being rude. That is guilt, that is hidden hypnosis and learned helplessness, it is result of being traumatized, neglected and invalidated. This is something I can manage without exposure and without complex surgery in my thoughts: what do I define as rude? Who is defining what is rude? Who's rule-book I am reading and following and believing? Often it is imagined, it is audience in my head, per-emptively trying to avoid criticism and trying to be perfect without offending anyone - whereas being honest is not offense. Speaking the truth is not offense. Cursing someone, shaming someone is offense. Problem is that abusers perceive truth as shaming them. That is the problem. Their own wrong actions that they are ashamed, they perceive as shame if it is spoken out. That is the key where my defense lies - this is area where I pruned myself too short and self-sabotaged myself into silence and subordination and subservience, people pleasing and fawning.
My false and distorted definition of what is rude and anti-social makes me shut up and self-censor myself. Instead I fawn and never speak out the truth. And other person when start to throw temper tantrums I never question what is my definition of being rude - I carry along with other person and I either get scared and freeze, or I imitate the other person, lose my temper and engage in Ad Hominem and silly arguments that are gaslighting and smear campaign, lies and attempt to change focus away from the real problem - their narcissistic abuse and manipulation. Instead of seeking truth and transparency, I feel guilt and shame due to distorted explanation of what is considered rude.
Fixation
I noticed that I am prone to resolve anxiety by creating rituals to calm anxiety, which now I know leads to more anxiety, even though it helps in the moment. However I also noticed that besides rituals there are also things that I do that take away my time and these are not easily recognizable as rituals. I would call these fixations. It could be watching you tube videos about various topic in order to learn - even though I learned everything, and videos are repeating themselves and I now notice advice that is not working. The point is that I become my own advice giver, with mistakes and flaws, without relying on external admiration, approval from others and external validation. As Gabor Mate and Peter Levine said - whatever I do to get relief from the pain is addiction. I would call these pain relief addictions as fixations - it is because I get stuck in cycle that I must repeat in order to feel certain and safe. Relying on other people to rescue me it codependency, dependency, unhealthy, fawning and it leads to spending time, energy, money on something outside that does not really help - it brings on more anxiety - and in the end it gives me clear message that I am inept, unworthy and inferior, it breeds toxic shame which I may try to over-compensate by appearing strong and all-knowing. In reality being smart does not lead to people liking me - in fact it has counter effect. So I would try to find out fixations. Usually it is rituals that I do to feel safe and to prepare myself for potential threat - by spending time, money and energy without getting anything in turn.
With fixation I am being stuck on two levels: stuck with worry and stuck with me trying to fix this worry without actually fixing anything, simply wasting time in seeking the unsolvable: to control other people and to control external events.
The point is - what I would be and where would I be if I was not afraid of people? Would I spend time, focus, thinking on these things that give me relief and calmness? I need to self-regulate but trauma information from Gabor Mate and Peter Levine and CPTSD tells me very clearly - that I will choose unhealthy and dysfunctional ways to regulate myself - because it will contribute to chronic worry and hypervigilance - instead of living my life.
Negative people.
Now I know why someone who "overcomes" social anxiety does not return to the cave and try to explain others shadows on the wall and try to rescue them. There are two reasons:
1) internal reason - I will avoid others due to their stubborn, downbeat influence which will be negative. Their cognitive dissonance will reject my words and they will perceive me as arrogant- This is also clear message to me when I find others arrogant - who are actually not arrogant at all, they simply state their facts. This is why irritation is part of ego-centric thinking. If I have self worth and I do not have external locus, I will not get infected by others and their words - since I will not perceive their words as aggression, command and ultimate truth.
2) external reason - society will reject my words due to group-think and crab mentality and herd mentality. Anything that sounds different will meet cognitive dissonance and coupled with lynch mob - I will be ignored, banned and rejected. Socrates said Nobody is hated more than the one who speaks the truth. This way the society makes the information inaccessible. Similar to Descartes - Dubito ergo sum. The most resources - official and unofficial will quote Rene Descartes I think therefore I am, but they will omit very crucial part of quote: that I doubt. Without doubt, without doubting there is no thinking, and there is no self worth, there is no me. There will be only zombie me that mirrors and reflects what other people say and instruct me to think.
Also, without social panic, and with self worth back inside me - I will now have more time to spend on projects I like, and that will preoccupy my time - instead of commenting and arguing online with strangers. And many people do help - away from the safe distance - however people with ego-centrism, with panic, with self worth exported onto other people - will miss the clues, cues and interpret good advice as lame, stupid or wuss, or loser or arrogant, or painful and hateful.
Psychology Thoughts, TWITTER:
Psychology says, train yourself to stop waiting for the “right time”.
I am worthy whether you think or not. I don't think i am better and I don't think anybody is better than me. I think am equal to everyone. I am just as broken and wounded, unconscious, egotistical at times and pathetic as anybody else.
Apply this understandings to your life, your life will change. When you stop playing games, you begin to love yourself and you liberate yourself. You don't need people to love you, you don't need people to validate you.
If people don't like you, it's ok. You love yourself, and when you really really love yourself, you know you are imperfect, you get it you've made mistakes, impacted by the past – and so has everyone else!
You stop expecting other people to be what you want them to be. And instead you love them in healthy way. You love them just as they are. You stop thinking if I do this, maybe this person will change.
YT Lisa Romano
This was REALLY HARD to ADMIT as a CODEPENDENT PERSON BUT It Changed My Life Forever/Lisa Romano.
Adam Grant, TWITTER:
The simplest way to be a good friend is to be a loyal fan.
You root for their happiness like you rooted for Jim & Pam, Arya Stark, or Harry, Hermione, & Ron.
You cheer for their success like you cheer for your favorite sports team. And you keep showing up even when they fail.
YT Assertive behaviour can be learned & I'll show you how to do it
When we state our need our emotions charge, stakes are high – this is why many people make errors. Wrong: avoid speaking up and aggressive manner. Assertiveness is not personality trait, it is skill. We are not born naturally assertive. It is high level skill that we need to practice. Assertiveness is not your temperament. Not always to use it in all moments. Assertiveness is skill you use selectively and with thought. Fighting for your agenda all the time everywhere you go, expressing your needs all the time can be both obnoxious ans irritating to everyone around you.
You can't spot assertive person. Assertive people are not necessarily intimidating. Assertiveness is sharing your opinions and needs with clarity, not intimidating, sidelining, manipulating and making others feel threatened.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUYBLS6Oakc
YT Sara Geiger
Adam Grant, TWITTER:
"I was under pressure" is not an excuse for toxic behavior.
Being stressed doesn't justify hostility. It's not your responsibility to absorb their pain Being busy doesn't license incivility. No one's calendar is too full to be respectful.
Most acts of kindness cost nothing.
The key to not being swept away by intense emotional states is to catch them before they ignite and inflame us, The Buddhists have an expression for this: to "cool and extinguish the glowing embers before they ignite into a consuming flame."
It is the way we can become aware of our emotional undercurrent before it becomes an out-of-control emotion.
William James concluded that rather than running because we are afraid, we are afraid because we are running (from the bear).
"the bodily manifestations may first be interposed between, and the more rational (accurate) statement is that we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble."
This counterintuitive (bottom-up) view challenged the Cartesian/cognitive (top-down) paradigm where the conscious mind lint recognizes the source of threat and then commands the body to respond:
to flee, to fight or to fold.
while only partially correct, does make a crucial point about the illusory nature of perception.
The pain might well serve the function of reminding us not to pick up a potentially hot stone from the fire pit a second time, but it has little to do with our hand withdrawing when it is first burned.
However, what we falsely perceive, and believe as fact, is that the pain causes us to withdraw our
hand.
there was a muscular and visceral reaction in his body first, and that it was the perception of this body reaction that then generated the emotion of fear.
What James observed was that, yes, when the brain calculates that there is danger, it makes this assessment so quickly that there isn't enough time for the person to become consciously aware
of it.
The brain's activity began about 500 milliseconds (half a second!) before the person was aware of deciding to act.
It was as though consciousness was a mere afterthought—a way of "explaining to ourselves," an action not evoked by consciousness.
In summary, Libet found that the "conscious" decision to perform a simple action (such as pushing a button) preceded the action. This conscious decision, however, occurred only after the "premotor" area in the brain first fired with a burst of electrical activity. In other words, people decide to act only after their brain unconsciously prepares them to do so.
Neuroscientist Wegner took this further, adding that the average people's belief that they even have a self that consciously controls their actions is simply an illusion. Is this a farewell to Freud's ego and Descartes' cogito ergo sum?
Today's credo should be more like, "I prepare to move, I act, I sense, I feel, I perceive, I reflect,
I think and therefore I am.
we falsely believe that we (our egos) are directly willing the movement. So where does movement originate from?
when we have been traumatized, we are particularly sensitized to (and hyperaroused by) these fleeting stimuli.
Our senses of seeing, hearing and smell provide countless stimuli that cause us to overreact.
As a result we may, and often do, attribute our actions to irrelevant or manufactured causes.
Two confusions of causality occur for traumatized individuals. The first one is the unawareness of
the premovement trigger. The second is the extent of the response.
It may only take a very mild stimulus to abruptly trigger the tightly coiled spring (the kill-or-be-killed survival reaction) into an intense, out-of control, emotional eruption.
I know of only one way to break compulsive cycles like this,
It is to become aware of the premovement before it graduates into a full-blown movement sequence. It is to extinguish the spark before it ignites the tinder, as emphasized by Buddhist teachings.
This is not at all the same as suppressing or repressing them.
For all of us, and particularly for the traumatized individual, the capacity to transform the "negative" emotions of fear and rage is the difference between heaven and hell.
as we free ourselves from the tyranny of driven emotions such as fear and rage.
A first step in this ongoing process is refusing to be seduced into (the content of) our negative thoughts or swept away by the potent or galvanized drive of an emotion, and instead returning to the underlying physical sensations.
At first this can seem unsettling, even frightening.
This is mostly because it is unfamiliar—we have become accustomed to the (secondary) habitual emotions of distress and to our (negative) repetitive thoughts. We have also become used to searching for the
source of our discomfort outside of ourselves. We simply are unfamiliar with experiencing something as it is, without the encumbrance of analysis and judgment.
Rather than coming to fisticuffs,we might first try to socially engage by conversing with the person; we might try to "disarm" him with an authentic smile. We are not acting out of emotion but rather are guided by sensate feelings—like or dislike? And most importantly we need to do this before we actually act—before we strike out with angry words.
a certain amount of anger can help us remove obstacles in our lives, while habitual and explosive anger is almost always corrosive to relationship.
fear is not what directs escape; nor do we feel fear because we are running from a source of threat. The person who can freely run away from threat does not feel fear. He only feels danger (avoidance) and then experiences the action of running. It is solely when escape is prevented that we experience fear.
I don't expect you to accept this proposition as true but only ask you to keep an open inquiring mind.
The new "attitude of interest," when integrated with the contour of the rising eagle image, is perceived as the feeling of excitement.
the awareness of bodily sensations is critical in changing functional and emotional states.
Change only occurs where there is mindfulness, and mindfulness only occurs where there is bodily feeling (i.e., the awareness of the postural attitude).
feelings accessed through body awareness, rather than emotional release, bring us the kind of lasting change that we so desire
Trauma represents a profound compression of "survival" energy, energy that has not been able to complete its meaningful course of action.
Once people learn to access this rhythmic flow within, "infinite" emotional pain begins to feel manageable and finite. This allows their attitude to shift from dread and helplessness to curiosity and exploration.
Trauma sufferers are so frightened of their bodily sensations that they recoil from feeling them. It is as though they believe that by feeling them they will be destroyed or, at the very least, make things worse. Hence they remain stuck.
This ability (known as affect regulation) allows animals to vary their emotions to appropriately match environmental demands. In humans, this highly evolved adaptive function, according to Schore and others, is the basis for the core sense of self.
Traumatized people are fragmented and disembodied. The constriction of feeling obliterates shade and texture, turning everything into good or bad, black or white, for us or against us.
Trauma sufferers live in a world of chronic dissociation.
Trauma sufferers, in their healing journeys, learn to dissolve their rigid defenses.
In this surrender they move from frozen fixity to gently thawing and,finally,free flow.
In an Unspoken Voice - How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness, Peter A. Levine, PhD
C.G. Jung Foundation, TWITTER:
"Find out what a person fears most and that is where he will develop next."
Adam Grant, TWITTER:
Boasting about your knowledge doesn't display confidence. It betrays arrogance.
Trumpeting your achievements doesn't signal status. It reveals insecurity.
The true sign of being comfortable with your expertise and success is being forthcoming about your ignorance and failures.
Psychology, TWITTER:
People say "never give up" but sometimes giving up is the best option because you realize you're wasting your time.
Splitting, Complex Trauma, Black and White Thinking: A Complete Guide
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0vhBPkY0Qs
YT Eggshell Transformations by Imi Lo
splitting to tolerate overwhelming
split in different parts, each with different behaviour.
We feel different from moment to moment.
HSP cannot help but be affected by toxic family dynamics, overt or covert abuse and manipulation.
The usual reaction to pain is to withdraw. To psychologically withdrew is mechanism of childhood trauma splitting.
Because you are highly sensitive you have not externalized pain, but instead withdraw and internalized your anger. You may turn anger towards yourself into self-blame and shame. When triggered you flip from one mode to another.
While the apparently normal part gets on with life, the traumatized part holds the traumatic memories. Your traumatized part reacts disproportionately to situations and sees danger, criticism and abandonment everywhere. Your traumatized part is frozen in the time of the trauma likely when you were a child. You relive over and over again. Traumatized part is always on guard. When traumatized part is running the show, you are filled with tension, paranoia and avoidance.
So you watch life events pass by in front of you without being in them. Feels as though it belongs to others. Being a detached observer comes with a cost. While you feel little pain, you also feel little joy, love and vitality.
Inner critic started as protective mechanism, it believes by criticizing harshly you will not venture out for love, career or abundance, so you will never be disappointed again. This perpetuates a cycle of shame.
You are afraid of losing stability even if dissociation takes you to a barren lonely place, it is what you know. Your needs and vulnerabilities though denied, do not disappear. The longer you stay numb, more time you spend watching your life go by without being in it. The longer you avoid intimacy and opportunities, the longer you are delaying a full, rich life.
Traditional therapies such as CBT may be limited when it comes to addressing these issues.
Our brain have a processing system that is naturally geared towards integration and healing when uninterrupted it has the ability to link up useful and restorative memories with the difficult ones to help us maintain emotional equilibrium. However when we come across a particularly difficult or traumatic situations that overwhelms us, the brain's adaptive processing is disrupted. The distressing incident will then get stored in our minds in a way that is frozen in time. Disconnected from other parts of our memory network. We may not even consciously remember it. Often our negative behaviors and uncontrollable feeling are the results of this dysfunctionally held information.
Complex trauma is a dissociated and invisible trauma.
You remain stuck because that piece of traumatic experience is stored in isolation un-integrated with the larger system and therefore it is unable to link up with newer more useful and adaptive information that promotes I am an adult now and not everyone hates me.
It can be triggered by seemingly random imagery and sensory associations. Sometimes the association is so subtle and rapid that your reasoning mind is not able to catch up or make sense of it whenever something occurs that the mind associates with your original upset, the memory of that bad experience is reactivated. You may suddenly feel drastically different, have certain intrusive thoughts or act in a certain way when you have mode flip. It is as if you suddenly switch from being a rational adult into being a tantrum throwing child. This is because in a way you are reliving the trauma at the level of a child. The negative self talk that you consistently engage in I am no good, I am not safe, I cannot trust anyone, is directly related to the perspective you had at the time of the original bad experience. The know in your stomach, tightness in your chest, the feeling of fear the shame and the powerlessness are all directly related to the original event or series of events that you experiences as a child. That is mechanism hardwired to protect us, since there is a perceived threat our fight flight system kicks in and takes over. The purpose of survival or protection and is given priority over reasoning and logic.
Traditional forms of therapy such as cognitive behavioral therapy CBT may not be effective in healing the deep emotional trauma that causes your current reactive responses because most of these pre-language trauma memories are shielded from your cognitive process.
Your intellectual logical brain gets bypassed when you are triggered so even if you logically know that your reactions are irrational it doesn't change your emotional reality, which still contains the feelings, perceptions, and physical sensations you once felt as a child.
Where CBT may teach you to suppress or argue with your negative emotions more often than not before your logical mind can take over you have already acted out from your emotional brain.
CBT or other intellectual ways of coping also assume that it is your irrational thoughts that cause all the problems. The idea that thoughts precede emotions is not true in most cases, for emotional pain that finds its root in developmental and attachment injuries it is unrealistic to think that one can think oneself into healing and integration.
The whole point of therapy is not to download a set of skills that you can find from self-help books but to gain from the synergistic work.
Still Face Experiment: Dr. Edward Tronick
UMass Boston
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apzXGEbZht0
The ugly is when you don't give the child any chance to get back to the good. There's no reparation and they're stuck in that really ugly situation.
Even in this two minutes when they don't get the normal reaction, they react with negative emotions, they turn away, they feel the stress of it. They actually lose control of their posture because of the stress that they are experiencing.
Nietzsche - Overcome Shame, Become Who You Are
YT Freedom in Thought
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnGIzeVRcow
Whom do you call bad? Those who always want to put others to shame. What is most humane? To spare someone shame. What is the seal of liberation? To no longer be ashamed of oneself.
Freedom is the freedom to become what you are. To become the fullest expression of yourself. The shameful mind compares itself to this ideal image and finds itself inadequate. Measurement, what I should be leads to shame.
All “shoulds” come from society. A pure mind says “This is what I want to do.” A conditioned mind says “This is what I should do.” So when you live according to a should, you aren't being yourself. You're being who society wants you to be.
You're trying to live according to your society's image. You've become a puppet of your society. To shame others is to reject who they are. To shame others is to make people be who you want them to be, not allow them to be themselves.
When you submit to the shame of others, you reject your true self. John Bradshaw: “In order to escape our shame, we often end up creating false personalities.”
Nietzsche - Follow No One, Trust Yourself
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-k7b8Zmh70&t=0s
YT Freedom in Thought
-What's wrong with following you?
-If you follow me, you'll live according to my memories. You'll live according to my map, and you'll never learn to construct your own. What if my map is wrong? You won't be able to correct me.
But if you learn to see for yourself, if you learn to construct your own map of reality, then we can come together as friends and individuals. We can compare our maps and help one another see reality as it really is.
Zarathustra tells his followers to leave him because they are still believers. He wants them to become inquirers. He doesn't want followers. He doesn't want people to believe what he says. He wants them to doubt him, inquire, verify. See if they arrive at the same vision of reality. They can be equals. If they simply believe what he says, then they become followers.
Followers learn to follow someone else's map, and by doing so, they lose a direct connection to reality. And if they lose a direct connection to reality, we all lose the value that comes from their own unique perspective.
Followers lose the value of independent verification and correcting someone. But inquirers make their own maps and maintain their connection to reality. Because of this, they bring us actual value through their unique perspective of the world.
Fact, TWITTER:
No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying.
Adam Grant, TWITTER:
The people you're trying to impress are probably busy trying to impress someone else.
It's called the spotlight effect: the tendency to overestimate how much attention people pay to your appearance and actions.
You're always a protagonist in your story, but rarely in theirs.
Kam, TWITTER:
You can set boundaries with people and still feel bad. Those things can coexist
Fact, TWITTER:
Don't be afraid to do something just because you're scared of what people are going to say about you. People will judge you no matter what.
 | |
| Translating scientific paper, 1957 Credit: Graham, CD. 1957. A glossary for research reports. |
Adam Grant, TWITTER:
You take advice with a grain of salt. Others don't always know what's best for you.
Adam Grant, TWITTER:
In a turbulent world, tolerance for ambiguity becomes a vital skill.
The danger of being allergic to uncertainty is that it leaves you feeling certain even when you're wrong.
It's better to admit that you don't know what's true than to cling to convictions that may be false.
Philosophy Quotes, TWITTER:
"Any person capable of angering you becomes your master."
- Epictetus
Philosophy Quotes, TWITTER:
"The purpose of knowledge is action, not knowledge."
- Aristotle
YT Blunt Cake #20: Are You Hooked On Getting The "Right" Outcome? Why This Happens & What To Do Instead
https://youtu.be/oIGOsN220Do
Fawning – we try to regulate the other person by the choices and the actions we take, we're trying to solve equation by what creates this in reliable way for me so I can relax around this person. Stuck in system where we are not safe.
We are communicating we are not feeling safe with this person or environment, we worry about consequences if we get it wrong. In healthy relationship, communities, dynamics - mistakes are not a problem. Mistakes are expected and understood to be a good thing, necessary thing. Strucure how mistakes are handled, rectified – kindness and instruction, not through condemnation, accusation or abusive actions.
When we're in environment, relationships, or dynamics that do not allow mistakes, then we're trying to find the right way to do the things so we don't upset the other person.
Furthermore, if we're dealing with someone who is chaotic and unstable, they're either redefining the terms of what they want, moving goalpost around, not reliable, we have no means of determining what is the right action to get right outcome.
For us the right outcome is safety: safe, connected and identity. When the other person is not reliable we live in question what is the right thing. If we have to live in that way – we are in a red flag relationship.
We are stuck in dynamic of trying to please and appease the others so that they won't harm us further and so we can have some semblance of safety, connection and identity in our world. Asses why we don't feel safe.
3 specific things that determine reality for us: pattern of behavior, impacts and results created by the way other person behaves in the way we behave in relationship. If these patterns do not add to well-being and happiness, they are not healthy.
We don't need to find right outcome, right way to make right outcome happen. We have to find out what happens when we approach person and discover what arises. When we are dealing with healthy person they will communicate in clear, kind way.
Mind Haste, TWITTER:
Psychology says, don’t judge a situation you’ve never been in.
For various reasons codependents tend to attach themselves to problems and people. Never mind that worrying isn't solving anything. Never mind that those problems rarely have solutions.
Never mind that the things we're doing aren't helping anyone! No matter what the cost, we will hang on.
Detachment is based on the premises that each person is responsible for himself, that we can't solve problems that aren't ours to solve, and that worrying doesn't help.
My entire life had been a reaction to other people's lives, desires, problems, faults, successes, and personalities.
I was like a puppet with strings hanging out, inviting and allowing anyone or anything to yank them.
It is normal to react and respond to our environment. Reacting is part of life. It's part of
interacting, and it's part of being alive and human. But we allow ourselves to get so upset, and so distracted. Little things, big things anything have the power to throw us off the track. And the way we respond after we react is frequently not in our best interests.
Our emotions and behaviors are being controlled triggered by everyone and everything in our environment. We are indirectly allowing others to tell us what to do. That means we have lost control. We are being controlled.
We allow others to determine when we will be happy; when we will be peaceful; when we will be upset.
We forfeit our right to feel peaceful at the whim of our environments.
We react too quickly, with too much intensity and urgency.
I believe the irony is that we are not called upon or required to do things in this state of
mind.
We react because most people react.
We react because we think we have to react. We don't have to.
We don't have to be so afraid of people. They are just people like us.
We blow things out of proportion our feelings, thoughts, actions, and mistakes. We do the same thing with other people's feelings, thoughts, and actions.
Give yourself and others room to move, to talk, to be who they are to be human. Give life a chance
to happen. Give yourself an opportunity to enjoy it.
We don't have to take other people's behaviors as reflections of our self-worth.
If you have done nothing to feel embarrassed about, don't feel embarrassed.
Separate yourself from things. Leave things alone, and let people be who they are.
Who are you to say that the interruption, mood, word, bad day, thought, or problem is not an important and necessary part of life?
We don't need to eliminate all our reactions to people and problems. Reactions can be useful.
But most of us react too much.
As victims, we attract perpetrators. We believe we need someone to take care of us, because we feel helpless.
We have confused ideas about what constitutes help and what doesn't.
Many of us do not understand what we are responsible for and what we are not responsible for.
However, at the heart of most rescues is a demon: low self-worth.
Maybe someone taught us these lies, and we believed them: don't be selfish, always be kind and help people, never hurt other people's feelings because we "make them feel," never say no.
We may have been taught to be responsible for other people but not responsible for ourselves.
book "Codependent No More", Melody Beattie
(11.3.2022)
With panic symptoms and anxiety I am convinced that I don't have alternatives. Cognitive distortions, personalizations and catastrophizing convince me that I cannot make any decision and action that can help me. This is because I imagine the worst case scenario - and as for learned helplessness I do not move at all in any situation. I am convinced that anxiety and inability to react and experiencing fear is connected to situations where I can't act - such as any environment connected to fulfillment of Maslow needs: job, security, finances, service, help. So I develop mentality to ignore red flags and that I do not filter out the weeds. The truth is it will happen in neutral situations and situations where I have total control. So I have all the power to make healthy decisions. It is important to recognize red flags - and then to cut contact or minimize contact with toxic entity. Another phenomena that is connected with this is labels and nagging from other people. They negatively evaluate something and I believe it automatically, without ever thinking that they might be totally wrong. It is as if their words are commands. That is trauma bonding and external reference and external validation. So i fail to act, fail to cut contact, fail to stick with my own script and task - just because someone said something. That is how social anxiety influence own decision and limits life. There will always be someone who will criticize. Always and for anything. It is impossible to satisfy everyone.
Rude people are cowards and suffer from inferiority complex, however they put on a mask of superiority. They appear intimidating, they use rage to appear strong. This is problem with fawning - when I explain these rude and aggressive people as strong. I give them more credit than they deserve, and I put myself in inferior position. I do not allow myself to doubt them, I believe anything they say, due to external validation and toxic shame inside me telling me I am inept and wrong by default, whatever I think or say.
I noticed that when I get irritated and actually dysregulated - I do not label it as dysregulation. As I understand this is connected to trauma healing - that I do notice when I am dysregulated. This way I can nip it in the bud, so that it does not turn into explosion and wild fire which later on I will have hard time to regulate. Another phenomena that I noticed is that when I do nothing about dysregulation, and when I am irritated and annoyed by someone or something - is that I make wrong decisions. It sets me off in wrong direction. That is why it is good to stop and gather all information before going on.
The point of regulation is to remove antagonistic, bitter outlook and get unstuck from things and people who frighten me onto jobs, tasks and goals I need to do instead. This is where I have problem with people and situations who do not let me go. Who demand something from me, who criticize me. Question is where can I make separation and leave - what about situations where I can't leave? As I said, there are a lot of situations where I have freedom to move - but I still either do not make choice to remove negative influence, or I do not notice it, or I believe in my labels that I should be strong and endure anything or anyone to show off that I am strong. Toxic programming running its code. In situations where I am trapped - I have only one option left - to confront and warn, alert the other person. This is why it is necessary to learn narcissistic abuse information, how to handle difficult people information. Without information I believe I must fawn, I believe other people are superior just because they do not have social inhibitions - I am totally unaware that person who is not respecting other is deeply insecure, that they put on a mask of superiority and confidence that feels threatening to me. And this is what narcissists thrive on - to be worshiped and looked upon as god creatures. I can break this by being transparent, objective, by documenting the abuse, by being honest and react in natural manner. The truth will hurt them, narcissist will feel narcissistic injury and they will over-react. This is why it is important not to personalize and blame myself and accept imposed guilt.
The Law of Jante
I have been mentioning this Scandinavian motto for life since my first blog. With time I realized it is important concept from another perspective: it is that when we talk and express ourselves - this is good for healthy mind and to navigate social anxiety - that we express ourselves, that we are open, honest and genuine. This beats toxic shame, it is anti dote for trauma because by doing expression - we validate ourselves and accept ourselves as we are, we can't hide ourselves, since we expose our views and inner world to outer criticism and evaluation which may be negative. The negative evaluations and criticism is trigger that reminds us of our trauma of relentless criticism when growing up. So expressing and talking and allowing myself to be embarrassed and make a fool out of myself in public and in social settings - being ok with made fun and being mocked is anti dote to social anxiety. With Law of Jante I understand that in the same time whatever I say - that I do not voice it out in criticism or nagging or complaining - since I know this can traumatize other people as it has negative effect on me. Fine, I know I have to keep my boundaries and be careful not to be rude to others, even when they are annoying and trolling and rude themselves. I know I can allow myself to naturally react to abuse, and allow myself to cut contact when there is obviously narcissist on the other side, someone who does not want cooperation. That is what Law of Jante guide us - that I do not brag and appear superior, since it is annoying and irritating. It can be easily forgotten when in good mood, so Law of Jante helps us curb our enthusiasm.
However, another good side of Law of Jante is that without knowing it, my own thoughts, my own opinions - my own words - although in neutral and without aggression - can be interpreted as aggressive in other people. This happens because some people will see my opinions and words as ideal and superior to them. This will irritate them and annoy them. When faced with something perfect and ideal - people will feel toxic shame, because due to any reason - they are unable to be ideal and perfect themselves. So speaking kindly, and being calm can make those people feel toxic shame - even though the act of being kind and empathetic is polar opposite to toxic shaming. The Law of Jante reminds me to address my weakness and to express it. This way I can show people that I am not ideal. That I am not god - even though their perception may signal to them my words as authority and being better than them. Knowing this allows me to express myself even more and deeply - and as I said, self expression is anti-dote to social anxiety and trauma. Trying to appear good and collected and calm in order to impress others is toxic - and this is the point of Law of Jante. It is a tool to self-correct my own potential and unintentional hidden toxicity; toxic positivity.
This is why I would usually stop expressing myself when people would react negatively to me - I would not understand how can someone be offended by sharing my knowledge about how I overcame certain blockage. That is because by knowing and working on myself - it will make other people feel inferior, and I will not notice it, since I do not have ill wish toward other people, I have no ill intentions to others, I do not want to rule over other people neither to make them feel bad. But it turns out this way if I do not disclose my own weakness - if I skip embarrassing parts I am not telling the whole story. I try to hide my embarrassment but in reality I am pontificating other people by trying to appear good and nice and calm and collected. That is why I would accept and validate my rejected parts: something I label as weak in myself, wuss, sissy, unacceptable, wrong, weird, stupid. And not being afraid to show it or express it. When I embrace it and share it, other people will not be able to control me - either through mocking me or being resentful at me for appearing as someone who is not having issues with hidden parts. That is quote from movie "Breakfast Club" (1985) - we actually are all bizarre inside but we hide it well from others.
Narcissist play on this mask and fake persona and trying to appear intimidating and rude to others - and honest and genuine people who trust others buy into it, and then we get scared and suffer from social anxiety. So I see expressing myself - showing and sharing my story, my opinion, my words along with all embarrassing rejected parts that may make me appear as fool is healthy and healing. That is self validation, that is having self worth.
Social anxiety is fawning - fear of criticism. Which means social anxiety is fear from making mistakes. And this tells us that our definitions of mistakes is taken by the critic. Their explanation is taken for granted. We fawn, shut up and self censor - as learned defense mechanism from trauma childhood. If we react - we get reply we are over sensitive and we get gaslighting as response. Instead - we can document abuse, alarm and alert the other person, be transparent, be honest and genuine, tell I disagree, leave and ignore (which is impossible due to codependency), voice out the elephant in the room (something that is obvious but no one mentions it, someone being hysterical and behaving irrational) - or some techniques such as grey rock, agreeing partially or going to extreme fawning to the extent to making fun of my mistakes and reactions that I am labelled for - talking in funny voice for example to show how irrational and ridiculous their gaslighting is.
The unstable and chaotic person will redefine their criticism, they will move goal post - and with fawning I go along with the play. I can voice out the elephant in the room what they are doing.
Codependency.
What I find irritating with blaming the codependent for their victimhood are situations where you really are victim of manipulative people. I understand that my fears attract manipulators, and that I will invite negative outcomes by having fears and inhibitions, I understand the part where I have to have courage and cut contact with negative people. What I find difficult is that some people do not understand the situations that lead to codependency issues.
- false accusations, blunt lies
- expecting me to do chores at someone's whim just because they play the authority card and ordering me - which is degrading and difficult especially if connected to my fears and phobias, inhibitions
- unfair treatment - mocking, taking advantage of my silence and trying not to react
- expecting me to be perfect, and perform without mistakes - nagging if I fail
- nagging when I make mistake and beating the dog which is dead and lying on the ground
- when I need service or help from hysterical person, aggressive and non-cooperative so I fawn
- Maslow needs - low paying job with included mobbing. You need money as escape route goal. Living in corrupt poor country where you can't change job at whim.
What I learned on my own is this, I did not find this information in any self help book or official medical resources, none wiki help tips - no one talked about this:
1) that I alarm and alert other person. I do not have to yell or throw drama, just simply voice out the elephant in the room, facts, and being objective and transparent. The act of alarming will shock them, even if they deny or reply in rudeness. The act of alarm is necessary because bullies will not stop harassment on their own.
2) that staying stuck in worry is part of imposed irrational guilt, Pavlovian dog conditioning, which means hormones and chemicals inside producing guilt that influences thought process - it comes from the body, brain injury - defaulting to worry and fawning. Body drugs us into fears and fawning and passivity and being scared. With social anxiety I am convinced that guilt equals to my decisions - that I must fawn and believe others automatically and never defend myself because I feel guilt.
3) that I document abuse - that I write it all down, record it - so I can discern if I actually over-react or not. With social anxiety I shut up and react in defense, taking others accusations as true and ultimate truth that must not be brought into question nor interrogation.
4) that I am honest and genuine and speak the truth, without confrontation and conflict, without being monster and pretending to be bully and aggressive back to bullies. Speaking the truth is radical and shocking, it seems as weak and stupid and lame - truth is powerful. I have voice inside what I say in return - I am afraid I will have nothing to say as argument. With self worth I know difference between and definition of what is right-wrong.
5) I have ability to see things from multiple dimensions - and I am aware there is no absolute truth - this means that I allow myself that I doubt what other person is commanding and defining. And to doubt myself, too
6) That toxic shame inside me will expel self worth into other people and I will trauma bond. Toxic shame is hidden cause of fawning and fears and cognitive distortions. Toxic shame is actually hallucination, I can burst it and trust my super-ego (collected knowledge and instinct)
7) fawning, shutting up and self censorship is trauma response - it is automatic, so I have to expect it before any social contact. When I know it in advance, I can be prepared to experiment other mechanisms.
8) emotional dysregulation and dysfunctional safety mechanisms - I can prevent them from blowing up by knowing about them before the triggers - prevent them from exploding in unmanageable uncontrollable pain entity. this includes gathering information, curb my enthusiasm
9) knowing self worth means that I am not evil person, I have no evil agenda, I am not lazy, I do not exploit other people, I have no ill wish nor to hurt anyone - no matter what others label me
10) other people do not hate me, I can communicate with them. With social anxiety I have distorted beliefs that govern my actions and I shut up, avoid alarm and alert, arguments and defending myself. Trauma beliefs: I am worthy if I do something, I must over-compensate my fears by staying to endure bullies to show as me being macho and strong.
11) that I can let go, forgive, cut contact, repeat my claims again and again, risk being boring, not listen to others meaning not to believe them automatically
12) being on par with others. Rude, aggressive, argumentative, intimidating, super-confident people are acting, they have mask, they are feeling inferior and they play pretend to be superior. This causes me to feel toxic shame - belief I am inept while others are super. With social anxiety I see others as super beings, I compare with their ability to face fears - which is actually fake, it is acting. If they have no ability to feel fear or pity, they are psychopaths, not healthy. When I realize they are fake, this allows me to stand up to them when they are rude. I can say my thing and move away if they argue without trying to cooperate.
13) I am allowed to make fool of myself, to be considered stupid and weird and abnormal for my actions, thoughts and opinions. Unless unkind or violent - anything goes.
14) Other people labels are using those labels as a tool to guilt trip others into control and subservience. They will use shaming to silence me - judging and accusing me, mocking me I am stupid, weird, abnormal. Normal, healthy people do not treat others as garbage. So anyone using this is abnormal and not superior.
15) That I have natural reaction - with mistakes and flaws included - rejected parts of me (being ok with overthinking, having panic symptoms, labels that I am sissy or wuss). In the same time, I will allow others whom I would usually label as arrogant to tolerate it instead of triggering me.
16) there is no ultimate truth. People are prone to prejudices, wrong conclusions all the time, they jump to oversimplifications and thus create delusions and illusions and mostly wrong narrative that they impose onto others as ultimate truth. With low self worth I believe others whatever they claim and I do not doubt nor call out on its imbecility.
17) Fears that I will be considered arrogant and stupid and wrong by others if I speak up and stand up for myself or speak the truth - especially when someone accuse me of something untrue - my fears are that this person will hate me, judge me and have negative opinion. In the long run - they will respect me for being honest - especially when they realize I have no ill wish towards them, that I have ideals and higher cause. If I shut up - they will exploit me, take advantage of me, they will mix my kindness with weakness and I will have low self opinion about myself.
18) I do not need to argue, confrontation and conflict does not mean explosions and drama and endless arguments or being rude. I can state my opinion without being drama queen - and this words out in the open will make the difference. When I shut up I cause moral injury to myself - being witness to unfair situation and doing nothing about it. I am talking about situation when the other person is attacking me out of blue due to their biases and quick pre-judgements and oversimplifications. This include statements like: "I am not rude to you, why are you rude to me?"
"I am not yelling at you, why you yell at me" "It is unkind and violent to be hysterical" "We never know all information and people jump to conclusions which are almost always wrong". It depends on situation, I state the elephant in the room - something that is obvious but no one defines it. With self worth I have my rights and I can state them. I can walk away if person is keep on arguing without listening to me. Again, there is no need to yell and scream - I simply state the objective truth. With social anxiety and trauma and narcissistic abuse - I believe I must scream and yell my opinion - so I never speak up since I am not hysterical neither I enjoy in creating chaos and drama. And I have distorted belief that I must stay in the same spot with someone hysterical to me and endure it just to show off as good, nice and strong. I will cut contact and avoid these people anyways - if not immediately, in the future - so at least they will know what I think about them.
19) That I remove being stuck over past incidents, remove intrusive worry - by deep forgiveness of people whom I cut contact and they are no longer part of my life.
20) Self expression is important and has precedence over other people's feelings and labels and conclusions. With social anxiety I fear embarrassment and by trying to be good, nice and exemplary I ironically turn into philosophical zombie (NPC Wojak face meme) - person without opinion and character nor goals and striving, neither vigor or sex-appeal. Also my hunch that someone is toxic I usually label as over-reaction and social anxiety - but it is almost always correct. Usually I suppress it, share my secrets, open my boundaries and intimacy... and later I realize I was correct in original assessment. Pathologizing myself kills self worth.
Daily Dose of Philosophy, TWITTER:
"To be normal is the ultimate aim of the unsuccessful."
- Carl Jung
Codependency occurs anywhere where there is an imbalance of power and one or both people in the relationship need to be needed. Make no mistake, codependent individuals don’t form relationships, they take hostages.
good article on Brightcrest.com: “Trauma is not an event or an experience, but rather an emotional response to one.”
I believe trauma sets children up for codependency by destroying their self-esteem and their sense of self (sense of agency).
The need to belong is such a powerful force in our minds that if we do not receive it in childhood, we will grow into adults who search for either a relationship that matches what we knew and saw growing up.
https://cptsdfoundation.org/2022/01/24/overcoming-codependency/
conspiracybot, TWITTER:
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Others look so powerful and assured. We conclude the magic must be in them. So we become dependent on them. we need people. We may become driven, controlled by this need.
Other people become the key to our happiness.
I believe much of this incessant approval seeking we indulge in also comes from insecurity. The
magic is in others, not us, we believe. The good feelings are in them, not us.
They have it all; we have nothing. Our existence is not important. We have been abandoned and neglected so often that we also abandon ourselves.
Why, when we are experts at taking care of everybody around us, do we doubt our ability to take care of ourselves?
Being ourselves and being responsible for ourselves do not have to be so painful and scary.
Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself, Melody Beattie
(12.3.2022)
While codependency as concept perfectly describes self worth being exported onto other people thus forming trauma bonding, it does not address intelligent people who naturally have ability to think from many different angles, neither it address HSP who have natural ability to deep stimuli process. Also, it does not define toxic shame as toxic shame - but rather product of trauma, whereas emotional dysregulation is totally ignored - when we are in amygdala hijacking we will be render useless - and we will default to habitual responses, automatic response which are usually dysfunctional safety mechanisms such as fawning. Codependency does not address fawning and self-censorship and Law of Jante already inside those who stay silent and does not openly over-react, since they are aware it is dysfunctional and lead only to more trouble and issues.
Codependency does not explain how we only need tools and knowledge about various modules, to learn them - so that we can use them by ourselves depending on situation and people we have issues with. So codependency concept does not teach us how to catch a fish, we are still dependent on advice from others. Codependency as Classical CBT explains what is wrong, but does not offer full response what to do. It shines the light on problem however does not explain that we actually have to shift our focus and locus to another area. This means being concerned on equally important people and situations that deserve our attention. Instead both Classical CBT and codependency concept gives us toxic shame - since it signal us what is wrong, giving clear message we are inept, weird and abnormal, while other people are normal and healthy and totally devoid of issues such as fears and anxiety. Both are making the same mistake - they think if people are explained about self worth, that anxiety will magically vanish, and that anxiety itself does not broadcast false messages misleading us. Anxiety is liar, it leads us astray, it explains us reality in distorted way, giving us illusions. If we feel anxiety, we need to be aware to allow ourselves to doubt ourselves, our explanations, perceptions and conclusions - since they will probably be tainted and filtered through anxiety web of lies. Anxiety is like veil over our eyes, making our perception unclear and fuzzy. It is like seeing life through the gaze, dream like and difficult to make sense of anything around.
The core of social anxiety triggers.
It is when other person, usually hysterical and aggressive is accusing me - asking me to do something out of my control. And I shut up - I do not tell this is not my responsibility, or that I do not know how. Instead up until now I had no idea what is triggering me. It was this unreasonable and unfair demand. I see now that people who are asking me to perform something unrealistic are people either psychopaths - who abuse others so their urge to hurt others is running their hysteria, or neurotics - people who lack empathy and are very afraid, so their fear is running their hysteria.
Since this unrealistic and unreasonable demand would trigger me into amygdala hijacking and emotional dysregulation - I never thought of it as trigger - I though that due to trauma programming I am suppose to be saviour and perfect in anything and that I must not admit that I do not know something.
Since I was never aware that this hysterical demand is triggering me, I never actually prepared my defense neither tried out the scenario what to respond: "I do not know" "That part is not my job" "I am doing this for the first time" - instead I would fear their judgement and comments and criticism and take on the burden of being a victim - whereas I could also tell "Do not speak to me like that" "I will hang up now, or leave" "I disagree" "You are not fair" "You are hysterical" "What do you want me to do?" What you expect from me?" "Is this my job?" "Is this my responsibility?" "Who are you to order me?" "Who are you to define anything?"
Instead I would shut up, I would feel incredible shame and panic attack symptoms, and as years came along I would extend this into suicide idealizations as rescue or exit. I would generalize and personalize - thinking that all people are rude and that it is all my fault. It never occurred to me that person who is making unreasonable demand is mentally ill and that they are serially abusing people.
This fear propelled me to be perfectionist, fear what will someone say negatively, this fuels fear of criticism and negative evaluation. Fears and panic never allowed me to realize what is the core of this, never learned how to defend, what to say and how to react - instead I learned dysfunctional safety mechanisms, trying to find out what I am afraid of. I was convinced I was afraid of people in general - social anxiety.
The correct response to unreasonable demands is not so easy. It is required to know how narcissists think and react and how they gaslight and thrive on other person being thrown out of track due to their nitpicking and criticism. The truth is that narcissist live in their own fantasy world and this allows them to really believe in their demands and this explains the constant moving of goal posts they make. This way they see themselves as victims, and other people as inferior stupid beings. So if you over-react to them they will accuse you of being rude and aggressive. Here lies the answer: keep on repeating that they are rude. They pretend to be victims themselves. They will use anger and over-reaction of their targets to attack them with weapons that otherwise they would mock: like asking for help from the third party, snitching. This is why being transparent and being objective is lethal to narcissists. And keep repeating the truth and what they have done.
Normal and healthy people would shut up and admit they done wrong. Narcissists will blame the target - so transparency and being objective is the greatest weapon against them.
This is connected to self worth - what I value. Do I need to stay in environment that is toxic? What would be the reason - if my self worth is located in other people - I would not make decisions based on what I want, I would self censor myself and try not to bother other people, stay with them and be needy and clingy. Do I need more money - only to spend it on trying to impress people who do not care for me anyways?
This inhibition is cause of cognitive distortions, it is the wound, injury inside me. It was covered up until now. It was obfuscated and hidden, covered up by thinking it is not important. Then obligations and fears and decisions never gave me enough time to concentrate and focus to seek what is bugging me and what is preventing me from moving on. This kept me stuck. I would feel fear, imaginary audience would kick in, and I would not know what is the matter and what to say and how to respond. All the self help and psychology tips helped me to balance everything else that was in dis-balance - but this core inhibition kept me hanging on and I kept tripping on it, again and again.
I feel I can now shake it off. It is no longer leeched onto me.
Fact, TWITTER:
When someone gives you advice, respond with "you're right" rather than "I know." You'll come across as being nicer.
Adam Grant, TWITTER:
In toxic cultures, people get promoted for results even if they destroy relationships. Abuse is a price to pay for high performance.
In healthy cultures, no level of individual excellence justifies undermining people. You’re not a high performer if you don't elevate others.
C.G. Jung Foundation, TWITTER:
"Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not." - C.G. Jung
Adam Grant, TWITTER:
The most underrated tool of persuasion is curiosity.
A natural response to disagreement is to attack what people think. A more inviting alternative is to be genuinely fascinated by how they think.
Curiosity is contagious. When advocacy closes minds, inquiry can open them.
Masculine Theory, TWITTER:
Easily offended?
Easily manipulated.
Adam Grant, TWITTER:
Many complaints are failed bids for compassion.
When people gripe and grumble, they're not trying to drag you down. They're often looking for someone to notice and acknowledge their pain.
They're hoping a kindred spirit will say, "I see that you're hurting. You're not alone."
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| Global map of culture types ; Shame-Guilt-Fear |
Fact, TWITTER:
A study found that anxiety disengages the prefrontal cortex, a region of the brain that plays an important role in flexible decision making.
Social Anxiety (Third Edition)
Clinical, Developmental, and Social Perspectives
2014, Pages 159-187 Gordon L.Flett, Paul L.Hewitt
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780123944276000078
Past conceptual models have emphasized a two-factor approach that views social anxiety as a reflection of exposure to exceptionally high standards and a perceived lack of self-efficacy to attain these standards.
The current research illustrates the relevance of a multidimensional approach when considering the role of perfectionism in social anxiety.
Key distinctions are made among elements of trait perfectionism reflecting evaluative concerns (i.e., socially prescribed perfectionism, concern over mistakes), cognitive aspects of perfectionism (i.e., perfectionistic automatic thoughts, mistake rumination), perfectionism discrepancies, and a perfectionistic self-presentational style involving the need to seem perfect and avoid seeming imperfect in public situations.
perfectionism is a complex construct and a complex approach is needed in assessments and in treatment interventions designed for perfectionists suffering from social anxiety.
Your Care Mitigates My Ego Depletion: Why and When Perfectionists Show Incivility Toward Coworkers
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.746205/full
Our findings demonstrate that dimensions of perfectionism personality are positively associated with incivility toward coworkers.
In addition, our study confirms that ego depletion mediates the relationship between self-oriented perfectionism, other-oriented perfectionism, and incivility toward coworkers.
Workplace incivility refers to low-intensity deviant behaviors with ambiguous intent to harm and violation of norms for mutual respect (Andersson and Pearson, 1999).
For instance, workplace incivility has been documented to relates negatively to organizational citizenship behavior (Liu and Zhou, 2018), job satisfaction (Koon, 2017; Alola et al., 2018), intention to stay (Griffin, 2010), and employee performance (Chen et al., 2013). Additionally, studies have confirmed that incivility prompts behavioral strains that lead to adversarial effects like workplace deviance (Penney and Spector, 2005), intentional withdrawal (Sliter et al., 2012), turnover intentions (Huang and Lin, 2019), and increased employee cynical behaviors (Alola et al., 2019a).
the role of the perfectionism personality of an employee in the process has been largely ignored.
They reported that individuals conduct incivility when prioritizing ideal image for oneself (narcissist) and unveiling moral disengagement (machiavellianism), which in turn influences the interpersonal connections (Turnipseed and Landay, 2018).
The first purpose of the present study is thus to investigate whether perfectionism personality, as a multidimensional construct, can shape the incivility of an individual in the workplace.
Perfectionism personality refers to one’s own identity that detains incompatible targets, demanding flawless performance and rigorous self-criticism (Frost et al., 1990; Dunkley et al., 2003; Flaxman et al., 2012).
The depletion of self-regulatory resources attenuates the strength of employees to deal with a set of different exercises that exceptionally demand self-control in relational settings (Qian et al., 2020), which further causes uncivil or adverse results.
Because perfectionism personality is connected with negative emotional states (i.e., depression, stress, and anxiety, Flett et al., 1991; Ulu and Tezer, 2010), perfectionists are more likely to experience less control and are turning to be ego depleted.
we propose that ego depletion plays a mediating role between the perfectionism personality and incivility of employees toward their coworkers.
Previous studies have shown that empathic concern from other people can alleviate negative emotions and mental states of individuals (Bussey et al., 2015; Wu et al., 2020). Concern and care from coworkers can safeguard the affected perfectionists to be less psychologically depleted, and thus helps them reduce negative perceptions and hostility toward their coworkers during interactions. Therefore, the third goal of our study is to examine whether coworker empathic concern can attenuate the mediating effects of ego depletion on the relationship between perfectionism personality of employees and their incivility toward their coworkers.
self-oriented perfectionism is the setting of highly irrelevant goals for oneself, other-oriented perfectionism expresses unrealistic expectations and standards for others, and socially prescribed perfectionism is when an individual holds the belief that others anticipate perfection from him or her (Hewitt and Flett, 1991). We propose that each dimension of perfectionism personality will have a negative impact on incivility toward coworkers.
Self-oriented perfectionism has been primarily considered as a dysfunctional personality trait (Hewitt and Flett, 1991), mainly linked with various adverse outcomes such as depression (Flett et al., 1991; Smith et al., 2016), hostility, and anger (Besser et al., 2004; Blankstein and Lumley, 2008; Stoeber et al., 2014).
According to ego depletion theory, employees with high self-oriented perfectionism would feel stressed and experience resource loss due to their irrational objectives. Consequently, they would feel suppressed and disappointed when they have drained resources, which would lead to incivility toward coworkers.
other-oriented perfectionism is a personality trait that expresses unrealistic expectations and standards for others (Hewitt and Flett, 1991). Individuals with other-oriented perfectionism are profoundly focused on negative behaviors of others rather than their own. When employees of high other-oriented perfectionism set a critical evaluation for others to meet their standards, they may act impolitely due to interpersonal conflicts (Stoeber, 2014), and become more engaged in antisocial behaviors (Stoeber et al., 2017), thereby showing less compassion toward others (Stoeber et al., 2020).
Therefore, employees who exhibit other-oriented perfectionism are highly focused on requirements of other people, restraining them from following their instincts, depleting self-capabilities of employees, and nurturing negative emotions. Following the theoretical perspective of ego depletion, it traverses that other-oriented individuals are more prone to exhibit ruthless behaviors such as incivility toward coworkers.
socially prescribed perfectionism depicts individuals who believe others expect perfection of them and that others will be highly critical of them if they are unproductive (Hewitt and Flett, 1991). Employees who expound socially prescribed perfectionism hold the conviction that others have set incompatible goals for one to exercise and that others will emphasize immaculate execution, which cause them to perform ineffectively (Ferrari and Mautz, 1997).
Inevitably, socially prescribed perfectionists feel powerless and desperate, as it is arduous to live up to the high expectations of others (Stoeber, 2014).
In the vein of ego depletion theory, the socially prescribed trait will invoke the negative sentiments in the form of fear and loss of inner willpower, with extraneous factors to be greatly imposed by others. Thus, they feel distressed and socially isolated when faced with destructive criticism, which leads them to engage in negative behaviors such as incivility toward coworkers.
the other-oriented perfectionism employees exceptionally centered around the execution of others. These employees pinpoint the weak point of others rather than discuss the deficiencies of self, which ultimately impacted the interpersonal relationships at workplace (Flett et al., 2001–2002).
Empathic concern refers to affective empathy that encompasses sympathetic attitude toward others and oversight of the individuals concerning their point of view (Davis, 1980, 1983; Chowdhury and Fernando, 2014). Essentially, the few previous studies enlightened the conception of empathic concern as a highly important personality trait, to subsequently lessen aggression and diminish counterproductive behaviors (Batanova and Loukas, 2011; Ho and Gupta, 2012).
Individuals high in empathic concern usually have compassionate feelings and exhibit positive expressions in ethical situations (Pohling et al., 2016) and in attempting to uncover pessimistic emotional states, thereby, evading negative outcomes (Bussey et al., 2015; Wu et al., 2020).
In short, high empathic individuals easily fit themselves in the shoes of another and thereby inhibit negative impulses like depletion.
Contrary to this, individuals with low empathic concern are genuinely less courteous and relatively less helpful in organizational settings (Kalshoven et al., 2013).
colleagues might consider the actions of those employees as granted rather than articulating kindness toward them due to their self-centered nature, thus heightening employee state of ego depletion.
As per our proposition, coworker empathic concern serves as a moderator between perfectionism personality and ego depletion.
when coworkers with high empathic concern express positive emotions such as feelings of kind heartedness toward perfectionist individuals to be less depleted, they eventually undermine the negative behaviors, such as incivility toward coworkers.
our results demonstrated that coworker empathic concern undermines the positive effects of perfectionism personality on ego depletion. In fact, coworkers with higher level of coworker empathic concern are more conscious and express extra care toward depleted individuals, who exhibit self-oriented perfectionism and thereby lessens incivility behaviors.
Philosophy Quotes, TWITTER:
"Remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for."
- Epicurus
We judge people too much by the opinions they give and too little by the values they live.
You don't have to like their point to admire their courage in making it.
Decency is avoiding disrespect, not avoiding disagreement. Integrity is trying to get it right, not being right.
Fact, TWITTER:
Your personality is who you are. Your attitude is usually based on how a person treats you.
(22.3.2022)
Due to trauma related to being subservient, helpful and functional, when faced with triggers and flashbacks involving person who criticizes these values connected to trauma injury and wound, due to amygdala hijacking I cannot speak back my defense: "You are not helping." "You are being rude." "You are being hysterical." "Stop it."
They judge and misjudge and can't handle criticism.
So anti-dote to social anxiety is kryptonite that is ironically responsible for SAD - it is in criticizing people back. Doing criticism with kind, loving and good goal, without ill wish.
Too often the victim is being blamed for being "weak" and people pleaser. However it is evident that persecutor in Karpman Drama Triangle would not be persecutor if that person was not confronted by people in the past who had power, means and ways to warn and alert that person. Instead - these people in this person's past are the real cowards since they saw evil and failed to act. Coming across with abuser therefore means the act of passing hot coal onto the next person. Sensitive, kind, open, friendly and honest people would not pass it on to others, they take it on themselves since they treat everyone with respect and civility - whereas abusers parasite on this noble gesture and spread their abuse on fertile ground of acceptance, love, compassion and empathy. In this way being open, friendly, good, kind and nice is breeding ground for external evil: abusers, manipulators, narcissists, psychopaths, sociopaths and Machiavellians.
I would focus on criticism - as it is the central point of Social anxiety issue and definition.
Toxic people - who are the only problem here - will criticize by nagging and pointing out what is wrong, what are mistakes - which we may naturally do, they come after the battle is done and pretend to be generals who know better now after the battle is over. I would ask what makes them experts and why they were not here before. I would tackle into that matter as protection against psychological abuse. The point that toxic people are doing is not the benefit for the team of common cause - the only goal is for them to be important, acknowledged and revered, so that they are seen as grandiose. To achieve this, they must have subservient slaves and worshipers - and the only way to achieve that is that you fear them and worry what they think about you, this is done through guilt tripping, gaslighting, lies and fake information - but mostly through guilt. The only way you can make someone feel guilty is to point their mistakes. And since there is no ultimate truth, they can claim their truth after they brainwashed you into feeling guilty and silent and passive by criticizing your mistakes.
In physics: "The closer it is to equilibrium, the higher its entropy. The further away it is, the lower its entropy. Equilibrium is the state in which the system is perfectly balanced and no longer changes."
That is what narcissists and mentally ill people do: they tend to see themselves as gods and thus their goal is that everyone around them warp to their rules and their visions and their explanations, commands, perceptions of ultimate truth which they provide.
Physics also tells:
"The closer it is to equilibrium, the higher its entropy. The further away it is, the lower its entropy. Equilibrium is the state in which the system is perfectly balanced and no longer changes. This most often looks like the most disordered state."
This means balance is disorder.
Similar to Jung statement:
"To be normal is the ultimate aim of the unsuccessful."
- Carl Jung
I think this is because people are not gods. People do not know what is perfect, only God knows that. Creator. As people we are limited - we are prone to oversimplifications, judgements, prejudices, biases and paradoxes and logical fallacies. What we think is perfect and balance - will never be perfect and balanced because we are humans. We are unable to be perfect and balanced. Trying to achieve being perfect and balanced will make us unstable, unbalanced, neurotic, chronically worried and hyperalerted - it will create anxiety and depression. Trying to achieve perfections makes us stuck. In intrusive worry and trying to solve the unsolvable. Toxic people exploit this and trigger our mistakes which then we feel ashamed and guilt - over natural and normal mistakes - and this makes us trying to be even more perfectionist. This anxious search for stability and normalcy and balance leads to mental instability. We reject parts of ourselves that we will pathologize and declare as unworthy, stupid, unacceptable - and thus self sabotage our ability to take action, to walk and to move. That in physics is equilibrium, entropy. We obey the laws of physics.
This means, if I follow the herd mentality and groupthink, I will most likely experience instability. If I follow other people or one person's instruction - I will experience instability. If I follow my fears and anxiety as guide - I will experience instability. What I need is someone ahead of me, who knows the process and what is ahead and what I want to end up and where. I cannot depend on some resource that is prone to prejudices and logical fallacies. The only mechanism that is possible to give me the supply of correct information and instruction is super ego- mechanism inside me that is composed of both external and internal experience, knowledge and information, that is able to minimize ego-centrism, thus that is able to see different points of views, that is democratic and open, yet able to filter out the weed and to recognize the virus - and that is able to forgive mistakes and wrong turn - through love. Action is movement, being bunched up and not moving is also action - however it is doing nothing useful or productive and it does not prevent me from external potential pain or attack.
With codependency I get false message that I must help and heal everyone. This happens because my definition and my process of defining poor people is skewed. Once again, I have to pay attention to my conclusions, perceptions, definitions. This is the general rule, that I never jump to conclusions, to quick oversimplifications and quick shortcuts. It is interesting that this system of being jumpy and allergic - having quick reactions - is not connected only to difficult and painful situations such as someone being aggressive and difficult in communication, but it is also connected to situations where I feel like I have full control - therefore I feel confident. 3 step process is something I need for anything in life - to gather all information, from all sides before making permanent decision.
With higher intelligence and deep stimuli process abilities, we will tend to see more details than most of people and we'll see more mistakes in other people. This will lean us toward perfectionism issues, along with trauma and abuse. And people's reaction to our noticing will be negative - prompting us to shut up - and during younger age, we will not be able to discern people idiocy with them being totally wrong. Instead we will introject their projections as true, and from this side we will be prone to develop toxic shame. People in general do not like to be criticized, it is not exclusive social anxiety caprice. We will get explained that it is, that criticism is only related to social anxiety and us at the receiving end. In reality, it is the most of people who cannot handle criticism and who are little babies and oversensitive and unable to deal with life.
I make standard out of anything what I choose to watch and spend time, money and energy on. If I am not able to reject something I dislike and I am not able to avoid - I will resent it. This is the problem - I make decision too quickly instead of waiting and collecting data. And another problem is that I compare my choices with fantasy - mostly what I watch on TV or any media - since this is the majority of my focus. I want to learn and get most information - whereas TV or any kind of media is the quickest way to drawn this need. In this way, I get shaped by information I expose myself onto. Learned mechanism how I deal when I feel depleted also plays role. I lack attitude of gratitude and expectancy - instead I soak myself in cognitive distortions such as over-generalizations and personalization and catastrophizing. Then I act without double check, without facts and without objective reality. Instead I am preoccupied with fears where I forget important small tasks and I operate from the tunnel vision, I get stuck in thinking loops and I try to solve someone else's anger even when it is not connected with my actions or me in any way.
Mind Haste ⚡, TWITTER:
Removing yourself from an environment where it constantly triggers your anxiety is top tier self-care.
Mind Haste ⚡️, TWITTER:
Psychology says, you become 10 times more powerful when you pause before reacting.
identification of social phobia as a distinct disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual–III (e.g., American Psychiatric Association [APA], 1980).
The debate (e.g., Campbell-Sills & Stein, 2005; Wakefield, Horowitz, & Schmitz, 2005a; Wakefield, Horowitz, & Schmitz, 2005b) on “overpathologizing” socially anxious people then may be somewhat addressed by a conceptualization that acknowledges both “normal” social anxieties that are mildly to moderately intense.
Anxiety and fear are not “lumps” (Lang, 1968) and are not, in and of themselves, disease states.
At the extreme, high levels of social fears and anxiety are psychopathological.
In DSM-IV (APA, 1994), the Social Phobia diagnosis was slightly changed once again. For the first time, the term Social Anxiety Disorder was parenthetically listed along with Social Phobia, apparently representing a conceptual shift to differentiate it from other phobic disorders, and perhaps also to discriminate the extreme of psychopathological behaviors from “normal” social anxieties that affect most people in certain situations.
The literature suggests individuals with SAD regard their own social performance harshly, more than less anxious persons do, and more so than independent observers (Hofmann & Barlow, 2002).
For Millon the distinction between APD and SAD was clear. As he put it, “Avoidant is essentially a problem of relating to persons; social anxiety disorder is largely a problem of performing in situations. The avoidant PD has a feeling of low self-esteem; social anxiety disorder implies no
such self critical judgment” (Millon, 1991, p. 356).
the DSM-5 criteria for SAD are relatively straightforward. Such is not the case with children and adolescents, however, because they tend to under-report symptoms.
Embarrassment alerts one to unbecoming behavior.
A person who is genuinely immune to embarrassment, who cannot be embarrassed by anything he or she or others do, is odd, and possibly dangerous.
In short, embarrassment is a beneficial component of social life.
In contrast, SAD impairs social life. Those suffering from SAD experience excessive, irrational tension and distress in social situations that can interfere with—or entirely preclude—many typical public behaviors (Henderson & Zimbardo).
Perfectionism can play a role due to the pressure inherent in exceptionally high standards and expectations, but it also plays a role in terms of the maladaptive self-regulation tendencies of perfectionists once failures and embarrassments have been experienced or are expected and anticipated to take place.
Socially prescribed perfectionism is the trait component in this framework that is related most consistently to maladjustment, including social anxiety. Socially prescribed perfectionism is a stable trait that is based on the perception that others have unrealistic standards and perfectionistic motives for one’s own behaviors and that others will be satisfied only when these standards are attained. It involves a sense of pressure stemming from the view that others have imposed perfectionistic demands on the self.
shame (i.e., the emotional experience of self-deficiencies being known publicly) is a central element that
underscores the link between perfectionism and social anxiety.
social anxiety is associated consistently with various elements of the perfectionism construct such as concern over mistakes and socially prescribed perfectionism.
focused on
the need to live up to social expectations while being cognitively preoccupied with the very real possibility that these standards will not be attained and expectations will not be met.
Perfectionistic self-presentation is illustrated by the person who publicly tries to project an image of being perfect and having the perfect life (perfectionistic self-promotion) while also defensively covering up mistakes
(nondisplay of imperfections) and denying or simply not talking about mistakes (nondisclosure of imperfections).
The inherent ambiguity of social feedback dictates that one needs to judge the adequacy of one’s own performance and judge others approval or disapproval. This judgment is often based on limited and incomplete information. A stern look from a friend, an unenthusiastic response to our greeting, or a temporary disagreement with a friend can all be interpreted in a neutral or negative (i.e., critical or sarcastic) way.
individuals with SAD fear that their behaviors or anxiety symptoms will be embarrassing, or will result in negative evaluation.
Individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD) suffer from intense fear of social evaluation, heightened emotional reactivity to social cues, and problems implementing effective forms of emotion regulation (ER), particularly in social situations.
Situation Modificaiton: Sit alone at a table - Sit with others at bar
Attention Deployment: Attend to music playing - Attend to people talking
Cognitive Change: They are not interested in me - I do have something to contribute to this conversation
Response Modulation: Supress emotional expression - Show and share current emotions
interpretations (e.g., “People don’t like me”) (Alden & Bieling, 1998; Wells et al., 1995).
With rumination, SAD individuals may intentionally place their attention on “negative” self-referential features of the social situation (self-focused attention; Clark & Wells, 1995) and fixate on them. Rumination can take place before, during, or after a social situation.
some work indicates that socially anxious
individuals do not in fact endorse overly strong negative characteristics asreflecting themselves, but rather rate them more moderately than nonanxious individuals (see Mansell & Clark, 1999). Similarly, it is unclear as to whether socially anxious individuals negatively evaluate themselves across all domains.
Socially anxious people are hyper-focused on making a good impression on others, but fear that they are deficient in some important way (Moscovitch, 2009) and thus doubt their ability to do so (Schlenker & Leary, 1982).
In related research, participants with SAD have been found to have less prefrontal cortical activity while anticipating making a speech in front of strangers (Davidson, Putnam, & Larson, 2000) and during a trust game social exchange (Sripada et al., 2009). These regions have been linked to social judgment, which, as we discussed earlier, is impaired in socially anxious people.
People who are never socially anxious are not as careful to regulate others’ perceptions and evaluations of them and, as a result, are more likely to behave in ways that offend and alienate others.
Social anxiety may represent an overly sensitive sociometer system that generates many “false alarms.”
to take corrective actions in order to ensure that they remain a valued relationship partner.
Heightened self-awareness is experienced as troubling, and prevents socially anxious individuals from devoting their full attention to the tasks at hand.
Shame and humiliation are self-conscious emotions, evoked in social situations and associated with submissiveness (Gilbert, Pehl, & Allan, 1994; Keltner & Harker, 1998).
Shame is related to self-criticism and self-blame, and was found to relate to social anxiety (e.g., Gilbert & Miles, 2000; Shahar, Soffer, & Gilboa-Shechtman, 2008).
Although humiliation appears in the very definition of social anxiety disorder (APA, 2000), no existing studies we are aware of specifically tested whether socially anxious individuals are more likely to experience social encounters as humiliating. Given the centrality of status concerns in social anxiety, humiliation appears to be a central emotion to be explored among individuals with this disorder.
Social anxiety disorder is characterized by an intense fear of being negatively evaluated by others in social situations, according to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5, American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013).
a person sitting on a facing bench when waiting for a train, or a person seated at another table at a restaurant may (unwittingly) become the perceived audience in the mind of the socially anxious individual. Characteristics of the audience (e.g., importance, attractiveness, age) as well as features of the situation (e.g., degree of anonymity of the socially anxious individual) influence the likelihood that the person’s schema of the perceived audience will be activated.
In response to the perception of the audience, the socially anxious individual forms (or accesses) an internal mental representation of how he or she is perceived by the audience. This representation may be an image or a vague sense of how one appears to others, which likely involves seeing oneself as if through the eyes of the audience (they are, after all, the source of potential evaluation
socially anxious persons may
perceive that they have social performance deficits, such as stuttering or freezing or not knowing what to say, as well as a sense that they might be coming across as “boring” or “quiet,” which would also be exaggerated in the mental representation of the self as seen by the audience.
the problem is that the socially anxious person does not truly know the mind of the perceived audience and fills in this informational void with imagery that may be based on extremely negatively biased information.
"Social Anxiety: Clinical, Developmental, and Social Perspectives", Third edition, Hoffmann-DiBartolo
Fear or anxiety related to one or more social situations.
Patient fears that their acts or anxiety will result in
humiliation, embarrassment or rejection by others.
Social situations almost always provoke fear or
anxiety.
The fear is out of proportion to the actual threat.
Minimum duration six months.
The only subtype is
“performance” which is
restricted to speaking or
performing in public.
DSM criteria for Avoidant Personality Disorder:
A persistent pattern of social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation as indicated by four of the following:
avoids activities involving significant interpersonal contact;
unwilling to get involved with people;
shows restraint in intimate relationships;
preoccupied with being criticized or rejected;
inhibited in new interpersonal situations;
views self as socially inept, unappealing or inferior;
is unusually reluctant to take personal risks.
"Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health." - CarlJung
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| "Social Anxiety: Clinical, Developmental, and Social Perspectives", Third edition, Hoffmann-DiBartolo |
Adam Grant, TWITTER:
You don’t need to be the smartest one in the room or the hardest worker on the team to prove your value.
You just have to be more thoughtful than those who work harder and more dependable than those who think harder.
We put our trust in people who are reliable and reflective.
Reaching your goals is not success if you compromise your values along the way.
Getting ahead shouldn't force you to leave people behind. No accomplishment is worth sacrificing kindness or integrity.
Ambition shapes what you achieve. Character is defined by how you achieve it.
Carl Jung, C.W. Vol. 12 “Psychology and Alchemy”
Leaders who put power above people make themselves weaker. Oppressed groups underachieve.
Leaders who serve a higher purpose make people stronger. Empowered groups overachieve.
David fighting for something can beat Goliath fighting for nothing.
Keep showing up. That’s how you get better, more confident, and how you grow.
Psychology says, Force your mind to say “I can do this” and you will.
"If a man knows more than others, he becomes lonely." - Carl Jung
I either have imaginary audience of difficult and angry toxic people in my mind on my mind judging and criticizing how I look or how I talk or what I say - or in real life there are toxic people who judge and criticize my appearance or opinions - and then I feel social anxiety. Then I believe their conclusions and I try to appear what I think that they would approve - which is being angry and tough and opposite from calm - since either I must appear macho and angry and strong, or I try to react to their criticism and abuse and mocking by losing my temper. In either case I lose my happiness, smile, calmness and composure - by trying to define and re-define my profile, persona, how I talk and what I speak so in order that I appear what I deem and define as strong and accepted and approved. In the end I end up full of resentment and anger and rage and feeling like victim - and usually people dislike this appearance too. The point is that my definitions are wrong. My beliefs about how I should be is thwarted and guided through prism and lens of being in danger and that I must defend myself by being and appearing strong. And the ways how I do it is I believe will make me will safe and protected - I try to achieve the imaginary fantasy image of being super-strong. I believe that if I am silent that this is wrong. I believe that I should fight others. This all goes as if hypnosis. I do not have image or role model that being nice and pleasant is ok - that this is acceptable too. I noticed that this attempt to appear strong and accepted is motorized by trying to gain other person's validation - that this person will be nice to me, that them being nice is the most important thing in the world. I get so caught up in this urge and chasing the approval of others that I do not realize I am doing it.
That is toxic shame - that I deeply almost in a masked way I feel not enough. That I feel embarrassed about how I look, what I wear, where I am, what I do and how I appear, anything that I do that is embarrassing and unacceptable to imaginary audience that gives judgement what is strong and masculine and approving as courageous and bold and forceful.
It means that I am triggered by toxic behaviour into fear, and this fear makes me put on a mask - where I feel like I am on stage, at spotlight and that I must defend myself and appear perfect and strong. I would see this pressure as social anxiety. It is as if I must play and appear and act as expected of me - even though other person may not ask me to appear strong. I see this as what narcissists are doing - but from aggressive side of spectrum where they attack and ashame others. With social anxiety I attack myself, parts of myself, how and where I am, I feel deep shame of myself and this makes me inferior and incapable and inept and that my opinion and needs are not important, strange and weird. I would see here that both my toxic shame masked as need and urge to appear perfect and strong is problem as much as toxic person that is causing the stir and appearing demanding and unreasonable and angry and pushy.
I think the idea of how am I suppose to be, what to say, how I appear - is heavily influenced and modulated and distorted by toxic shame and external reference locus of control.
It seems to me what with social anxiety my scope of stage, of my influence, of influence on other people - I take the weight of world on my shoulder, I turn other people into my responsibility. I need to cut short the people who are important.
This leads to the fact - if I feel shame, shyness, embarrassed, triggered, social anxiety, fear of criticism - this means that other people already have influence over me. And whatever I do to protect myself - it seems to me from my position that I am empowering myself to be independent - but in reality I am making myself slave and I allow other people to control me. Their reactions, opinions and criticism is influencing my choices - even when I try to prove myself that I am not effected by others.
I see my role and deciding how to react and how to act plays a crucial role here. In toxic environment I would not have role models nor pattern nor examples how to react in strange, new and uncomfortable situations. When I base my decisions on what other people expect of me - is where I will likely choose to appear strong, wear a mask and people please others or people please the image of what I was taught was the correct - and it is often rooted in imaginary audience and critical and judgemental voices/instructions/definitions from the past.
What I noticed is that my definitions and conclusions are wrong when I feel imaginary audience or when someone is being critical. I feel toxic shame and it messes up my mind, my thoughts and I usually go along with automatic beliefs - probably due to amygdala hijacking and automatic response to trauma: fawning. Later, I regret for not being able to say no, for people pleasing and for shutting up and tolerating abuse. With anxiety I dis-tolerate anything I did, and during the event I cannot tolerate anything about me. I would like to challenge that part - I believe this part is safety mechanism and it is dysfunctional part of social anxiety.
With toxic shame - I only notice later on that I was not so weird and unacceptable, when I see other people doing the same thing as I did, behaving similar to me but without shame. I monitor my movement, gestures, tone of voice, words I say and I pathologize myself, or feel extreme shame if someone ashame some of those aspects of me. Then I bond, trauma bond with toxic people who obviously mock me, which I find extremely damaging to my confidence and I feel moral injury, being exposed to toxicity and doing nothing about it, not taking myself in safety, not standing up for myself - all for the purpose of appearing normal and accepted and validated by people who are toxic.
YT BRAINWASHED TO SAY YES EVEN WHEN YOU NEED TO SAY NO! SET BOUNDARIES IN RELATIONSHIPS AND MEAN IT!
https://youtu.be/kKXIc-ubJIM
Lisa A. Romano Breakthrough Life Coach Inc.
Mindfulness Thoughts, TWITTER:
Being alone until you feel like you again is a form of self-care.
My behavior might need improvement. They say Don't do that – that would be healthy response. But if I am being abused because of behaviour I did, that's not acceptable. Ever. Discern I do not deserve this treatment.
The dynamics has to change. Maybe I am not even the problem. Common what we think problem is I am needy. I said no – now I am selfish. These are not problems. These are normal aspects of relationships. I have needs, limits, capacities – you will say no to things, that is normal human thing. People who are entitled these things become weaponized against us.
In reality their entitlement is the problem. Now we can discern what is really going on here. Is this someone who's trying to control me to give them more access to my resources? Or is this someone who respects me and treat with kindness.
YT Exposing The Codependent Fantasy #2: The Power You Feel When You Make Your The Problem & Solution
https://youtu.be/lVV4wTp_3ek
Happiness After Codependency
There are no atheists. Humans worship stuff. We always have something we worship. If you don't worship God, whatever it is you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money, you will never have enough.
If you worship your body or sexuality or the need to be beautiful, or good looking all the time – you will always feel ugly.
If you worship power, you're always going to feel weak and dominate other people to cover the sense of powerlessness that you truly feel in life.
YT LIVE: If You Want a Happy Life, Lead a Good Life (February 13, 2022)
https://youtu.be/Pr6xyG6XdlQ
Hour of Power
C.G. Jung Foundation, TWITTER:
"Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purpose through him."
(3.4.2022)
It seems to me that the way I respond to triggers (something that scares me) along with new and unknown situations, events where I need to do something bold like standing up for myself, practically anything that I feel uncomfortable - that I tagged along a mask that is not functional. This mask is full of interpretations, conclusions, rules and definitions which I hang onto as if I have no other alternatives. This includes reactions and over-reactions where I worry and ruminate and hold on to grudge. Where I feel like embarrassed and I try to over-compensate by appearing strong and do anything to avoid criticism. And if there is criticism I feel like I have to appear strong and prove my worth by playing along some kind of character that I think other people would approve of. This character corresponds to me in version when I was bullied, traumatized and when I was faced with authorities who were abusive such as at school when teachers hit us and yelled at us. As if I have to shut up and self-censor myself in the response of someone being obnoxiously rude. Or that I have to stay and endure and be stoic just to prove I am strong, better and more macho by showing my strength in endurance of someone hysteria.
It seems to me that I collected other's hysterical response - not to imitate but in a way that I react to it, and it stuck with me, and I repeat it over and over whenever I feel panic, even when panic is caused by similar situation that is similar to the hysterical person, not the event itself, some unfortunate circumstance. I get scared and panicked by person's hysterical reaction that resembled the narcissistic abuse in the past - not the event itself. Narcissistic abuse being someone yelling, screaming, being unreasonable, someone you can't talk to, someone who won't listen to you, someone who is behaving erratic and demands from you to obey, shut up and commands you through their temper tantrums. The social anxiety and trauma would be - foretelling such situations to avoid them, by neglecting my needs and wants - then fawning when this actually happens - and then feeling guilt and being stuck in shame afterwards. Guilt and fawning and being stuck in toxic shame makes me in double binding situation, being cornered - where anything I do will be wrong and source of trauma and panic and fear: if I shut up my self esteem and confidence is ruined due to messages that I should be forceful and angry and hold on to grudge in order to show, manifest and parade my masculinity (toxic masculinity). If I react - then the person will say I am the one who is over reacting and I will be ashamed for my reaction. If I leave - I will fail to achieve toxic masculinity task of enduring the "small" and "realistic" life situations. If I yell back and scream - I will be labelled as violent one and ashamed for being over-sensitive. I know that sensible thing is either ignore or react by stating the facts and being transparent - however toxic shame and convictions and copy-paste system from the past prevents me from engaging in better, healthier ways other than learned safety mechanisms in feeling guilty, learned helplessness.
If I would remember to turn it into humor, or leave or speak calmly - my own convictions would label this as weird, wuss, un-manly, embarrassed, ashamed, unacceptable - and these judgements would over-run my decision to employ healthy response. So these biases and prejudices play a crucial role in social anxiety, panic and trauma. I know now that due to amygdala hijacking I am unable to stop and take over the control. I know now that due to toxic shame I export my self worth into other people especially when they are aggressive and I am unable to have my own common sense telling me what is correct, right - and instead criticism of others, real or imagined is controlling my actions. Most common action after reading self help books and classical CBT is that I shut up and freeze - since I know that I will most likely make fool of myself if I let my guard down and engage in fight response, as I did when social anxiety begun with bullying. I also know that I might get attacked if I stand up to bully as I did when I was bullied. And I see priority in my safety over what is correct and healthy. And I am seeking safety through fawning and staying up with toxic people. I see safety in both avoidance of anger of toxic people, and in the image of what I am suppose to be based on critical and toxic people, abusers and narcissistic people.
I think that with social anxiety, trauma and avoidance we are skipping the rhythm, and we skip the beat - we are not aligned with tact and tactics. We cut contact and avoid everyone due to panic and stress and past trauma, but we keep toxic people and toxic environment. Instead - I would see healthier tactic in staying and giving a people a chance before judging them. Staying and collecting enough data so that we avoid being over-reactive and taking automatic actions such as running away. And that we employ filtering - where we see with whom we are dealing with - and act accordingly. With anxiety and fear we will likely cut contact with easy targets - someone who does not have obligations, where there is no charge - and in this way we cut neutral people who have potential in becoming friends. On the other hand, with panic and anxiety and prejudiced we stay in contact with toxic people. With this dance between automatic avoidance and nurturing parasites, we are in wrong tact, wrong steps.
Behind social anxiety is trauma. It is trauma in form of hypnosis, when even though you are told to snap out of toxic shame and trauma bonding - you are still governed and your strings are being pulled by deep ingrained belief of being inept and leaning on to other people to approve and validate your worth. Pulling the strings act is done through imaginary audience phenomena - where flashbacks and triggers twitch and pull a nerve and shame and deep wound inside, and other person's comment, critic and opinion is guiding instruction that is influencing my inception of making any decision in the future. Where seeing someone in the same situation, facing the same problem and making decision similar to the contrary groupthink and herd mentality gives approval and validation - whereas without it - it feels wrong and you want to quit, run away and hide in shame because you are different from given default approval or recognition by society.
With social anxiety I will feel ashamed for being people pleaser yet engage in people pleasing automatically, especially if other person is unreasonable. Other people's comments and criticism will influence my actions and decisions, even though I am aware of external referencing - and it is due to self worth being shattered and expelled outside of me. Social anxiety and trauma is when you are aware of importance of self worth, and you still are unable to ground yourself. Social anxiety and trauma therefore is being unable to ground yourself, to have self worth and not rely on other people's opinion and criticism. Social anxiety and trauma is being influenced by other people's reactions, comments, criticism and unreasonable, toxic and aggressive behaviour.
I believe this is when growing up I never was shown, explained or experienced to say no to someone's demands, someone being in authority and someone who would punish and be hysterical if I objected. It is never learning to say words to express myself, voice out the elephant in the room and asserting what I need and want. This lesson was missed, I never learned it. Without it I never learned how to build self worth, I only have shackles and shattered walls that suppose to be self worth - instead of building a villa. I only have a bunker to avoid shelling and sudden attacks, not home inside me. I have improvised shelter where I am on lookout for the next sudden and unprovoked blow - instead of home where I live normal day-to-day life.
I realize now that my social anxiety is that I must not get into confrontation, express my anger and to make mistake of make fool of myself of do anything inappropriate or say I hate someone - because from my experience this means chaos, catastrophe and the end of everything - that I will be left alone as I was in the bullying incident or many times before with toxic people. Where the shame and ashaming - and me reacting to it and rejecting it meant that I am rejected automatically. That I am not allowed to speak back and defend myself. That I would be punished through social rejection. And I default to two responses: fawn or avoid. Nothing in between. No voicing out the elephant in the room. I either people please of cut contact. No assertiveness, speaking out what I want, being frank, no warning, no alarm nor alert, no expressing of my emotions. Whereas other people are allowed to these. And this keeps me stuck in two modes - me fawning, me shutting up, me agreeing and seeking approval and validation, me evading and avoiding other people's anger by going along with their demands - or me cutting contact, going away. I think I should speak up. This I could not do since I believed that this would lead to my social death - rejection and ostracizing.
Although most of the movie is naturalistic, with nothing happening that could not quite happen in our reality, there is nonetheless a dreadful sense of illusoriness, as if we’re seeing events through a gauze.
she’s a slip of nothing who materializes from nowhere, a pure unformed girl with no plans or interests of her own. Permanently clad in infantalizing pink, we first catch sight of her staring blankly through a window at the women leading the old folks on their rounds through the hot pool at the spa, observing and absorbing. She blows bubbles in her coke, and is too tiny to fit into any of the bathing suits at the spa. When Millie is assigned to train her, Pinky immediately latches onto the older girl like a hatchling imprinting on momma. Pinky won’t remain an eternal child, however. After a symbolic death, she is reborn as a woman.
https://366weirdmovies.com/163-3-women-1977/
she was borderline narcisstistic. She seemed to think that she was important and popular when reality it was quite the opposite. Was she really known for her dinner parties, the way she talks about how guys want to go out with her when it really isn't the case, she only brought the bar owner home because he seemed to be the only one to notice her or give her any attention and that was an affair.
by Jack_Rabbit_Slims91 » 5 years ago(July 16, 2016 10:31 PM)
https://www.filmboards.com/board/p/1668866/
When Millie says to Pinky "You don't drink. You don't smoke. You don't do any of the things you're supposed to be." It's so funny and yet it's so sad and very disturbing. Millie has deluded herself into believing this kind of heartless reality based on commercials and magazine ads. Because she has nothing else to guide her on life. Her parents are both dead (and Millie is still quite young) and it also feels like they didn't much want her to begin with. She doesn't have the gumption or spirit or the strong instincts to help her find her own way as an individual - many of us don't, that takes a lot - instead, she just relies on what she is told. She is extremely gullible and to others, she is a total embarassment. I suppose it is easy to understand where they are coming from - nobody wants to be alone - but it's a terrible shame the way life has treated Millie.
by I_Love_Hutch » 5 years ago(July 03, 2016 02:44 PM)
https://www.filmboards.com/board/p/1668866/
Prof. Feynman, TWITTER:
You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing.
Prof. Feynman, TWITTER:
You learn nothing from life if you think you're right all the time and if you think you know everything already. Humility is necessary for growth.
Prof. Feynman, TWITTER:
How to study Science? 🧠
• Indulge in the joy of discovery
• Embrace uncertainty and doubt
• See every problem as an opportunity
• Be curious about everything
• Love the details
• THINK constantly
• Focus deeply
• Reject the "genius" myth
Prof. Feynman, TWITTER:
Your value does not decrease based on someone's inability to see your worth.
Prof. Feynman, TWITTER:
One of the signs of intelligence is to be able to accept the facts without being offended.
Prof. Feynman, TWITTER:
Do not use your energy to worry. Use your energy to believe, to create, to learn, to think and to grow.
Prof. Feynman, TWITTER:
Teach your children that not knowing something is not a bad thing, it is an opportunity to learn something.
Teach them that making mistake is not failure, it's the first step to understanding.
"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making darkness conscious".
- Carl Jung
Creativity begins to die when we fail to celebrate curiosity.
We reward students for getting the right answer, but not for asking good questions. We promote managers for delivering results, but not for developing new ideas.
Encouraging imagination is the mother of invention.
The Simple Explanation for Self-Love Deficit Disorder. Codependency Reformulated.
Root cause needs to be addressed. It all begins with attachment trauma. This often occurs when child is raised by narcissistic parent who does not allow them to feel loved, respected, cared for and safe. Love is merely conditional, judgmental. This trauma is responsible for causing core shame. Core shame is distorted belief being fundamentally bad or flawed. Such toxic shame reduced person to feeling only good when they take care of others while ignoring themselves. Loving someone while being invisible creates pathological loneliness. Reduces one to feel invisible, worthless, and unlovable. Prone to addiction – relationship that will make lonely pain go away. Which never remedies their loneliness and pursuit of love, respect and caring. Ends with regret and shame. This attachment traumatized shame based pathological lonely narcissist addicted person behaves with self love deficit disorder. Who habitually attempts to control others into loving them. Pyramid demonstrated why someone with self love deficit does not respond to traditional psychotherapy. SLDD is just bunch of symptoms much more complicated and psychological problems, the problem can never be solved. There is cure - cure is achievement of self love abundance. That is opposite of pyramid levels. First root – attachment trauma resolution – express long forgotten experience, accept sad reality, let it go, integrate it in conscious mind. Core self love, existential peace. Feels comfortable in own skin. Demand mutuality and reciprocity in all of their relationships. Mutual reciprocity. Self love- being perfect despite their problems.
YT Ross Rosenberg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVpbsZaef8Y
Problem that is treated is not the actual cause. This invisible addiction cannot be remedied unless its underlined causes are addressed and solved. No more band-aid therapy: working on surface problems when neglecting the root cause only triggers the very shame that perpetuates self love deficit from the beginning.
The Simple Explanation for Self-Love Deficit Disorder. Codependency Reformulated.
YT Ross Rosenberg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVpbsZaef8Y
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I don’t mind any of them unless they are with a condescending tone.
Fact, TWITTER:
People usually forget to thank you when you do good to them, but they never forget to blame you if you did wrong to them.
Adam Grant, TWITTER:
The highest compliment from someone who disagrees with you is not “You were right.” It’s “You made me think.”
Good arguments help us recognize complexity where we once saw simplicity.
The ultimate purpose of debate is not to produce consensus. It’s to promote critical thinking.
MODERN MAN, TWITTER:
You aren't truly free until you're comfortable being laughed at.
"Shame is a soul-eating emotion." #Jung
Authenticity is being who you are. You aim to make your identity visible to others.
Integrity is becoming who you say you are. You strive to internalize the image you project to others.
Self-expression depends on knowing yourself. Self-expansion comes from evolving yourself.
The arrival fallacy is the illusion that joy lies at a destination ahead.
Achieving a goal is not like walking through a portal. You don’t magically become happier when you graduate, get promoted, or win an award.
The best way to improve your well-being is to change your path.
pull "normal" people definitions of honor, what I am suppose to do, what is my responsibility, what is my job -usually their prism and filter is to comfort and appease and not disappoint toxic people.
Toxic people exploit vacuum and undefined borders, questions in the air and they exploit it.
Machiavellian seek as predators confused targets, someone who is having a need, they target someone who is seeking answers.
With trauma, social anxiety our self worth is questioned because we cannot decide due to fear what other people think about us, and in this way other people define it for us - they implement their solutions, views and approval.
Toxic people do not have label on forehead and to make it worse, toxic people appear as friends and help.
They make their definitions and rules that fill the gap and unanswered questions and impose themselves as solution and dictator to obey. We end up trying to fit into their crap and ask for more. We get hypnotized that we are chasing gold - while it is in fact crap. Word crap may broke this hypnosis based on irrational guilt and toxic shame that is tool for toxic people.
I get self worth by expressing my disagreement, which can lead to confrontation and conflict. In toxic environment, toxic people will expect from us to perform as ordered, perfect and without mistakes. And they will over-react if we make mistake of fail to produce the result they desired. If they construct it in such way to devalue me as person, labeling me as weak, inept, stupid because I did not make job done as asked - I will connect this to my self worth, when I shut up and self-censor myself. I see that toxic people achieve this by connecting perfectionism to my sense of obligation and fair play and being servile but also toxic people connect this superiority and entitlement they feel about themselves to violence and verbal abuse, punishment and degrading of the other person. Now the problem here is when they are successful at presenting this abuse in a way that is acceptable to society norms, and then I define it to myself as me being inept, thus developing toxic shame and I end up with exporting my self worth into external reference locus of control. I end up seeking approval and validation from toxic person, where I think I am valuable when being approved and appreciated to other person's requests. From my point I do not see this as codependency, I do not see it as toxic dynamics, I do not perceive abolishment of self-love, I do not see it as toxic person is on the other side. What I see is my obligation to meet orders and goal posts. That is all I see - a carrot in front of me, and I chase it. I am being hypnotized. Now social anxiety feeling in this case is helping me to snap out of it. Social anxiety is therefor not something to pathologize - because if I pathologize it, if I think that my symptoms are the problem - I end up with people pleasing and being pushover and I am unable to build self worth. Without self worth I do not know what I like, I am not able to define what is toxic, and I am unable to stand up for myself. So in this dynamics where toxic person is exploiting me through abuse - social anxiety is clear signal from within that I lack self love, lack self worth and that I am in toxic dynamics that to me seem like social relationship. It is not, I am not being on par with the person who feels scary. My fears and panic are reaction to toxic environment, it is not my over-imagination nor my fantasy - as Classical CBT tries to explain it to me.
Trauma makes amygdala to grow. Amygdala means being cautious, it is related to being perfectionist, since I am afraid of mistakes, making something wrong. Amygdala is connected to being empath, having empathy. Therefore lowering social anxiety means influencing the effect of being too cautious and too sensitive to other people, since the brain is pushed into being too sensitive how I come off to other people.
Trauma also puts me in impossible situation - where I have to express myself in order to heal. Trauma will make me shut up and self censor. But in the same time if I talk about what bugs me - I will come off as complainer, which is draining to other people and to myself.
I noticed that with panic in social situations, when there are nervous and difficult people, I freeze and the biggest trouble is that I do not know what to say. I am talking about the situations where the other person is seemingly dangerous and aggressive. I totally forget things to say such as: "there is no need to get mad at me, this is my job" for example. Instead I feel inferior, I see other person as superior and I must fawn and let the other person decide and label and go along with their assumptions and conclusions - to the point I am unable to say I disagree with you.
I believe this is trauma, it is effect of being exposed to long term narcissistic abuse (constant complaining, nitpicking, criticizing over small and insignificant errors, lack of knowledge and flaws). Now as I discover that this is trauma, and that I lack things to say due to amygdala hijacking, since I understand the panic is part of trauma response, and not my personal flaw or character trait, I am able to make a space between panic and my response. And suddenly now I am able to understand that I miss things to say such I disagree with you - without drama and explosion to state the facts. I believe this lifts up the veil, the fog is gone - and I am surprised to see how other people respond in similar situations, people who are not panicky and dramatic, people who are calmed and collected. I believe that before I was aware of trauma, I would unconsciously switch off, I would focus on panic and hiding and running away, and I was not able to perceive and see that I have option of speaking up, so the information and data and tactile resources never got through me, I never heard or seen how other people cope with things that bug me. Instead I was having guilt and shame as primary focus. So I believe it is healing when I am aware of this process and when I notice that there are options and other people are using them - and now I am able to perceive it. I also believe that in toxic environment, in shame culture environment - I am unable to have good and healthy model, instead I am exposed to toxic people and their toxic words and toxic reactions.
I also noticed that people will bother me when they are nervous, when they are accusatory and when they have mean streak - when there is no humour and when I do not sense good intentions, only hostile intentions. With social anxiety I may predict unknown situations in the future as difficult and when I choose not to take action - that this is the problem. Staying and choosing to be immobile based on my fear, on my prediction that there will be difficult people around. Another issue might be that I perceive someone's anger as dangerous, when they are not in reality. And this is the huge problem - since I might choose to over ride natural defense system and then I am governed by my fear instead. I am talking about situations where I see myself as inferior, I have imaginary audience and inner critic, that I see myself as wrong, ugly - even though no one explicitly said it. And that I draw conclusion to not move and avoid contact and choose immobility - this is problem with social anxiety.
Another issue is when I do in fact encounter difficult people. That I do not know how to respond, other than learned freeze and fawn techniques. This is where my ability to have option and that I realize to use humor, and that I am not afraid of the other person who might be hysterical - in such way that I allow my reaction to be natural, which may be labelled by bystanders as frightened and weak or unacceptable. But the point is that I am not making decisions based on someone's comment - real or imagined one.
Then the way I handle social situations and social anxiety is that I allow myself to explore, to be inquisitive as oppose to fawn, shut up and worry. I see that I am influenced by environment - where one person may be critical all the time, I will pick up being worried and hypervigilant and choose not to take any action.
Defusion and de-escalation along with psychology tips about social anxiety gives the message that anxiety is over-reaction. And technically it really is - it is uncomfortable feeling, mostly it is related in advance, before the event, and usually is resolved by not taking action. However I do not see the solution in focusing on the symptoms and suppressing the anxiety by ignoring or belittling it, or mocking is as weakness and forcing myself into being strong and courageous - since in the end, anxiety will not go away and one serious problem is toxic environment, where the other person does not have clear and honest intention. If I ignore red flags I will get used and taken advantage of someone who is abnormal and criminal. I will simply label my discomfort as weakness and something to deride, while my reaction and instinct in this case is totally valid and natural reaction to abnormal setting. With tips about how to calm anxiety symptom, I totally ignore toxic shame that is shaping my reality. And I totally ignore the direction and goals and my self worth - instead I react to circumstances and people and I try to align my life and future according to my fears - in a way that I overcome them by being out there, being active just for the point of exposure. In reality, this does not resolve anxiety, since the true problem lies in my head - how I interpret reality.
I am aware of dysregulation and to become unstuck, to accept panic symptoms and to know when triggered, it is trauma stuck in my body. I cannot shake it off to what triggers me. Someone yelling, someone being rude, aggressive, hysterical - real or fictitious, happening in front of me or imagined. I know that I am over-reacting and I still feel the urge to feel guilt, ashamed - and I feel strong urge to appear strong and approving and validated by the audience. As if I am important. I think I need to focus on this need to appear without mistakes and flaws. There is strong urge that I appear strong, competent, that I must not be considered as coward. Then afterwards I think about how I should have acted, what I should have said and worry about happening again. This is my inner explanations that are thwarting and distorting what I should be and do and how to act and this is causing me distress. The sense of obligation and duty how I am suppose to be mixed with toxic shame and irrational guilt. In the end I avoid and do nothing, and then I feel inept and worthless. The alternative would be to accept myself as I am and stop trying to appear superior. To stop over-compensating in my mind.
The point is that when I figure out cognitive defusion and de-escalation and trauma resolve - and the fact that we cannot control other people, coupled with the fact that we cannot control external events, amor fati, that what happens will happen - in the end it is realization that I am helpless. The only thing I can do is grow out and in this way cut contact with toxic people and toxic habits. My attempt to be people pleaser and to worry and to engage in pureOCD worry loops - is a way for me to try to control external world. However from my perspective, due to distorted thinking and toxic shame, it seems to me that I can do something to control people and events by worrying and staying with toxic people.
As in codependency where I feel alone so I will depend on other person attention, focus and validation - in the same way in Classical CBT I am explained that social anxiety must be cured with exposure, which means I endure toxic people for the sake of exposure.
The core of social anxiety.
At the core is trauma and over-reaction to triggers. Some situation ocurr and cognitive distortions sets off thwarted explanations. These may include belief that the other person is extremely vile villain and due to just world hypothesis some karma must happen to this person or else it is catastrophe. This perceived danger is coupled with physical symptoms that are very uncomfortable and habitually associated with avoidance and catastrophe. It is hypnosis and I am unable to snap out of it, so I cannot find for example humor in such situation, and not to take it personally and so much dangerously. I feel like it will last forever, that I cannot escape, that I am ashamed just for being in such situation, that I am inept and stupid for being there, and that I must run away immediately, that I am focus of attention. It is rush of toxic shame, wave of embarrassment - even when I am not doing anything. If I do something, I believe I must not make mistake and any mocking is painful. Yelling and screaming is devastating. It sets of physical symptoms and distorted explanations. Thus I am unable to say sorry, I feel pride and that I must stand up for myself. That I have to engage in my defense of honor and that I must be correct and right on one hand. On other I feel unworthy and inept and I must shut up. These two beliefs battle inside me, as if there is no other alternative. I am unable to re-focus and to change focus. I am hypnotized into fear and thoughts are not helping. I am trying to make sense and to explain myself and to find peace and answer - yet this seeking is OCD, I try to resolve anxiety by thinking and finding solutions. In this state of panic I am unable to speak out directly nor naturally. I cannot, I feel unable to make comment and criticize back the person who is unreasonable. In this state I feel like I am under the ice and I cannot break it to come out to surface.
I do not notice it - but I am in amygdala hijacking in this state. I am triggered and dysregulated.
To me, it seems like my thoughts are the same as in calm period and I trust my thoughts, and this way I jump to conclusions, form quick biases and serve any cognitive fallacy, I oversimplify and form prejudices that seem to me like ultimate truth, I do not even remember to doubt it, at least to allow myself to doubt.
I do not have enough space to remember alternatives or different angles, however I do remember all past trespasses and transgressions, errors and anything that bugs me. I use up labels as tools to form opinion about other people, where they are aggressive monsters and I am victim. That I have to defend my honor, which usually is in form of passive aggression. There is no direct and open expression of my opinion.
It is about making a switch. From social anxiety perspective I am in immediate danger, people are ugly and difficult, they are all dangerous and they all hate me - and I am forever doomed to stay in mud, where people's comments are automatically negative criticism. I have to shift from that place onto realistic explanation of what is going on. The truth is that there are toxic people out there, however with social anxiety I over-estimate the percentage of hate and under-estimate toxic people in sense that I fawn to them. There is disbalance. I would see social anxiety as indicator of toxic people - however social anxiety is messing up the results of this indicator. If I see that I will always be trapped, that all people are difficult and that I must fawn - this is clear indicator that the indicator of social anxiety is off, I am being dysregulated. The problem is that if I throw away my ability to trust myself - even when I am clearly wrong - I will feed toxic shame and I will be stuck in loop of inferiority, feeling inept and distrustful to my self worth. I will end up with toxic shame ruling my decisions which are always detrimental - me running away and shutting up.
It is about putting it all together - where I learn the wrong steps and replace them with functional ones. It is about understanding that triggers will hurt, they will dysregulate me and I will be tempted to over-react and to make sudden decisions based on hallucinations and delusions and bias.
Toxic people suck energy from their targets. By nitpicking, making drama - we can opt out of Karpman drama triangle. However, if we shut up and self censor ourselves, we give message to ourselves that we are weak - or someone toxic will define us as weak if we do not talk back and argue with people who are overstepping boundaries. Question at the core is why I find someone's comment so important to base my value of myself on this person's words? I believe this is the core of trauma for social anxiety - where other people opinion, words, actions, anything they say or do or think (real or imagined) - is too important, there is extreme significance in other person. That is trauma bonding. Other people in this way can easily influence and control someone's mood, decisions and thoughts and actions, simply by making a comment.
So healing social anxiety is ability to get up and take action. Avoidance is giving up. Avoidance makes sense when we recuperate from stress and pain. If this stays constant, it is blockage, fear is controlling everything. If I avoid, I will do this in response to pain, triggers, flashbacks and anything I cannot control. So the point is in ability to get on my feet, to take steps, to take action. From social anxiety perspective, this means that I accept unfair treatment and take up the abuse. That if I react that I over-react. That if I feel anger or injustice, that this is me fantasizing of just world. This is what is creating people pleasing and fawning and being pushover and moral injury: the inability to react in correct manner to unfair people and unfair events. Inability to react both in mental and in physical world.
I will try to spare someone's feelings, what I think might hurt them, I label it potentially dangerous for them - and I shut up, I do not react, I abstain from talking. And I label it as social anxiety, and I try to remain calm. Then I feel bad for not reacting when I should. I feel weak, and I label myself as wuss. My perception, definition of kind is too strict, unrealistic and non functional. In the same time other people are freely expressing themselves between each other, use vulgarities and profanities - and nobody is stricken by shock or hurt or pain. I believe that with social anxiety there is higher IQ and people will feel cognitive dissonance, for their beliefs being questioned and they react to this pain, them being dumb, being exposed as idiots - this is why they react. So I can camouflage my words of truth to be less direct. Whenever I can choose between being kind and right - that I choose being kind. And kind meaning that I formulate my words without attack, it does no mean shutting up.
So I realized that with accepting myself as I am, with my social fears - that this means I have answer for social anxiety: situations where I am cornered into being silent and being attacked by aggressive unreasonable person where I cannot escape their rage and criticism. The solution is that I realize I do have option. I can turn around and walk away, stop communication. And mostly, I will abstain, naturally avoid any of such situations anyway. I will not put myself in position to be cornered. I have remnants of memories when I had trauma bonding, external reference locus of control and these situations from the past where I did not understand that I have intrinsic value, and I did not know about Complex trauma that I am stuck in worry loops due to brain injury - so I did not know what moving and shifting focus means. I know now that I alarm and alert other person and to cut contact with toxic people.
TheraminTrees
https://youtu.be/kMeehIpxH5k
Even the steps they take towards health can inspire shame. Underlying message is the same: there's something fundamentally wrong with you.
Unlike gaslighting and double binds which stop the moment we cut out abusers out of our lives, shame can persist long after we've ditched our abusers. Many targets feel deeply ashamed for allowing the abuse to happen.
Because the coping technique is in itself a source of shame, it can lead to self-reinforcing cycle. Shame provokes the coping technique which in turn provokes more shame.
One of the most twisted kinds of shame instilled in targets of abuse is the shame of sticking up for yourself. Survival behaviour, classical instinctive responses to persistent threat: we shut down. We numb ourselves. We lash out.
That's the mindset of abusive shamers who expect us to know exactly what to do and say at any given moment. Overcoming shame means letting go of those impossible expectations.
Dig deep in concept of responsibility. Identify a range of factors that would affect how an individual's responsibility was assessed: knowledge, skill, autonomy, intention, power.
Many shame-based individuals struggle to judge for themselves what's reasonable. Is it ok to think this? It is okay to feel that? In this state of doubt, there's often a temptation to defer to the judgments of others to let others do the thinking for them.
If we're struggling to judge for ourselves whether a thought, a feeling, an action is acceptable deferring to what other people find acceptable will do nothing to enhance our judgment. To do that, we have to develop our own thinking.
Do people who provoke raw survival instincts deserve any place in your life? Public shaming can really serve to clarify things, how people are moralising non-moral issues, invested in preserving illusion than well-fare.
There's no wisdom of crowds in abusive public shaming. Just a collection of confused, misguided, and, in some cases, sadistic individuals. Fear being discovered transgressing a group feeds into the tyranny of the majority.
https://youtu.be/kMeehIpxH5k
Covert abuse doesn't involve yelling. Cover abuser systematically manipulates your mind and emotional responses by using mind games: gaslighting, evasion, blame shifting, double binds and invalidation. These are hard to detect, describe and hard to confront.
No matter how hard you try they seem unpleasable, and somehow it is your fault. We think overt sign of abuse: yelling, name calling, hitting, out of control behaviour. They will hone on that one thing you haven't done and focus on it. No matter what you do, they are never happy with you.
Over long time what this creates are limiting beliefs like “Nothing I do is ever enough. What I try I always fail. There's something wrong with me.” Person covertly abusive to you has the ability to compliment others and see good in others.
They notice in others, nothing in you.
They invalidate your reality. They do in form as if they care about you. They say “I didn't say that, you must heard it wrong”. Then they combine that lie with false mirage of caring “Why would I do that on purpose”. Faking concern and twisting reality causes us tremendous trauma. We have inner GPS, gaslighting hacks our inner GPS.
Michele Lee Nieves - Trauma Recovery Coach
When you’re right, no one remembers. When you’re wrong, no one forgets.
When groups defer to the most assertive person in the room, they reward confidence over competence.
The danger of speaking with conviction is that it can stifle critical thinking and silence dissent.
We learn more from people who explore ideas than those who attack and defend.
"Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes" exercise
Wikipedia
Toxic shame and complex trauma, known also as the exposure to long term narcissistic abuse is depriving its targets from natural immunity. So I will be inclined to cognitive distortions and inability to have shield against perceived threat. It is said that visualization and imagination, mental images help to achieve better sport results and higher self esteem. While people who grew up in healthy and loving environment - these people will have natural ability to think positively and they will not stutter and have blockages in life, self sabotage. This is why imagination and mental images are our manual over-ride. It is intervention in our awareness to provide ourselves love that we never received, that would give us natural strength and inner resources to withstand unfair situations and toxic people. Without inner mental image, we are left to codependency, immature ego defense mechanisms and reacting to life.
So with trauma and social anxiety I will have distorted mechanism inside me that will take the place of mental imaging and focus my thoughts to danger, criticism and external referencing. I will feel panic in anything that triggers me into shame and I will obey this mechanism, as if under hypnosis.
Regarding social anxiety and avoidance, the act of avoiding toxic people is not issue. I was convinced by Classical CBT and self-help resources that avoidance was problem. And toxic shame distorted this instruction as inability to manage life in general and me being inept. Trauma makes me get triggered by toxic people. Highly sensitivity makes me take things deeply which I wrongly label as taking it too personally, since people who are not sensitive instruct me and explain me my own personal feelings. So the problem is trauma bonding, external reference and codependency which partly arises due to explanation that I am inept due to stimuli. Problem is when I shut up and self censor myself, this reinforces my belief that I am inept. Then I avoid people and events which are not related to toxic people - and that is the problem, too. So solution is to know how to be prepared without preparation being part of PureOCD intrusive worry hypervigilance. This means that I know what to say and how to react, to draw my ideas in accordance to intelligence, rather than trauma, fears and learned helplessness.
This is where guilt comes in. When I act in accordance to my values, I will feel guilty and ashamed - due to trauma and irrational guilt and toxic shame. So another problem is mechanism inside me that thwarts reality, explanations and perceptions in black and white catastrophizing. This part is blocking my personality, expressing myself, saying what I dislike and be sure when I refuse something or someone and stick with it.
This means that avoidance is not problem. I am focusing on pathologizing myself and normal reaction, as instructed by Classical CBT. Problem is that I distrust myself. I impose on myself shoulds and other people expectations, other people explanations and their criticism, and then I modulate and block my decisions and actions in accordance to other people's reactions. This means that I allow myself to be what someone might define, label, criticize and nitpick as weird.
One of techniques that I did not learn is speaking up and voicing out the elephant in the room, voicing out what I dislike openly, from facts - not through reacting. That I have evidence what I dislike and why. Another is that I cut contact with toxic people, stop communication with them. And this one is complex: that I speak my evidence, that I state my side, advocacy yet in the same time that I do not hold grudge - because I know that if I hold resentment I will counterintuitively allow this person to control me. And this person may not be toxic all the time, that they are allowed to make mistakes and be imperfect.
So in the same time I have to be myself - or I will feel toxic shame - but the complex part is that I manually override parts of my reactions which are traumatized and affected by toxic shame. These parts are generating anxiety and hypervigilance. Such as quitting too soon, too fast and without evidence that something is dangerous.
The idea to handle and manage social anxiety is to seek solution to problem, where the detection of problem is the most important part. And social anxiety is help to recognize that there is problem in the first place. So social anxiety is not issue itself, it is alarm and indication where I need to pay attention and seek solutions to external problem - once I realize that something is problem. Inner criticism is external problem, since it is triggered by toxic people via toxic shame. Toxic shame is external, however it is stuck due to trauma, trauma being external problem, something outside that influenced my balance into dis-balance in age when I was developing persona and boundaries - rendering my boundaries useless.
The point to live with social anxiety is that I do not fawn, that I do not go into emotional dysregulation. This means that I turn off conscience, that I do not react where I would react with negative thoughts and convictions that I am in danger and that I must shut up - and in the same time that I do react when someone is unreasonable.
The urge to know everything is perfectionism and it is coming from trauma, being hurt and attacked for making mistakes. So I expect that I will learn how to deal with social anxiety somehow. In reality all I need is general guidance and specific instructions after I learn what the problem is. If I fawn and freeze, it is obvious that I need to learn how to react in situations that otherwise find confusing and when I do not know what to say. All I need is awareness what is going on and to know my self worth as guidance in situations when I do not know what to do. Also it is helpful to learn about toxic people, so that I know what I do not like and what I will not tolerate. Toxic people will impose themselves as guidance. With perfectionism which was imposed by toxic people I do not realize I already have this power inside me, to know what I want - and that I do not need someone's signal, approval and validation.
With social anxiety, although it is complex, it really comes down to issues with codependency. Fears and toxic shame are causing panic, trauma also sets the mind to fawn, and external reference locus of control is the only true problem here. That other people decide, that I allow other people to affect and control my thoughts and decisions. Once I am aware of this, I self-validate myself, which means being fine with mistakes, with fears, with my over-reactions - where the point is that I remove toxic shame, hypervigilance, a feeling that I am inept with self trust and that I express myself instead of shutting up. Once I am aware of this, in crazy situations and in scary situations I will know what to do, instead of feeling panic and desperate for external validation. This includes cutting contact with toxic people and confronting and speaking and voicing out the elephant in the room. This also includes that I am aware that I have external element inside me that is twisting my thoughts and perception into catastrophizing. I know this is due to trauma and being exposed to narcissistic abuse environment, bad role models. With these I learned wrong mentality, wrong thinking - that includes resentment, and being in bad mood, nagging and complaining, this part is inserted inside me, like a virus where the body does not recognize it as foreign object, so I go along with orders, commands and urge inside - such as that I believe that I know the best, that I must be advice giver, that I know how. In reality I know only for myself. So to avoid being insensitive, I have to talk about my vulnerabilities as example - instead of coming off as I patronize others.
As oppose to Classical CBT which states that the main issue and the only problem are panic symptoms - I see the only core problem with social anxiety is not knowing what to do, not knowing what to think, and feeling guilty when making positive and constructive decisions - such as cutting contact with toxic person or toxic habit (due to complex double bind messages either from withing, inner critic or external toxic people's explanations, Machiavellians).
With toxic shame and social anxiety and trauma I feel irrational guilt even when I do make all correct steps, when I make all great decisions that are the best to make - I feel wave of toxic shame convincing me through cognitive distortions and inferiority complex that I am wrong, that I make wrong decisions and that I must correct myself and feel shame for doing, thinking, saying, being exactly as I am. When I understand that all people are wounded, I will not choose to be cruel - yet borderliners around me will convince me that I am not macho enough if I do not scream and yell. That I am not strong enough when I choose peace over hysteria. Imaginary public and homonculus inside my thoughts will thwart my expectations, convictions and perceptions, definitions of what is correct into compulsions and obsessions how I am suppose to be. I will be hypnotized into pretending to be something that I am not, and I will feel shame that will block me and make me immobile. As if I am not allowed to be out there if I do not comply with external demands, external expectations, external definitions. So toxic shame is virus element in social anxiety where immobility will become fawning - based on shame of being kind and nice with external brutal message that I am not man enough because I simply am in situation with someone who is unfair, hysterical and abusive. That it is my fault and I am suppose to be superman that will act, react and fight and solve other people's problems, only to be met with double bind criticism later on when I do, and being labeled as codependent for meddling into other people's problems. I see other people's expectations as crucial problem here, toxic shame internalized that is based on trauma bonding and external reference locus of control. To overcome it I will have to take counterintuitive actions and face criticism, shame and ridicule, mocking - both from within and from toxic and ignorant people outside, especially when I am in toxic shame environment. This is because when I step back and take a look from a different angle and far away - I will realize that small things are insignificant, small things that appear as huge panic attack to me when I am confronted with someone angry and traumatic. When my toxic shame interprets it as catastrophe and never ending doom that I must run away, hide, shut up and fawn as reaction and learned coping mechanism. When I am able to step back, I will see that I can react in different manner, that will be shocking, unacceptable, not approved and that will be mocked and shamed by toxic people.
Social anxiety is feeling guilt simply by being in situation that is not even connected in any way with responsibility, mistakes or any other common trigger of anxiety. It is feeling fear the next time - and it is fear of people over-reacting. The fear is still there even after knowing that it is irrational. So the solution is to be active and following my tasks, following step by step what I need to do, what I need to ask for, where I need to go. That becomes problem when it is vague and I do not know steps. Then all I have is fear and expectation of criticism and trauma and shame and guilt for being in situations that may not even be connected to me being in the focus.
Self worth is important ingredient that is thwarted with trauma. Social anxiety here is only litmus paper - indicator that there is low self worth. Therefore social anxiety is not problem - it is only alarm system. Classical CBT is pathologizing this alarm system as psychological issue - and thus creates toxic shame, further destroying self worth, self confidence and self esteem. With self esteem we have feeling inside that we are deserving to be alive and to exist. With trauma we are being programmed to believe we are arrogant if we have an opinion, statement, dislike and like, anything that states my existence and being.
Goethe said: "For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him, he must regard himself as greater than he is".
This means, that with trauma we are taught and programmed to believe we have no worth. Narcissists build fake persona and they wear fake mask that allows them to participate in social life. They make themselves believe they are entitled and deserve special treatment and they express this belief with arrogance and tools such as gaslighting and double bind - which causes brain injury to people around them if exposed for too long to this treatment.
With trauma we need to build up regard inside for ourselves. In a healthy manner. As oppose to believe in false image of superiority - it is about realization that when we have no ill will towards others, when we do not have any evil thoughts and evil actions, resentment and death wish to other people - that we can build up on this as our own worth. This is something we were not allowed to do with narcissistic abuse and neglect when growing up. So no we believe I am entitled and bad if I demand something. In the same time toxic people are paranoid - they feel they are in constant threat - so they will never speak out this fear. Instead they will criticize, blame and attack natural mistakes, flaws and lack of knowledge. So anti-dote to this criticism is self worth, intrinsic locus of control: belief that I trust my judgment, have no shame for mistakes and flaws, admitting my wrong doings instead of hiding them. I can do this only if I allow myself to think myself higher than trauma taught me. Abuse cuts off our buds of self esteem as soon as they appear. With belief I am worthy and I deserve respect, I will naturally stand up for myself - even by shutting up and saying nothing. Without self esteem, without self worth, I will build toxic shame instead, irrational guilt that toxic people put blame on my mistakes, flaws and lack of knowledge. In this way Eleanor Roosevelt said: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." Basically this means cutting contact off, changing job, and stepping outside of comfort zone, it also means not chasing for approval and validation from others. When socially anxious person decides he won't put up with abuse, unfair treatment - there will be natural friction and conflict with toxic people.
Without self esteem we won't believe that we can make it out there on our own. With codependency I believe I must depend on stronger people around me to survive.
This leads to self acceptance and self validation that exposed Classical CBT as invalid solution to social anxiety. Since natural solution to feeling social anxiety is avoidance of toxic people. I see social anxiety as alarm for toxic social environment, not as personal defect. "Defect" is only in trauma that left us with safety mechanisms which are self sabotage. The defect would be external reference locus of control, trauma bonding, where I believe that I cannot believe myself due to toxic shame - criticized weaknesses, flaws, mistakes and lack of knowledge. I want to be fair and admit honestly that I do not know something - as I was instructed in narcissistic abuse and neglect - while in the same time I believe other people know what they are doing and I must ask them for advice, guidance, instruction and thus approval and validation.
This part will get in conflict with toxic people - because I will allow myself to do things I like. I will be criticized to be weak, stupid, weird, abnormal. With social anxiety and trauma, with external reference and trauma bonding I will believe other people and I will never allow myself even to doubt their words. I see anti-dote to this programmed abuse in consciously allowing myself to allow myself to believe in my worth. This is Terra incognita belief for me - since I was repeatedly told that I am not acceptable. Narcissists do this but from the wrong angle - they build themselves up as a way to hurt other people in order to feel good about themselves. Instead this self worth is trusting my judgement and sticking to my instinct even when criticized. With abuse I never learned about Ad Hominem arguments - how ridiculous is to react to personal remarks - which is very common tool for toxic people to abuse others. Now I can simply dismiss it as childish and not involve in explanation and reaction to it.
I see yin yang dynamics in society's approach to psychological issues. This includes both amateurs and professionals. There is clear division between "advice" related to social anxiety, setting boundaries, being pushover, standing up for yourself - on one side which is rigid, shaming, not helpful, plethora of useless advice, perspectives and think uncleared biased viewpoints, it is basically invalidating and judgmental. While at the other side there is guidance about Complex trauma, fawning, toxic shame, narcissism - which is more empathic, validating and deeper.
If you meet someone and they give you a weird vibe trust that feeling.
The loudest critics have the least going on.
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| DBT teaches looking at consequences of behaviors and events instead of judging. |
"If you want to make the wrong decision, ask everyone."
https://confessionsofanailtech.com/2014/10/22/radical-acceptance/
Radical acceptance
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Don’t just get angry, get even more involved.
We spend too much time trying to reach other people's standards, and too little time defining our own.
It's better to disappoint another person than to lead a life that disappoints you.
Success is not about meeting someone else's expectations. It's about living up to yours.
Be you. They'll adjust.
Kant
Introducing Philosophy by Dave Robinson, Judy Groves
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Introducing Philosophy by Dave Robinson, Judy Groves
Introducing Philosophy by Dave Robinson, Judy Groves
With fawning and trauma bonding I do not realize I can dislike something or someone. I may protest, I may argue, I may demand. I may refuse. This was never option, I was programmed to say yes and to obey or fear punishment. So with fawning and people pleasing I rationalize it is wrong to reject something or oppose to someone.
When I protest, demand or argue - what happens is that I will break the ice. Being assertive by definition is to express my needs. However with trauma and narcissistic abuse my needs were filtered. And I am not aware now that my needs are narrowed down, I have narrow definition of what need is by definition.
So there is a communication problem - the definition does not match up with my own explanation. This answers the question why the help is invisible. Social anxiety is explained by classical CBT and therapist claim that is helps - I think we do not see this help since there is a mis-match about definitions.
Classical CBT will instruct socially anxious to express ones needs. However trauma brain will have twarted and unrealistic definition of needs: having none. So if you are told to know what you want - what your persona learned in trauma childhood when growin up was that there is nothing you want. In the same time, Classical CBT is pathologizing wants and needs that are seen in panic symptoms. Instead of recognizing it as dislike and needs, classical CBT instructs socially anxious to destroy self worth and replace it with toxic shame and groupthink, where interest groups will explain you what is normal, standard and expected.
Some toxic people do not have agenda. They are naturally toxic. Anything they say is product of being toxic genius that may appear as if coherent, hidden agenda behind it. Toxic people will rationalize their rudeness, they will truly believe they must be toxic. Instead of shutting up, in this case it is crucial that I address it directly. Being with toxic person - it will most probably end up with breaking up all contact and withdrawal. If I am over-reacting, and if my hunch is wrong - my label that will appear as criticism to them, will break the ice and test and see what it is really made of. Whether it is my delusion, distortion, imagination, fantasy, or if the toxic person still continues to be toxic even when exposed with their deeds. And at least I won't have to pretend to like them anymore and have clear conscious when I ignore them later on.
With external referencing I believe that when someone is angry at my mistakes and flaws that I am faulty. However in narcissistic abuse, invalidation happens when I am no longer good supply for them. This means, I have done something good, corageous and strong and healthy that triggered them into rage and collapse. They present this pain and hurt as my fault and aggression - while in reality it is exposure of their wrongdoings. This is important to realize so that I do not get stuck with self-blame, toxic shame and self imposed guilt as I learned with Complex trauma experience to be passive and immobile, by believing I am the cause of problem, chaos and that it is my duty to shut up in order not to rock the boat. When I see it from this perspective, that I am simply no longer suitable energy for those parasites, I get encouraged to not give in nor feel shame, blame and guilt.
Social anxiety is confusion how to react to abusive and dangerous, hysterical people. It disengage cortex and it hijacks the amygdala. If we pathologize this process and try hard to understand what is going on, if we try to be super human on force, to appear superior and to dominate the irritating person - we will create enemies, if the person is derranged they could hurt us, we'd never create friendships or come to conclusion or agreement.
Social anxiety is perfect, brilliant response to the world evil, and it is path to fighting hypervigilance, constant anxiety that I experience, thinking it is social anxiety's fault. It is not. The only fault is toxic environment and toxic people. Social anxiety is not issue. Social anxiety is path, road and mechanism, instruction and therapy that is the best for particular situation and particular setting that I am inside at that moment. Evil people infect others with poison, that makes them toxic. My reaction to toxic substance is a way to react to hurt - it is signal for me that something is wrong. Social anxiety and panic is not wrong - it is signal I am in contact with untreated mentally ill person who is very dangerous and extremely toxic. And instead of listening to my reaction which I mis-label as social anxiety and something that is disorder, I am destroying the most perfect response to toxic people - and I go straight into lion's mouth, and I destroy self worth in the process - where I do not trust my decisions and ability to manage and handle life's problems and difficult situations.
Since I give trust too much to people I can get taken advantage of and I let toxic people in my life and I give them the benefit of doubt too much, too deeply and too often. This is not sign that I am gullable nor anything negative - it means I am not narcissist and I will never attack first and ask later. It means I put the blame on myself first and try to fix myself first and calm down the party that is screaming and being hysterical. So not being narcissistic, not being antagonistic - puts me in codependency drama triangle and I stay stuck with the toxic people. The problem again is not me - it is the toxic people. The problem are explanation that I am the problem, that my sensitivity is the problem, that my people pleasing and fawning is problem. Nope. The only problem are toxic people. I cannot realize and accept this fact as long as my reactions are being pathologized and mislabeled as social anxiety. Trauma and CPTSD are the panic I feel. The panic, feeling this will happen forever and black thinking. Yet again - this is not my fault. It is imprint of trauma that I can heal. I cannot heal it if I blame and self pathologize myself for having cognitive distortions - which are mostly human traits which everyone has anyways. It is not endemic to me, it is not exclusive phenomena reserved for "too sensitive" people. If I have bad and traumatic experience - everything that I go through will make me more aware how to recognize toxic person. If I pathologize this awareness as disorder and something to remove - I will stay stuck in imbalance, I will never trust myself, I will never develop self worth. What Classical CBT labels as social anxiety is actually my self worth, my experience waiting to be accepted, validated and processed as information data - that I am suppose to use in the future - to avoid, block and reject toxic people in my future - so that I do not get stuck in codependency and drama triangle anymore. That I live life without hypervigilance. With Classical CBT advice and instruction I will attract toxic people, I will stay inside Karpman Drama Triangle and I will live in chronic state of anxiety, hypervigilance and toxic shame where I distrust my self worth.
As Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz discovered that our world is the best possible one of all available since it is the most harmonized and aligned - that means that social anxiety is the best possible version of mindset due to circumstances and external forces that act upon our mental health and our mental balance. It keeps the harmony and our own needs in the balance, it adjust to outer stress in order to secure deep needs, perceptions, knowledge and priorities that we find the most important to be in the balance. Faulty and wrong diagnosis, misdiagnosis, jumping to conclusions and pathologizing our fears and anxieties as something to get rid of without checking what will happen to balance if we do - is what will create only the additional damage.
And any damage will not destroy us, it will only give us more data of what needs to be avoided, it will be added to the list of what must be blocked and distrusted. We have inner resources that automatically knows what is the best for us, in accordance to our confirmation bias, accumulated knowledge and the level of awareness. If we destroy our self worth and super ego through distruting our own ability to solve problems and manage life by pathologizing our uncomfortable emotions as illness, we will restrain our ability to solve problems and handle life issues as they pop up. When we demand perfectionism we constrict ourselves into immobility and illness, imbalance and we are making our life miserable and difficult. This process of constriction and restriction and self-tyranny only gets worse when we are in the toxic environment.
Rather, the subject must seek self-contentment, which is a negative satisfaction . . . in which one is conscious of needing nothing.
“Needing nothing” is not necessarily meant here in a pious sense, but rather as absolute need, a need which is simultaneously absolutely selfless yet committed to human interests. Only such a need can be content with difference to which it is necessary to remain in-different.
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“the eye needs some time to complete the apprehension from the base to the peak, but during that time some of the earlier parts are invariably extinguished in the Imagination before it has apprehended the later ones, and hence the comprehension is never complete”
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Kant refers to the “deformity” inherent in the art of genius as a consequence of the way in which genius reveals that illusion is reality.
- Why do you say “deformity”?
- Because, in a sense, reality cannot be known
Introducing Kant: A Graphic Guide by Christopher Kul-Want
May 28
We're all damaged in our own way. Nobody is perfect. I think we're all somewhat screwy; everyone of us.
able to begin the process of moving on in a mature and responsible way. But this
process is usually a long and gradual one, since the recall of a single traumatic
idea or event is often over-determined by complex issues surrounding each
trauma.
The goal of psychoanalysis is a deep-seated modification of personality...to allow the individual to deal with problems realistically.
Modelling or Imitation, Social Learning Therapy
the learner or client changes behaviour by imitating the therapist or model. This can be particularly effective in the treatment of phobias.
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Beck says childhood and adolescent experiences (e.g. criticisms from parents or teachers) can lead to the development of depression through a cognitive triad that has three interlocking negative beliefs – about the self, the world (past and present) and the future. These can create a constricted and distorted outlook on
life.
"If you really mess up, are they going to take you out and shoot you?"
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Attributional therapy is a more recent cognitive approach to treating
depression. It takes its name from the ways people attribute the causes of
events. In most people, there is a self-serving bias that tends to attribute
successes to internal factors but failures to external ones. Depressed clients tend
to do the opposite: blaming failures on internal causes, while attributing
successes to external causes beyond their control.
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Stress Inoculation Therapy (SIT)
(or Self-Instruction Training)
Stress inoculation is a concept developed by D.H. Meichenbaum (1988) to
cope with potentially stressful situations that can cause anxiety. There are three
stages ...
1. Cognitive Preparation (or Conceptualization)
The therapist and client explore different ways of thinking about stressful situations – for example, “I won’t be able to cope with that”
2. Skill Acquisition and Rehearsal
The therapist helps the client to replace negative statements with positive once which are learned and practiced ... I am capable of dealing with that. I rehearse stress-producing situations, so I become
“inoculated” with some stress
3. Application and Follow-through
The therapist guides the client through situations that are increasingly stressful. I grow more capable of coping with the stress, avoiding anxiety and building my confidence.
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Humanistic therapy began in the 1940s with the work of Carl Rogers (1902-
87) as a reaction against both the psychodynamic and behavioural approaches.
The term “humanistic” emphasizes the individuality of human beings who
should be seen as basically “good”. Every person is a set of potentials striving
for growth, dignity and self-determination. Mental disorders are caused by
outside factors that block the potential for personal growth. Humanistic therapy
aims therefore to help individuals remove these blocks and get in touch with
their true selves.
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"Do you think you are taking responsibility for your actions?"
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Amplification
In this Gestalt “experiment”, the client is asked to exaggerate a feeling or
behaviour in order to appreciate better what is going on.
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First-person Speaking
By rephrasing thoughts and feelings into the first-person, clients are more likely
to become aware of their own particular problems and ways of dealing with
them.
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Live here and now! ... concern yourself with what you have rather than what’s absent, and with the present rather than the past
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Stop unnecessary imaginings and thoughts! ... don’t worry about the endless possibilities of what might or might not happen
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Don’t try to force other or manipulate them! ... express yourself clearly and straightforwardly, rather than imposing your explanations, justifications and judgements on other people.
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... do not restrict your awareness of what is happening to you and going on around you – including awareness of pain, as well as pleasure.
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Accept your responsibilities! ... don’t blame others for your actions, and decide for yourself what you ought to do – don’t unthinkingly follow other people’s rules.
...and finally ... Be yourself!
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don’t try to be “someone else” or be what other want for their convenience.
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accepting your responsibilities and being yourself – are
also central to another therapeutic approach based on the philosophical ideas of
Existentialism ...
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Observations on the behaviour of animals in captivity tell us nothing reliable about their behaviour in their nature setting. The whole of our present civilization may be a captivity. (*From The Politics of the Family, 1969)
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The Goals of Existential Therapy
The main goals are to help people ...
take responsibility for their own being in the world
become independent and self-governing
exercise conscious intention
make ethical choices
confront anxiety that is a normal and unavoidable aspect of being human
move beyond self into full fellowship with others
engage in loving relationships.
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Variations within Psychodrama
Role-reversal – actors swap roles.
Doubling – two people act out the same role.
Mirroring – group members copy the protagonist’s behaviour, often
exaggerating it to make the point.
They goal is to reveal to the protagonist why he or she is behaving in a particular way
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The fact is, virtually any kind of attention given to a person has the potential to be a therapy!
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The Culture Issue
Some cultures tend to be more tolerant of “abnormal behaviour than others.
Introducing Psychotherapy: A Graphic Guide
Book by Borin Van Loon and Nigel Benson
Social anxiety is like having ability to see curvature in space, similar to special relativity and general relativity discovered, studied and explored by Einstein. With social anxiety there is ability to notice what appears as flat space to the others - where I have ability to know that it will be long ride if I choose to engage in certain social interaction and that there is chasm. With Classical CBT there is Euclid reasoning that everything around us is flat and their presumptions are only axioms, truths that can hold only in certain, unrealistic enviornment that does not exist in reality: totally flat space. With social anxiety we can map the curvature in space, like geodist. " pertaining to the geometry of curved surfaces, in which geodesic lines take the place of the straight lines of plane geometry".
True acceptance would be that we see and perceive our fears, anxiety and panic as mapping of invisible magnetic field - other people fake agenda and manipulation. If we look at our anxiety like that, we will calm down, there will be no more resistance. Instead of labelling ourselves as weird and unnaceptable we will embrace our feelings of discomfort and test them out in reality - see what happens when we are cautious with people who are appearing as dangerous, unreasonable, scary and off-ish to us. We can experiment and seek evidence for our gut feelings and test them, see what we might be wrong, why this feelings arise, what caused us to be triggered. I found out that the worse feelings I feel in social situations are when I am stuck with someone clearly unreasonable, unhealthy and critical just for the sake of exposure. So I end up fawning to them and people pleasing them, seeking their approval and validation. Now, it is cut contact or do not accept their honeymoon phases showering of attention and validation. We will probably save tons of money, energy and time when we do not engage in deeper contact with toxic person. We will not jump into chasm and void and try to climb out of it only to find out that we missed 10 years in the process of simply getting out, only in recognizing where we are.
It is about exploring my feelings and reactions - how deep they are, how scary they seem. Do I feel panic - what kind of - is it fear from embarrassement, it is fear of their intrusive questions, is it fear of being hurt? And at what intensity these feelings appear inside me. If I see social anxiety as X-rays ability to see social map that is invisible to everyone else, I will have an advantage of creating social life that suits my needs and tasks and goals and dreams. If I ignore and pathologize my symptoms, I will create moral injury, to be trapped in chains, witnessing criminal behaviour and doing nothing about it.
The "official" therapy such as Ellis' CBT will claim that:
"I think all those people who upset me are very bad..and should be punished for upsetting me"
and
Irrational belief:
I must be perfect at everything I do.
This errors in therapy tells us the following:
That we need to follow my The Agreeableness Theory, where I state that there are not toxic person really - that there are only wounded individuals who act toxic. Also, it means that we harbour no hate - since what we resist will persist, and we'll be monsters ourselves if we label them as monsters. Therefore - the message is that we hold no grudge - whereas if we do, we'll get sick and focused on hatred.
Second, people are interdependent - and there are a lot of situations where we will have to negotiate with toxic people - wounded people who are acting toxically.
So the general conclusions is: that we scientifically evaluate the toxic behaviour: that we recognize red flags.
Also, another conclusion is that we learn how to defend ourselves from wounded people who are acting toxic and dangerous. So - it is not about being passive to toxic people. It is not about forgetting. It is not about forming contact and relationships where such are not necessary. It is about cutting contact with them wherever it is possible and focusing on healthy good people around us whom we would take for granted - since we would be manipulated to be focused on narcissists.
CBT's statement "I must be perfect at everything I do." was resolved by Ellis: "I must be realistic and accept that not everything will be perfect." Which I refute.
The more healthier approach is to learn, observe, document the abuse and then pinpoint, expose and voice out the abuse and confront the narcissist with their bad behaviour. With social anxiety we can't do that because we are focused on our panic symptoms and belief that we are hallucinating our anxiety out of nowhere, empty space. The reality is that our anxiety springs from toxic person's intrusive and manipulative actions - and our task is to define those, to be aware of it and to study it, as if in lab.
Ellis never explained that people are punished by external factor if the targets are not perfect.
Ellis: "REBT aims to help clients get better, rather than just feel better during a session. REBT helps clients to accept reality, even when it is pretty grim."
Reality: Moral injury - being witness to criminal beahviour and doing nothing about it. Better and healthier approach is that I accept reality that I will always feel social anxiety and trauma due to brain injury caused by being exposed to narcissistic injury - as a way not to spend time trying to pathologize my panic symptoms and shift focus on my task, job and goals to do - along with the knowledge of toxic people and trying to avoid them wherever possible, cut contact, too - along with retort and pinpointing their transgressions where applicable. Obviously, it is dangerous to pinpoint their errors to person who is bluntly dangerous, irrational and lunatic.
As I said previously, I see Twitter as an excellent tool for social anxiety training. We get a chance to see that we are allowed to block annoying people, as oppose to tolerate them in order to keep the world peace. Also, we get a chance to see what will happen when we stop self-censoring ourselves and speak up and voice out our opinion. What I discovered time and time again was something that I could not test in the real world. I noticed that my fear of speaking up and voicing out my opinion was always a narcissist or more commonly borderline person who would state some general fact about people being too opiniated and meddling their business so they should keep quiet. Which is interesting, since due to external reference locus of control, toxic shame and trauma bonding I would never bring into question - so I would keep myself quiet, like philosophical zombie, without my own opinon, without my critic nor criticism, just silence in order for nervous and hysterical person throwing judgement or temper tantrum. So I was stuck with toxic people who adored my silence and people pleasing skills, without option to cut contact with them after they start to boss, order and command me or others around, without seeing what happens when I do express my contrary opinion. Will the world end? Will there be a catastrophe? Instead of seeing what happens, I would shut up and self censor myself - keeping myself in the prison, trapped with moral injury - witnessing unfair and double bind behaviour from irratic and unstable individuals, as if they are the moral column and vertical in sea that I must grasp on, at which I am drowning.
With online discussion I can see what happens when I break the ice and express my thoughts - which borderline person will accuse of with Ad hominem: that I am arrogant or with an order and command that I stop babbling psychology. I can witness that after the block - I will not be alone, I will not be rejected - I will still have my self worth, my words, my opinions and other people around me, and that I can express my dislike without wars or explosions, too.
Without this training I am stuck in fear and I am convinced that my opinion does no matter - even if it may be wrong or more likely, unnaccepted by hysterical person in my vicinity (someone who is close enough that I can hear). There is a difference when someone is criticizing even if it is totally wrong and mistaken with someone who is ordering and commanding people around - telling them how to think and what to do.
Criticism is important so that we can test our opinions, peer review. Criticism hurts only if it is directed Ad hominem, and when it is unfair and injust, when it entagles perfectionism and desire to hurt and destroy someone.
I believe that with social anxiety we have ability to discern these twos. We will not feel fear nor anxiety from some critic who packages their words without additional hidden agenda or attitude of contempt and exploitation or destruction of receiver.
I would divide social anxiety into sections. Helpful and unhelpful. Unhelpful social anxiety aspect are fears, distorted beliefs - which I would think and experience even without social anxiety! Everyone has them due to toxic, narcissistic people who hypnotize and educate others, throw and spill poison onto others. For example, the belief that I must stick with toxic person, with someone who is highly antagonistic and difficult - for the sake of not being alone and for being accepted and validated by them when they are in honeymoon phase. I do not recognize this as trauma bonding nor as external reference locus of control since this is default behaviour and defulat thinking that I picked up from childhood. When I was suppose to learn about trusting myself, I was punished and ashamed and mocked for being different or annoying or something else.
Without cutting contact with toxic people and giving them a shadow of doubt (that they may change somehow someday or that they are partially evil so I can be strong enough to tolerate their abusive periods) I am putting myself in situation where in the future they will cause distress, they will run in the circles and create drama out of nothing, where they will be a weight, where they will lead me to wrong way, where they will make me doubt myself and influence my own distortions and making them bigger. The damage they do is too big for any agenda and manipulation that they sprinkle on with honeymoon phases and validation and acknowledgment sparks.
With trauma and people pleasing programming I am convinced that unrecognized toxic person is normal so I let them influence my actions and thoughts in order to please them, to go along with their demands and orders and commands - and this kind of manipulation and interaction actually does work with healthy normal person since there is no hidden agenda nor desire to destroy me. When I snap out of hypnosis and realize that I am dealing with toxic person, I can in my mind imagine it as if this person is crimnally insane, that is walking in the free world without restrictions. And yes, in this regard, I ought to feel social anxiety, since this is natural reaction to someone abnormal who is extremely manipulative and damaging, especially in the long term if I am not aware and thus keep them in my close vicinity.
Cutting contact is also crucial for the abuser themselves, for toxic people who are not aware they are insane and running their abusive program. When I am no longer in their vicinity - I will not get riled up with their statements, and they will not get triggered by my truth, transprency and pinpointing their flaws, mistakes which are wrongdoings and aggression. So by blocking them I am showing care for them, instead of shutting up and self censorship. It is based on the fact that I cannot change other people, neither it is my responsibility to babysit or nurture nor take care nor fix others, as codependency would instruct to do.
Bad people are necessary to appreciate so that no one takes for granted the hard work. Without difficult people someone's kidness would be taken for granted. Which is interesting - since people pleasers are taken for granted. And people find that they are allowed to brush off and command people pleasers around. Again, I see this as detection of toxic people. People who are treating "unimportant" people as trash are obviously entitled and there is character flaw present. What I can do is voice this out and notice when I am taking kindness for granted and instead for example I focus on toxic people and their problems how to fix their feelings and issues. That is why I would stick with cutting people, as oppose to expose myself and ignore that toxic people exist. The label "toxic" must exist for the sake of people pleasers and kind people, people who are traumatized into subservience and people who are kind and nice without any trauma behind it. Without the label "toxic" there would be no distinction between silent people who will never stick up for themselves and speak up for themselves, they will stay silent and self censor themselves and stifle their issues and problems down, while loud, obnoxious and unkind and aggressive people will take up the space by yelling and screaming to get their life to be priority over people who follow unwritten social rules - to never be boaster, bragger.
The lesson that I was not taught of and that kept me in anxiety is that bad things will happen. There will be mistakes and flaws and things will not go in accorance to my plan. Things will break up, things will be deleted and I will miss something that I thought would be permanent. Instead I was traumatized into hysteria when something goes wrong and that I must be superhuman in sense that I must never make mistakes, programmed through punishment and being exposed to adult hysteria that anything wrong is catastrophe and it will be dealth with screaming, yelling, hitting, ashaming, vulgarity, aggression with pain and hurt.
This exposure to toxic people and toxic messages and toxic instructions how to handle and manage life traumatized me into social anxiety as adult and being people pleaser and fawning as default reaction.
I see trauma as not me being broken - even though it might appear so when I endulge in distortions and toxic habits - I see trauma as my senses getting sharper to recognize the same type of abuse that I experienced. Now I have ability to detect it, ability to sense magnetic field of toxicity even when it is not apparent to others. I pick up small clues, I pick small details that others will miss easily. Also when I am not aware of this ability and when I reject and pathologize my anixiety and panic (which are tools of detecting toxic people and toxic energy fields) I distrust my self worth and create toxic shame and trauma bonding - which does is I attract toxic people into my life and I trauma bond with them - I miss red flags easily - since I distrust my anxiety feelings which I label as social anxiety, as instructed by Classical CBT.
Social anxiety can have functional and healthy side - that is that I embrace it and accept it and use it as GPS and intuition, gut feeling whom I can trust. And to explore it and see what it can do for me. And check out how it works. Many times I will not be aware that I helped myself and that I saved myself simply by the act of avoiding and saying no to forming any kind of contact or realtionship with someone from whom I felt uncomfortable feelings labelled as anxiety, fear, panic or social anxiety.
When we cut contact and retort to toxic people - in the same time we show by our own behaviour how toxic people ought to be handled and managed. The problem with entitled people is that nobody challenged them, they never received feedback or any repercussions of their behaviour. Nobody rocked the boat, nobody tried to waste their energy, and this is the official unwritten social rule, that we are kind and nice to each other which toxic people exploit gratuitously.
Criticism is essential that we correct ourselves, to realize that we are making mistakes somewhere. Toxic criticism is directed against the person as persona - it is directed to destroy someone as person. With anxiety we tend to lump good safe with bad dangerous altogether and we end up with cognitive fusion, where any criticism may be seen as toxic. This is why I encourage three steps approach whenever we encounter something unusual, painful, different or vague - whereas we do not rely on our first instinct that is usually rejection or catastrophizing. Simple act of gathering all evidence and all possible information that we can get. And this collection of data will be indicative if we are in the presence of toxic person. Toxic person will react with hysteria to anything that we might ask, comment or have opinion. This happens because of their narcissistic injury and our questioning will expose their wrongdoings, their narcissistic mask which is painful to them.
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| non-intuitive path |
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| Geodesics are a good way to tell if a space is curved or not |
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| Beware of the bearers of FALSE gifts and their BROKEN PROMISES. We oppose deception. |
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The shaman’s words – his rendition and enactment of the myth – reintegrate the
woman’s suffering within a whole cosmology where everything is meaningful,
and in doing so, real changes occur. Does psychoanalysis, too, anchor people’s
lives in a new kind of individual mythology – of good and bad objects, Oedipal
struggles, internal worlds, trauma and repression, which the patient uses to put
together a fragmented psyche?
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A psychoanalyst cannot say to a doting parent: “Yes, your child will be a
doctor.” But she could certainly say: “Yes, your child will have intense
childhood experiences and relationships, and whatever her profession – even if
she becomes a psychoanalyst – her choice will be influenced by the vicissitudes
of those experiences and the reaction formations and sublimations which
develop to negotiate them.”
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Sexuality has become unhinged from reproduction. Human beings have become "obsessed with sex". Human sexuality is capable of displacement. Sexual activity can be displaced onto nonsexual objects to become “perversions”. Sexual energy can be channelled into
non-sexual activities or combined with emotions such as aggression or fear.
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In the trauma model, “cause” is assigned to the outside world – traumatic
experiences. The trauma “causes” the symptom like a virus causes ’flu. After
Studies on Hysteria, Freud became more interested in looking at childhood as
the place for “ultimate causes”. Ultimately, Freud decided, the “causes” of
hysteria OCCUR IN THE PATIENTS’ EARLIEST CHILDHOOD AND ARE TO BE DESCRIBED AS SEXUAL ABUSES IN THE NARROWEST SENSE”.
Some post-Freudian psychoanalytic ideas also assign great importance to
external “causes”. The psychiatrist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby looked at
the effect of separation on young children.
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The memory is reactivated and the obsessional person feels he “can’t trust
himself” or, rather, his impulses.
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We interpret their behaviour according to something the person wants.
Sometimes we interpret other people’s behaviour in order to get them to change.
interpretations can both elicit anxiety and try to contain it.
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The friend has realized what Freud discovered many years ago – that something
about the relationship to the analyst repeats aspects of the childhood relationship
– an intense, dependent, loving and hating relationship to the parents. It is this
which provides the emotional force for the progress of the analysis and the
influence of the analyst.
Freud called this factor transference.
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The treatment of so-called “borderline” patients (severely disturbed patients who
seem to lie between psychosis and neurosis, with poor impulse control and a
very distorted picture of reality) is a major part of contemporary psychoanalysis.
Introducing Psychoanalysis: A Graphic Guide
Book by Ivan Ward
Cynicism: We have a problem, but they don't want to solve it
Pessimism: We have a problem, but we can't solve it
Optimism: We have a problem, and we can solve it
Responsibility: We have a problem. Can I help solve it?
Initiative: We have a problem. Here's how I'm solving it
"If you aren’t willing to be mocked, you’ll never be able to lead."
Jung recognized that the task of the psychoanalyst was to discover a patient’s secret.
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You’re saying that my thoughts are not my own?
Of course they’re not. You treat thoughts as if you’d generated them yourself. But thoughts are like animals in a forest or people in a room … Or do you think you’ve made them too?
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You speak to him as if he’s real.
Yes, he’s my ghost guru sent to reach me my spiritual path
Within the framework of Jung’s later work in analytical psychology, Philemon
can be labelled an “archetypal image of the spirit” from the fund of unconscious
But it is also the matrix of “mythopoeic imagination” which has vanished from our rational age. Though
such imagination is present everywhere, it is both tabooed and dreaded.
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The task is to give birth to the old in a new time. The soul of humanity is like the great wheel of the zodiac that rolls along the way. Everything that comes up in a constant movement from below to the
heights was already there. There is no part of the wheel that does not come round again.
But the meaning does not lie in eternal recurrence of the same, but in the manner of its recurring creation at any given time.
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The soul has a desire for light and an irrepressible urge to rise out of primal darkness. The moment in which light comes is God – it brings redemption, release.
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Dictionary meanings of these symbols are empty. Your emotional response is what matters.
But I have no idea what they mean…
Of course not, their meaning is hidden from your conscious control. Symbols are clues, activated by your own unconscious energy.
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Does anything exist for the psyche that we are entitled to call illusion? The psyche doesn’t trouble itself about our categories of reality. For it everything that works is real.
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In surgery and obstetrics it is accepted that the doctor must have clean hands. “So make sure you’re ‘clean’ of neuroses yourself.”
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Neurotics like nothing better than wallowing in the evils of the past and self-pity.
Most who enter analysis after their mid-life crisis do so because of neglected spiritual issues during the first half of life.
The patient has a story that isn’t told and which no one knows of it is the secret, the rock against which he is shattered.
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Frequently an unconscious component can externalize and appear from without,
and is known as projection. This involves an excessive emotional response to
another person or situation, like falling in love or disliking someone intensely.
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Extroverts and introverts tend to misunderstand and disrespect each other.
Extroversion and introversion are mutually exclusive. If one forms the habitual conscious attitude, the other becomes unconscious and acts in a compensatory manner.
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If the conscious attitude becomes too fixed, its unconscious attitude will break
through as “the return of the repressed”.
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Jung’s classification has become so influential that the terms “extrovert” and
“introvert” are now part of everyday speech. We commonly use them to describe
recognizable forms of social behaviour.
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An individual’s innate conscious orientation will be towards one of these four:
Sensation - Tells you something exists
Thinking - Tells you what it is
Feeling - Tells you whether it's good or not
Intuition - Tells you where it's come from or is going
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Repressed feeling returns as hysteria. Repressed sensation manifests in phobias,
compulsions and obsessions.
Mental and physical health therefore depend on
A the development of the neglected function – B awareness of the 4 types at
work in oneself to achieve a rounded personality.
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The less I can say – “They do this they are wrong, They must be fought” – The more I become a serious problem to myself!
You’re beginning to realize that whatever is wrong in the world is in yourself. Learn to deal with your own shadow and you’ll do something real for the world.
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Ego and Shadow are personified by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the classic “good
and bad” split in all of us. Mr. Hyde becomes a real danger to psychic health
when the Ego itself screws up.
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The male’s Soul-Image has appeared in many forms - The Anima. Identifying completely with the anima can lead to effeminate homosexuality or transvestism.
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Over-identification with the Soul-Image produces the Sol Niger or Black Sun, the animus-dominated woman – obstinate, ruthless and domineering, craving power and irrationally opinionated.
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Images of someone drowning kept flashing into my mind.
On my arrival, I discovered that my young grandson’s boat had capsized in the lake and he’d nearly drowned.
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Goethe’s Faust tells the story of a 16th century German alchemist who sold his
soul to Satan in exchange for diabolical powers. Faust is profoundly significant
because he exemplifies the spiritual dilemma of modern scientific man.
He formulates a problem that has been brewing for centuries …
… How to free ourselves from the opposites of good and evil, spirit and matter, faith and knowledge, etc.
Faust has gained the material power of science …
But lost his soul
-
King and Queen descend into the water – the unconscious. The immersion is a
night-sea journey or dissolution which returns them to dark initial state. The well
is a uterus in which to be reborn.
Introducing Jung
Book by Maggie Hyde
Universal-Sci, TWITTER:
''Many studies show that individuals do not automatically adopt the behaviors most beneficial for themselves or society, often due to a lack of access to complete information.''
-
By explaining to us about how society functions, many sociologists, such as Zygmunt Bauman (b.1925), hope that we will seek to change it in some way that makes for a fairer world.
learn that we are not simply prisoners of the social structure.
The more we grasp how the wheels of the system are operated, the more power we have to resist and even free ourselves from it.
-
Capitalism ushered
in large-scale organizations and institutions that encourage (especially in the
workplace) specialized tasks, technical competence, impersonality and personal
discipline. The key institution of rationalization is the development of national
bureaucracies. Bureaucracy – by subjecting us all to a set of standard, inflexible
rules–ultimately gives rise to societal alienation, stifling regulations and
dehumanization. This experience is life in the iron cage.
-
Societal relationships in the city, stated Simmel, are often reduced to financial
transactions
-
Blumer encouraged sociological researchers to uncover the numerous subjective
meanings groups give to society. By “subjective”, Blumer meant that humans
are pragmatic actors who must continually modify their behaviour to the actions
of other actors.
-
Just as plant forms compete to inhabit natural habitats, so do different ethnic and social groups, businesses and homeowners aim to colonize areas of the urban environment. Ernest Burgess
-
By examining interaction, Goffman provided an explanation for how society
works. The interaction order involves the tacit and unspoken rituals and rules of
behaviour that members of society engage in during face-to-face situations. For
Goffman, the invisible rules that define interaction reveal wider social structures
which we, in turn, make real through action.
-
Deep acting occurs when a worker draws upon emotions they believe to be
authentic to achieve a strong relationship with customers. Surface acting is when
someone displays emotions they believe are inauthentic to conform to work rules
and norms.
Like a method actor, the individual worker’s identity becomes deeply invested in
the performance. Nevertheless, drawing on Marx’s concept of alienation,
Hochschild argues that workers obliged to display inauthentic emotions may
eventually develop a sense of self-estrangement or distress. Researching the
work experiences of flight attendants, Hochschild notes the difficulties that these
people confront when trying to de-personalize customer abuse.
-
Knowledge is supposed to lead to greater human freedom, like democracy and
liberty. But Foucault argues that the collection of knowledge often results in the
opposite. Knowledge can be dangerous, as it generates new forms of power and
greater self-control. Knowledge can limit our liberty.
Who creates, controls and is controlled by knowledge? Knowledge is power and it can command obedience.
-
Modern society (from the late 19th century onwards) created the asylum, a new
form of hospital designed to be more humane, as it treated insanity as an illness
that could be cured. To cure mental illness, more objective knowledge of it was
required. A new class of specialists, including professional psychiatrists, was
created. By gaining knowledge of insanity, the aim was to control it.
Foucault argued that the development of asylums was less a benevolent move
with the patient’s recovery in mind than part of what he calls the Great
Confinement, the removal of social undesirables, such as the poor, prostitutes,
the homeless and the “mad”, from public sight.
-
Rather than lead to the patient’s cure, the institution of the modern asylum
creates ever increasing forms of social control. Foucault argued that the process
of labelling and classifying people as “insane” and “mad” has real social effects,
as the patients begin to internalize the characteristics of the definition. In order to
“cure” mentally ill people humanely, the process of labelling and categorization
relies upon more knowledge, especially better data collection on forms of
medical treatment. In response, patients are subjected to experimental treatments
and controlled physically, chemically and psychologically.
-
There is no such thing as the mad and the normal. They are social constructs. They are constructs of the development of civilization.
-
As long as prisoners thought they were being observed, the logic was that they
would behave. In other words, they would self-regulate their behaviour.
-
Foucault shared
with Max Weber a concern with how the contemporary world is defined by
bureaucratic systems and institutions that promote rationalization and
dehumanization.
Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?
-
strategies of surveillance are particularly apparent: labelling, visibility and
data collection. These forms had spread to other institutions to create a
panopticon society, which has continued to develop in many contemporary
societies, with multiple surveillance systems
-
The expansion of knowledge as a result of the enlightenment is not delivering freedom and democracy but increasing social control and domination.
-
Knowledge, in the form of information, is used by governments as a tool of
social control rather than as a device to eradicate social problems.
-
The ultimate goal of sociology
is social engineering, helping to reform
-
You won't be able to make positive changes to society. Your data is compromised by your personal biases. Plus, you can never know society: it's impossible.
-
When we experience economic scarcities and insecurity, we emphasize and
prioritize material needs, like financial issues, a strong national defence, and law
and order. If our material needs are satisfied, we place a priority on values such
as self-expression, quality of life and belonging. These are post-material values.
The more prosperous a democratic society is, the more likely it is to emphasize
post-materialism. Post-material values include a desire for personal
empowerment, liberty and even a clean environment.
-
Social movements aim to change the political culture by making issues previously seen as "personal" and "private" into matters that are now seen as "political" and "public".
Introducing Sociology: A Graphic Guide
Book by John Nagle
The devil always sends errors into the world in pairs-pairs of opposites. And he always encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which is the worse. You see why, of course? He relies on your extra dislike of the one error to draw you gradually into the opposite one.-CS Lewis
• Read everyday.
• Spend time with nature.
• Ask questions.
• Never stop learning.
• Don't pay attention to what others think of you.
• Do what interests you the most.
• Study hard.
• Teach others what you know.
• Make mistakes and learn.
• It's Okay to not know things!
behaviour has always to be restrained by law.
Without laws, human beings always revert to barbarism, and so everyone suffers. The only remedy is for everyone to agree contractually to obey a few compulsory moral rules.
-
But their leader has no knowledge of navigation, the boat goes on the rocks and
everyone drowns. Democracy, in other words, is leadership by the stupid, who
make unrealizable promises to the ignorant, and this always leads to disaster.
-
One true mark of a healthy political society may be that its educated citizens
engage in debate rather than passively obey orders. Democracies also enable
citizens to remove corrupt or incompetent governments, without the need for
violent revolution or civil war. But if you think that voters have become
directionless consumers influenced by spin-doctors, or feel that politicians are
now just populists led by focus groups, then Plato’s attacks on democracy might
be worth thinking about.
-
Everything in the universe is designed for a specific function.
-
If their environment changed, this would cause or “push”
them to change, or face extinction.
-
A “good” or well-functioning human being is one who reacts appropriately
(“rationally”) to every situation, usually by avoiding extremes of behaviour.
-
Your own view of human nature will determine what your ethical beliefs are and how you should behave towards other people.
-
Ideologies are normally the beliefs, attitudes and values used to legitimize the power of specific interest groups. they remain safely unquestioned. The more unexamined they are, the more powerful they tend to be.
-
unlike animals we are not trapped in a routine of
unthinking instinctive responses. Human beings can choose to suppress their
combative or co-operative instincts.
-
Human beings usually place a high value on co-operation, generosity and
sympathy, and disapprove of more egotistical behaviour.
Close-knit communities can stifle individuality, imagination and invention
-
It is not very clear how we can ever judge who is right or wrong
about the matter.
-
Every individual is rational enough to realize that the best form of defence is usually pre-emptive attack.
Prisoners’ Dilemma” (where it seems quite rational for two prisoners to betray
each other, even though the outcome is worse for both of them).
-
The cost of joining society is high. Every individual has to give up "natural" freedom and obey laws contrary to each one's desires.
-
So, paradoxically, in a political society people are more “free”. Obedience to
society’s laws brings everyone more freedom.
-
Individuals have to learn how and why they are oppressed,
in order to change the way things are.
-
Hegel was convinced that history is essentially the evolutionary and progressive
narrative of this collective human consciousness, a mysterious entity he called
“Spirit”. Individual minds are therefore all part of the one universal mind that
determines all that is “real” for human beings.
-
It is therefore vital that ordinary people free themselve from oppressive institutions and grasp the possibilities of an alternative society, free of domination, if true human potential is ever to be achieved.
-
Classical liberalism happily accepts that society is a marketplace. The
economist Adam Smith (1723–90) was the first to recognize what this means –
a collection of private individuals motivated by self-interest make, buy and sell
goods, which, miraculously, then has the net effect of making society as a whole
more prosperous.
-
Rawls maintains that nearly everyone would want to live in a society in which
individual liberties were respected and where justice was universal and public.
-
Many individuals possess "authoritarian personalities" which make them experience aggressive feelings towards minorities. Authoritarian attitudes are a "flight" from an excessive personal freedom that many modern individuals find threatening. People like to be told what to think.
-
The philosopher of science Karl Popper (1902–94) argued that the seeds of
repressive societies were sown by political philosophers themselves – Plato,
Rousseau, Hegel and Marx.
Utopianists tend to be dogmatic about ends and casual about means,
with an unhealthy respect for uniformity and a dislike of human variety.
-
Advocates of "blueprint" societies have no idea how their visionary ideas will work in practice, and are usually ruthless against those who oppose them.
-
Totalitarian states rely on a pessimistic view of human nature. Human beings are
irrational, irresponsible and need determined leaders aware of citizens’ real
needs, regardless of expressed preferences. Liberals instead believe that there
can be no ideal political society and therefore no absolute political ideologies.
-
The healthiest societies are pluralist and tolerate a wide range of different political opinions.
-
Negative freedom means that we have certain "right" that place limits on how far the state can interfere in our lives.
Positive freedom means that we are entitled to certain opportunities and choices with which to develop our potential as human beings.
-
Marcuse, a postmodern Marxist, furthered the idea that we are the happy slaves
of capitalism, denied any real freedom to protest because our “uni-dimensional”
democracy is designed to foreclose on all new forms of radical thought.
Introducing Political Philosophy, Dave Robinson
“Where love rules, there is no will to power, and where power predominates, love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.” – Carl Gustav Jung
“If a man knows more than others, he becomes lonely.” – Carl Jung
of mass in the Universe. Consequently, bodies moving through curved space do
not travel in straight lines but rather follow the path of least resistance along the
contours of curved space. These paths are called geodesics.
-
Einstein found that matter tells space how
to curve and then space tells matter how to move-a new way to describe
gravitation. No forces.
-
entropy which appears in the second law of
thermodynamics: The entropy (disorder) of a system can only stay the same
or increase but never decrease (if the system is isolated and left to reach
equilibrium).
-
But there is a problem with cosmology because it can not predict anything about
the Universe without an assumption about the initial conditions. All one can say
is that things are as they are now because they were as they were at an earlier
stage.
-
The anthropic principle is a quasi-metaphysical notion which implies that, if a
particular universe does not take on fundamental constants of Nature which
allow for the existence of life and the development of intelligence, there will
never be anyone to report on its properties. That is why our Universe seems so
right to us, it’s tuned perfectly.
Introducing Stephen Hawking, J.P. McEvoy and Oscar Zarate
Clerics only telling their flocks half of the gospel story.
Medics refusing to investigate alternative therapeutics.
Climate scientists amending and cherry-picking data.
The media not investigating alternate facts and data.
Academics jumping on bandwagons for grant funding.
Politicians using cherry-picked data to their advantage.
Are these academic deceptions the result of intentional deceit or sheer incompetence? To be sure there are any number of incompetent scientists, historians and clerics, but I get the impression that much of this is due to deliberate falsification and fraud. The world is awash with duplicity and deceit, and it is time to break through the deception.
Shards of Illumination: Breaking through the Deception
DSM-5 defines Social Anxiety Disorder as a marked, or intense, fear or anxiety of social situations in which the individual may be scrutinized by others.
The fear or anxiety is out of proportion to the actual threat posed by the social situation and to the sociocultural context. The fear or anxiety is judged to be out of proportion to the actual risk of being negatively evaluated or to the consequences of such negative evaluation. Sometimes, the anxiety may not be judged to be excessive, because it is related to an actual danger (e.g., being bullied or tormented by others). However, individuals with social anxiety disorder often overestimate the negative consequences of social situations, and thus the judgment of being out of proportion is made by the clinician.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_anxiety_disorder
Psychology says, people start hating you when they cannot control you.
Zeno
-
Analytic geometry is based on the idea that a point in space may be defined in relation to another point by a set of numbers.
Descartes
-
A little masterpiece of mathematical fiction and social criticism was written
about this, called Flatland. It describes a society where the people are polygons
living on a plane. Like the Victorians, they are obsessed with status, which
depends on the number of a person’s sides. Gentry have four, aristocrats many,
workers three, and women are just a needle!
The hero, “A Square”, has an experience of three dimensions, through his
friendship with a Sphere. This higher being appears to the flatlanders every five
hundred years, manifesting as a circle that starts as a point, then grows larger,
then diminishes and finally vanishes. What is incomprehensible to the flatlanders
is simply the Sphere passing through their plane. The Sphere befriends our
Square, and takes him on a journey through space. He shows him “lineland” and
“pointland”, which contain some very self-satisfied creatures. He also enables
him to peer into the private lives of the flatlanders. But on his return to the plane,
the Square suffers badly. He tries to describe Space, but how can he show “up”
to his friends? They think him deranged.
-
Benoit Mandelbrot (b. 1924), the Polish-born French mathematician who
discovered fractals, described them as a way of seeing infinity.
-
Chaos theory describes phenomena which are not random, being described by
differential equations, but which are not predictable either. This is because very
slight changes in the initial conditions can produce large changes in the
behaviour of the solutions.
Introducing Mathematics: A Graphic Guide
Book by Ziauddin Sardar
Progress isn’t always about getting better. Sometimes it’s about bouncing back.
Success is not only the peaks you reach—it’s the valleys you conquer. Every experience of enduring adversity and overcoming obstacles is a meaningful accomplishment.
Resilience is a form of growth.
This is why it is important to be aware of entitlement, what it means, and to know how to retort: my goal, my agenda is not connected to exploiting others. This fact needs to be highlighted and voiced out. Narcissists will do everything to stop this truth to be voiced out.
Good and bad balance itself out. The physical world demands the presence of bad and negative things, including the evil. If everything was good, if everyone was nice, we would not bare it when the good leave us forever, it would be too painful if every single person around us is good. We would miss them too much. In the long term this would collapse inside. The sustainable system in breakable system is yin yang. That is why evil exists. Without the shadow we would not see the contrast, we would not appreciate how precious the good is.
When the good and bad is present, it has automatic ability to balance itself out and make it into sustainable system, without any supervision, it makes itself to last, to self preserve. That is why evil exists. That is why evil is allowed to exist.
When this is put in social anxiety context - we may see that we feel hate and animosity from other people, their anger and criticism and irritation about us. If we are aware of not being egocentric, we may notice that these people perceive us as enemy or irritation or lame or unacceptable for whatever reason, usually for noticing something that bugs them, them being immature and not able to handle the truth and their own wrongdoings and own flaws such as their bias about people whom they label as stupid. If we know yin yang dynamics, it tells us that "evil" even the misinterpreted one is very much necessary to balance the out system. If we fawn over to someone's demands, their own personal judgement, their own explanation and we shut up and self censor and remove ourselves from public life, we are creating the disorder by our avoidance, hiding, not expressing ourselves, not sharing our opinion, not spreading our own truth, our own explanations, our own definitions. As empath we may conclude that we do not want to bug other people, that we do not want to irritate other people - even when we know they are childish, egocentric, unreasonable, stupid, biased, prejudiced - that when we are aware of yin yang dynamics, it gives us valid reason to express ourselves and not to hide, to be ourselves, that we do not mold ourselves by other people moods, feelings and their humour, their wants, their needs, that we do not cut and prune ourselves in order for others to have pleasant experience of not knowing the truth.
Narcissists already give themselves permission to spread their words and opinions and authority even though it is totally selfish and truly evil. We prune and block ourselves because we do not want to disturb other people, we do not want others to feel unpleasantness by our presence, by our words, by our opinions. When we hide away, we are breaking the yin yang balance. We need to express ourselves. We do not want to hurt others, we think carefully, we are aware of consequences - we are mature enough to care about others - we ought not to hide and self censor neither hide nor avoid social life by not being authentic, not being honest.
Here, the virus code is "not wanting to disturb others". This is the command behind the desire to shut up and avoid people. This order needs to be challenged and analyzed - how deep it goes, at what lengths we created rationalizations and explanations and reasons to shut up and hide away. The opposite is that we find way how to do the opposite: to disturb the people - without being jerk, without making drama (so that we do not turn into borderliners who are allowing themselves to do the opposite from their abuse trauma commands of being silent and hidden away from society). When we engage in retort, that we are aware why retort is connected to virus code message "do not disturb other people's pleasant life".
This is message we did not get when growing up, when trauma occurred: "You are allowed to disturb other people". Others allowed themselves to do it, they never decided to hide away from people. That is their secret of being healthy and sociable. With time they learned how to disturb other people to make it less dramatic, without guilt and shame inside them rising, they made it more perfect with time - since they allowed themselves to practice it. Socially anxious on the opposite never allowed it. Never allowed to make mistake, to be flawed, to be ignorant, never to disturb people - these are virus code messages orders and commands, learned and programmed, instilled inside us from trauma that made us grow crooked, like building a house inside us without windows or some other necessary parts of house. And in narcissistic environment we were encouraged to hide and be invisible and never bother anyone.
"In unsafe environment, if you are authentic, you get hurt".
Once again, there is nothing wrong with us - it is toxic people who are the only problem.
Social anxiety - if experienced more than 10 years and if it was scanned through dysfunctional Classical CBT (that you know about cognitive distortions and over-reactions) - and if you still feel social anxiety afterwards, it is totally normal. Social anxiety is a signal that we are in the presence of other person who is unrealistic, toxic, too demanding, and that it is most probably the best solution to cut contact with them and shut the door of any communication with them and avoid them altogether. Which can be problem if you cannot cut contact. If someone is unreasonable, it is most probably that any interaction with them is doomed to fail, it will by dysfunctional and non productive in any possible way. That is what social anxiety signals to me, it warns me that pending door slam is the only option to handle and manage such people. This means from my side that I have to be incredible flexible, that I have to have resources to sustain the change and relocation and to have inner strength to sustain flying monkeys, retaliation, smear campaign, mocking if I am due to environment in any future contact with these toxic people. That is the message of social anxiety. It is to warn me to gather resources so that I do not trauma bond with aggressor and psychopaths. That I do not fall in honeymoon phases trap and love bombing and focused directed empathy from them. That I do not give in to my own injury of invalidation and not being accepted by accepting their drops of focused and directed, hidden agenda validation and recognition.
External factor means that trauma is not my decision. It is not that I have influenced avoidance. It is that toxic environment kept me in trauma. Where I did not naturally go out, where I could not be free, myself, where I could not express myself, where I did not feel safe. Instead of realizing the responsibility of toxic environment, I took the blame on me, creating self-blame and irrational guilt, and where toxic environment gladly supports such self-sabotage and shifting of responsibility.
With classical CBT socially anxious people are convinced that their feelings of hurt or threat is illusion, delusional and paranoia. Well, we can turn that around. If we disagree with mentor who is practicing classical CBT - it is very likely that they will react with anger and defensiveness, all traits of egocentrism. Then we can label them as having illusion, since no one is attacking them personally. No one is threatening them and there is no real danger at all.
Classical CBT basic theme is that social anxiety is delusion, that it is illusion, paranoia, unbased feeling, perception of non-existing threat. That is wrong, since social anxiety is based on fear of toxic people's attack and aggression. Classical CBT is actually targeting borderliners, psychopaths and narcissist who label their discomfort when their narcissistic injury is triggered - because that is delusion. Psychopaths will perceive threat with other people when there is none. Socially anxious people will never direct their blame, anxiety or anything uncomfortable at other people - it is always self-directed. So classical CBT is masked lobotomy intended for dangerous, psychopathic individuals, and socially anxious people, sensitive people are only collateral damage in government control of lunatics, criminals and killers who act on their anxiety to destroy other people as a way to find relief. The system works, since true socially anxious people will never rebel against unfair treatment and unjust accusations. Socially anxious person with social anxiety uncontrolled will direct them to shut up and believe anything that person in authority will speak and order about. Paradox and irony is that criminals, psychopaths, narcissist almost never seek treatment. So this clever ploy of self-pathology to heal "social anxiety" is directed at extremely low percentage of people, and in the same time it does massive damage to healthy, normal people who were victims of abuse and toxic people.
Someone wrote comment on you tube about codependency "we equate our worth or value with being loved by a person who was hard to get". That is trauma bonding and it is related to social anxiety feelings when we fear toxic person and their criticism. Our value and worth is equated with their approval, validation, disapproval, dislike and invalidation. This part needs to be challenged. We need to take away the power of their opinion about us - as unimportant. That is crucial, that will break the hypnosis. Also Marshal from YT wrote: ""love" was mapped into our nervous system and attachment system through attention, care, approval that was both transactional and intermittent.". He says that we were raised and programmed to form attachment to people based on their sprinkles of happiness, chirpy attitude and phases of delusional rage based on their hallucinations.
And we never were guided, instructed or pinpointed into this direction - to seek and analyze what is happening with our need to be approved by toxic people.
When I have ability to see truth and voice it, toxic environment will react.
When I have fears from punishment since I voiced out the truth - toxic environment will sniff out those fears and target them, usually Ad hominem. Repeated exposure to toxic environment will not break me, it will give me more things to realize and see and recognize before everyone else, this may see as if I am becoming over-sensitive to the relative observer, who did not experience the abuse or has low iq to perceive one.
Thus my job is to detailed explanation and making it into court case, with hard evidence, documented abuse and concrete arguments to describe it.
The point is to be aware of deception. Deception is a part of life - instead of nagging and complaining about it, I need to learn about it how to react to it. Each experience of deception (internal or external) is extremely valuable stream of data, not self pity or holding on to grudge. I learn. Instead of pouting I sort, organize and gather as much as data as possible. This process will seem to me like PureOCD. This way if I see it as incoming stream of data - toxic people will no longer trigger me nor control me.
If I object I will experience trauma of embarrassment and fear of punishment and cruelty from triggering narcissistic injury. However if I fawn, shut up and self censor - I will experience trauma of being stuck, moral injury of witnessing criminal behaviour and doing nothing about it, wiki:
"Complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD; also known as complex trauma disorder)[1] is a psychological disorder that can develop in response to exposure to an extremely traumatic series of events in a context in which the individual perceives little or no chance of escape, and particularly where the exposure is prolonged or repetitive."
Desensitization
In classical CBT there is concept of desensitization - the idea is if you expose yourself to frightened situations, you will become accustomed to it. This is not true. We will not get numb, we will not get dull. Instead the abuse will sharpen our senses. We will become even more aware of toxic people.
Criticism is the greatest fear in social anxiety and for people without anxiety. For narcissists, too. Yet - we can observe criticism as valuable resource of data. In such way, classical CBT ought to be banned - but not destroyed. We can learn much from CBT as a book of errors and why certain ideas do not work in real life. People are not dolls - we cannot change someone's persona by breaking their fears apart and creating new space out of nothing. Alchemy does not work in psychology, this is quack attempt to force change where there is none to begin with. Desensitize is misleading definition of process that I would rather call and label and name as acquiring the knowledge how to retort to abuse and difficult people and unsolvable situations. With self worth inside us we will believe ourselves that we can express our little voice that propels us to calculate the best retort in any given situation and stick by it even when it is ridiculed, wrong or flawed. Without self worth we will be cripples - so we have to rely on our sense of calculation and knowing the best solution at the moment given the resources and knowledge. This part will not work with toxic people and Machiavellians who are not honest and who cannot afford to be authentic - since they are fake and have hidden goals that they calculate the whole time in their head, how to exploit other people without getting caught. When we have no such criminal intents, we can be completely open and honest, without hiding or being ashamed of being wrong or not acceptable. If we reject ourselves, we will shoot ourselves into foot, we will self sabotage ourselves. Desensitization would mean that we know how to retort and that we already know some basic facts of life - such as that bad situations will happen, that actions are connected with mistakes and evil and that we cannot avoid mistakes, since any action could be labelled as evil, wrong and mistake. When we know this, we will not mind being mistaken later on, when someone nitpicks our mistakes and nags about them. Empathy inside us will give us guidance to apologize and to admit being wrong and offer our help - if it is reasonable to do so.
Our brain is built to keep us safe and away from the pain. The brain is making this possible by not admitting what is true cause of problem and trauma and it will evade looking directly at problem because it is too painful. CBT joins in the bandwagon and focuses on unimportant insignificant things like breathing or calming down, and it is using self blame strategy to illicit change through discipline and blame and punishment. Which of course does not work, since there is nothing to fix there. The real problem is covered up. This is the proof that Freud and Jung were right, there is unconsciousness that is holding the real cause of disorder - toxic people who hurt us. So as long as we are learning and educating ourselves about how to recognize toxic people, how to retort to them in healthy and functional manner - we will feel better and stable and healthier. If we self-pathologize our panic symptoms, we will destroy our self worth and create toxic shame and mental imbalance. Humanistic psychology tells us that we have inside us the knowledge how to retort. Due to toxic propaganda and toxic shame, we are convinced that we are inept and that we must seek guidance from others, external reference locus of control. While it is true that we can use interdependence to learn and educate ourselves, the only process of information and data, including the criticism - is happening in our brain - so it is our ideas that can help us - not other people. We cannot put our ideas to flourish is we self-pathologize our thoughts as "cognitive distortions" and we nitpick our behaviour and thoughts as disgusting and sick.
Social anxiety is trauma from toxic people. It is inability to voice out the label "toxic people" because we were conditioned to take blame and place blame on ourselves, never other people. So inability to place blame on others is radical and freeing. The second step is to realize that this inability made us unable to deal, manage and recognize toxic people. So natural solution is to find a way out how to handle toxic people in functional, healthy manner. Labeling other people as toxic is toxic itself. This is not healthy way to handle toxic people, but paradoxically, as it is recurring issue of double binding - we are required to name them as toxic in order to heal. This way we can remove toxic shame from ourselves and place it back where it came from - to and onto toxic people, toxic shame came from toxic people and belongs to them. Intelligent, healthy, functional way to handle and deal and recognize toxic people is to retort to them in best possible way which will not cause chaos, drama and disorder. We can only do this when we base our decision on our super-ego, our inner GPS, base it on our moral sense of what is right and wrong. Being people pleaser and fawning as default response - means we are like Bishop character from Hugo's novel Les Miserables: that we show mercy. Showing mercy is also message by Marcus Aurelius and it is part of stoic movement. "The right way is always open to you". With such direction, we are always above toxic people, no matter how they try to hurt us and no matter what evil doings they do - we will not be influenced to become like them. Intuitively we know this - and we create social anxiety - as a way of the brain to find perfect solution to toxic people and our moral sense of what is right and wrong.
However there is an important detail: when we are under social anxiety, without knowledge about social anxiety and toxic people - we will base our GPS on toxic shame. This means, sometimes, we will over-react and feel bad about making mistake later on and worry if we made wrong. We will pre-emptively try to seek how to deal with toxic people before social event.
With self worth as inner GPS we know that we are allowed to make mistakes. And with knowledge about toxic people we will enter into social situations already prepared with calm, relaxed attitude. We will be honest and authentic - and this will repel many toxic people. With self worth as our GPS we will voice out the wrongdoings of other people but we will not have urge to destroy them or by tyrannical with them. We will know that unfair situations are part of life. With toxic shame we will listen to resentful people who want revenge and seek tyranny to destroy wrongdoers - and this will also cause panic and anxiety since we will try to please their request that we become monsters.
So solution to social anxiety must include two opposite ingredients: 1) it must align with social anxiety itself - so that Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve will not destroy the instructions with time - therefore it must be totally natural and already present inside the person such as being agreeable and people pleaser masked as diplomacy and interdependence and 2) it must contain healthy way how to deal with problems in life, it must correct way how to straighten us up to rise in correct way that is healthy and functional, not self sabotaging.
The only way is self worth and self acceptance. If we never resort to fight response as reaction to trauma (and thus developed borderline or narcissistic disorder) - we will resort to people pleasing and fawning. This is why fawning is healthiest option to trauma, from 4F it is the healthiest unhealthy response to trauma. This way CBT was therapy that does contain medical advice. There is no global conspiracy behind CBT as being Clockwork Orange planted therapy by CIA or government to turn people into sheep. It is simply non functional therapy, quick band aid therapy that lacked the humanistic approach. So with fawning we can highlight our already planted instruction to seek solution and to abstain from drama as quick reaction to toxic behaviour that triggers our trauma response. The only thing that is missing is knowing the correct manner how to respond to toxic behaviour and to base our reaction to our own moral sense what is good - even if this means making a fool of ourselves, making a mistake, making a blunder and hurting someone in the process. Self worth is the only way, intrinsic locus of control is the only way that we can allow ourselves to make mistake and not feel guilty about it. The missing ingredient is knowledge how to retort to toxic people's behaviour in correct manner without drama and explosions.
1) that trying not to make mistake is part of people pleasing - and we cannot please the whole world
2) that people who appear without having social anxiety make mistakes and they do not have any special instructions to socialize
3) that our actions matter - that we make change, that we do things we want to like to do for ourselves, that will make us feel proud inside and good and it makes a change, it is something that we gladly remember doing. We need to find these things - and we cannot do this if we have toxic shame inside us and if we do not accept our mistakes and flaws and our ignorance.
Where toxic people are the chaos makers here - and our inability to protect ourselves from this chaos in healthy manner is creating social anxiety - signal inside our body that we are not doing what we must to do feel safe and to retort to difficult people without drama and explosions.
Voicing out the wrongdoing is not trash, it is not aggression, it is not toxic. Defining and clarifying someone's toxic behavior is not wrong.
transitive verb. : to hinder the normal growth, development, or progress of.
"To appreciate the beauty of a snowflake, it is necessary to stand out in the cold." – Aristotle
(14.6.2022)
Retort is different from assertiveness. Assertiveness is hoax. It does not work with manipulative people.
I noticed that with social anxiety there is inability to voice out the elephant in the room. There is self-censorship mechanism inside that is too strong. It blocks our ability to speak out someone's mistake, blunder, flaw and ignorance even in situations when that person is not attacked, humiliated - and when these mistakes, flaws and ignorance would be productive to know, that these are put out on the surface and made aware of.
This inability to speak out the inconvenient truth about the other person obviously stems from abuse - we try not to inflict the pain of humiliation that we experienced when someone mocked our mistakes, flaws and ignorance. We do not want to make them feel bad and embarrassed. Also we try to avoid rocking the boat and someone's potential hysterical reaction to our truth.
Retort is reminder that we do speak out the unspoken truth. The problem is that without this ability we set ourselves up to be abuses, we will attract toxic people, we will miss the opportunities, we will sabotage our success in life not related to greedy money. People will think we are not intelligent because we will seem to be unable to recognize problems and issues that are required to be mended. So natural solution here is to speak those things out with kindness package, in a way that is not humiliating, and that we realize and change our mindset - that speaking up out about someone's mistakes, flaws and ignorance is not always an act of evil or toxicity and it is not always sin or cruel act. Behind our warning there is no hidden agenda to cause someone pain or to hurt them. Narcissist feast on this ability to voice out and mock and attack other people's mistakes, flaws and ignorance. And this makes them successful in life - since they appear as efficient removers of blockages and they seem courageous and bold and strong. The problem is that behind their explanations is not empathy nor desire to help someone. Behind their speaking is desire to be admired and approved and validated - and if they do not receive love, they become cruel, like injured animal: hysterical and aggressive and violent, with temper tantrums and mood swings and inappropriate anger outbursts.
So it is our task to voice out someone's mistakes and flaws and ignorance without being jerk about it - and that is retort. This is not assertiveness. Assertiveness is about being egocentric and seeing only my view and expressing what I need. And this drive to express your needs can be easily manipulated very easily by people who like drama just for the sake of creating drama.
Our task with retort is to become aware that we need to change our mindset - where voicing out someone's blunders is not always evil and it is done to upgrade, help and warn person - so that they do not repeat the mistake. Other person will most likely feel embarrassment, since no one likes to be exposed as failure - and this stops us from speaking out the truth. We want to prevent making someone look like a fool, especially in public. We can sprinkle the truth with humour. We can add certain phrases and even make ourselves look fool by telling about our own blunders. Or we can directly say it that it is for their own good so that they know what is wrong - so that is not repeated again. There is problem here - what if they do not know any better?
Then we have embarrassed someone to be idiot and they will stay being idiot. Yet if we do not say what is wrong, they might cause damage and hurt themselves or someone else in the process of mistake. I would speak it out nonetheless, perhaps without crowds.
It is important to realize that this inability to complain to other's about their wrong action is the root of social anxiety. That the reality is that some people will over-react and there is possibility that we might be hurt and perhaps fired from the job. This ability to speak out other people's mistake, to nag and complain about something is act of breaking the ice. Glasser says that this communication can be transmuted from nag and complain which are negative and dysfunctional ways - into cooperation and negotiation.
It will be hard to voice out what is wrong if we do not know this person well or not at all. With social anxiety we get stuck at this stage. While other kids learned this and repeat it with enough times, we never learned this lesson at all due to trauma and isolation from others.
Trauma that caused social anxiety was when someone was speaking out our mistakes, flaws and ignorance - which in reality were not mistakes neither flaws nor ignorance. This is connected with the paradox of the truth - what is reality anyway. Who is correct in dualistic world. And narcissist will complain and nag with agenda that other person must obey, that there is no way you can say no to them. When we retort - we simply voice out our truth without expecting the other person to obey.
Any information that is interpreted as criticism will get stuck in their minds, this is hypnosis. Brain is built to detect danger and protect us from danger. That way complaining and nagging is form of hypnosis - since we are bombarded with danger that brain flags as important. This way we stay stuck and in fear of making mistakes.
This ability to retort will propel us into more of leadership position, more active position - which is totally new role and new dimension for someone with social anxiety - but it is essential for growing up and developing our persona which was arrested in development due to trauma and abuse.
It will make us to rely on our self worth and our inner ability to come up with intelligent solutions to problems and difficulties without rumination and self sabotage that social anxiety is fused with due to toxic shame and inability to trust ourselves. This comes with ability to doubt everyone and ourselves - so this means that we allow ourselves to label difficult people as toxic in order to not feel guilty when we warn them about their transgressions as we usually do with social anxiety.
Ability to have courage to retort requires us that we change fixed mindset such as I am not allowed to make mistakes and I must be perfectionist into I will always make mistakes since they are packed with any action. Also that I change just word mindset with accepting the fact that unfairness is part of life and that I cannot control other people nor events which are totally outside of my control.
And that to make any action and to retort I have to know and be prepared to be mistaken, and that I will make unintentional harm in the process, there will be collateral damages and I will make fool of myself by my actions and words. That I accept this as fact of life. Other kids learned this lesson in their teens - where traumatized, isolated kids never learned this lesson at all, and this part is stumped, unresolved, squashed. With social anxiety and abuse I believe I must be perfect before, during and after event. That I am not allowed to make mistakes and that mistakes are equal to my persona and my worth. Since other people criticize my mistakes - and trauma bonding and external reference make me base my worth on what other people speak and find fault about me.
So I will not be able to break trauma bonding without slaying of the monster - that I label such critical people as toxic. Glasser says that criticism and nagging is dysfunctional method. There is better way to nitpick someone's mistakes: to retort in functional, healthy manner.
The purpose of self worth is that we figure out what we want from life - and move in the direction of our desires, wants, needs where we feel natural and good - which is healthy and functional in the same time. Trauma keeps us stuck in unhealthy beliefs and fears due to toxic people. So getting rid of control of toxic people is crucial that we become free from other people's criticism - that they no longer are fused with our self worth, our persona and our soul, what we believe about ourselves inside - which is never connected with our mistakes, flaws and ignorance.
Social anxiety and trauma is stuck false belief that our mistakes are equal and fused with our self worth. That is toxic shame and this creates trauma bonding and extreme sensitivity to other people's criticism and nagging. Then this trauma bonding make us to sort and built our life around other people's criticism - which stumps our growth and we self sabotage ourselves into isolation and hurt and pain, we do not grow. We do not know where to grow - since our preoccupation and prime focus in life is other people's criticism.
And any goal or dream we want to take based on our self worth - will be somehow connected with other people - which may entail toxic people, too. So education how to deal and manage toxic people is crucial - if I fawn to them as I did with social anxiety and trauma - it will not work. I will give up on my dreams and I will reject myself and follow other people's instruction: to be isolated, to give up, to be bitter, to hold on to grudge and resentment and to base my life on reactions of toxic people.
With social anxiety and trauma we are focused on other people. We base our decisions and thoughts on other people. This reaction and behavior is not obvious when we are in comfort zone. And it takes our control when we are around people - especially when they start to behave in erratic, hysterical way - usually when they blame us and try to impose irrational guilt over our mistakes, flaws and ignorance. So we give up on our goals and dreams and we serve other people so that they do not hate us, that they do not punish us that they are not violent and difficult. Normal and healthy people do not behave like that even when we are guilty of making mistake. Most people lack empathy and realization how their own behaviour affects the person whom they deem as nuisance. They think they have the right to treat people like crap when they perceive being taken advantage of or when their entitlement is not satisfied and we are seen as the reason for their failure to get narcissistic supply met. This is the reason why toxic person will help us to put them inside a box, under a bell jar, so that we can trap them - instead of them trapping us. Mentally we put them in inferior position, since they refuse to be equal to us. This will set us free. And it will propel us to make our own decisions in life which are not based as a reaction to avoid rage from toxic people. It is said that when we are free to make our own free decisions, people will usually imitate other people. This is the reason why inner GPS, intrinsic locus of control, self worth is important factor. This means that we stick to our needs, wants and likes even though people may mock them or attack them. Even if our decisions, words, actions that we base on our common sense and what we decide is healthy and functional, are labelled as mistake by some people. If we listen to our fears and anxiety - we will never doubt other people, that they may have hidden agenda and that they may feel joy to see us unhappy, subordinated, failed.
Assertiveness puts other person in charge and in prime focus. It negates toxic shame that may be inside me. It negates external reference locus of control and trauma bonding that may be influencing my irritations and urges and needs and wants. This way it encourages me to grow in un-natural and crooked direction if my basis is other people's approval or desire to evade their wrath.
Trauma makes us believe in dysfunctional beliefs and convictions that we never put into question. Such as definition of what is good. If we make ourselves belief that the definition of good is to not make mistake - we will cut our ability to take any action. If we believe that mistake is the same as our worth and our persona - we will cut our ability to do anything. These beliefs are imposed by toxic people. If we believe that labeling toxic people as toxic is bad - we will self blame and direct our hurt and unfairness onto ourselves and we will develop toxic shame.
Self worth means that I am present here and now. Without obsession about potential danger and worrying about the next day, living in hypervigilance and trying to please someone who is tyrannical and unreasonable and unrealistic and difficult to get along with, someone who is antagonistic. It is having life without weight on my shoulder or body pressing me down. That is social anxiety - feeling that pressure, desperation imposed onto our amygdala and traumatized sense of what is our definition of moral and ethics by parasitic, manipulative, tyrannical, hysterical, boderline narcissists.
Feelings we have when we are feeling trapped and unable to move away from something that we perceive as uncomfortable and difficult and tyrannical is social anxiety. These feelings might seem as over-reaction or even delusional - I say these feelings are real and they are messages from inside that warn us that there is something toxic and something need our intervention - in intelligent way, in proper manner, in healthy response to take action about it.
Problem is we will find worth in something only if it is recognized by others and validated by others, approved by others. When we like something, it will not be with full hearth especially if someone disliked it. That is trauma bonding, external reference locus of control. Inability to find joy in something that someone labeled in negative way is due to shame, deep ingrained belief of toxic shame. It is trauma, injured wounded part deep down that never received love and recognition and now it is part that I scorn and reject: my mistakes. So ability to sit comfortably with my mistakes, blunders, embarrassments, flaws and ignorance will heal toxic shame and trauma and social anxiety. This includes self advocacy and ability to retort, that I am not swayed by Ad hominem arguments. Mistakes will be perceived as aggression by other people - and toxic people play the role here as someone who is inventing drama for the hidden agenda such as enjoying seeing someone in pain or drama itself - when they do not know or are not aware that there are healthy ways to lead life. Someone will accuse me for hurting someone or causing pain due to my mistakes. This is where I need to have mechanism inside me, a court to evaluate if this is over-reaction, lie or truth - and to what extend it is true - and what can I do about it to fix it if I did make some grave mistake. And how do I handle my mistakes. The issue with social anxiety is that I overlook my actions and try not to make any mistake all the time. I go to extra lengths to avoid making mistakes. So someone toxic will exploit this need of mine to avoid mistakes by nitpicking and triggering my fears of making mistakes. This will get my attention and I fill fawn to this person to collect my sins and to appease them - this way I can be controlled and turned into a slave.
So social anxiety is message from within that I am being exploited and manipulated by someone toxic who is hypnotizing me into fawning to them due to my urge to not make mistake and be fair to everyone and never cause pain to anyone. Social anxiety is message that I wake up and see that I did not make mistake and that I am being exploited.
What can I do if I do not have money and I need to have any kind of job - where someone toxic will nitpick and make temper tantrums over my mistakes - which are natural part of any action especially if done for the first time? Social anxiety will try to message me that this situation is unacceptable and that I need to go away. And it would be wise to speak to those unreasonable people about what they are doing - that they are unrealistic, hysterical, rude and toxic. That is retort. They nitpick others about mistakes - we retort them about their miserable character and toxic actions that make them jerk. These people were never told about this from people who raised them and who stick around them - so everyone is enabling their abuse through silence, ignorance and denial. Toxic, criminal people need to be isolated and in prison - away from healthy population. Instead socially anxious people who are kind and nice end up in prison as protection against mentally ill aggressive violent people.
Question is what toxic people can do to us? What kind of punishment we are so afraid of that is influences our triggers, flashbacks, trauma and anxiety? What power they have? How can they control us?
It is about loss of job and loss of money and security, being homeless in the end - if we say no to them and do not abide with their unreasonable wishes.
Here is problem: they will not change, they will attack no matter what we do or not do. They will never be satisfied. And how other people handle it, and how can I put myself in situation where I can find another job and source of income. These questions is what social anxiety is trying to tell me that I need to look and analyze. Staying with toxic people is toxic - social anxiety wants us to do something healthy, functional about it.
Social anxiety wants me to evaluate my options - sometimes blocking and cutting contact is the best option. Sometimes my retort and influence and opinion will change things - remove negative parts. And if I am not aware of trauma, I will never feel good about myself - and this way I will never educate myself and invest in my future and security. Instead I will react to other people, their criticism and this will by my prime focus on life. This will set me up to attract toxic people who seek someone codependent who is willing to fix their feelings and problems.
Unsuccessful and erroneous idea to upgrade and fix myself before checking if I self love myself is a form of addiction. If I do not accept my mistakes I will never be satisfied about anything in life. I will always chase perfection and it is a rat wheel - it has not ending. We are not gods, we are made to be erroneous and mistaken. First we accept that and then we correct it if we can, if we want and if it is realistic and if there is no neuroticism behind the drive to seek correction and upgrade. First and foremost we have to be content with what we have inside us and feel gratitude for ourselves no matter what other people disliked about us. If there is no content, there is no self love. This lesson we never learned while growing up and now we are stuck in invalidation and trauma and anxiety and seeking perfection and trying to cover up our vulnerabilities.
So we need to be totally accepting about ourselves, in full, without conditions to have self worth - which is the basis to remove veil over our eyes that does not allow us to see reality clearly. Our thoughts are normal, mistaken and wrong as they ought to be for a human - it is the veil that is the problem. We are not the problem, it is trauma that is imposed over our eyes and invalidation that prevents us from self love and thus defense and immunity to protect ourselves from viruses - toxic people. Without protection, without immunity we will fall into illness. Our self worth is our immunity. Total trust in our feelings and opinions even at the cost of being wrong and mistaken.
People pleasing, fawning is not problem if we would be in healthy, normal world. Because no one would exploit our need to please and to do more. Toxic people are the only problem - they create chaos and disorder. They label us as sick, they demand us to change, they have hidden agenda and they enjoy seeing other people suffer - so that they others are seen as inferior to them, in their sick minds.
Learning about trauma teaches us that we change the way how we see other people. We realize that criticism hurts and it can cause brain damage. So empaths already take heed and try not to cause the same hurt and pain - and often seek people pleasing and self-censorship at their own damage, withholding the evidence that may cause someone's pain - and this way we end up last or with injustice - since the truth is kept inside us, in order not to cause wrongdoers the pain. Also with trauma education we get to realize that we allow other people to be who they are, even when they are annoying, irritating and wrong - since we realize that there is no definition of what is normal, good or accepted or norm or conformism to comply about. This also means that we realize that we will cause damage to someone, and we will make mistake and someone will be slighted and someone will be hurt by us eventually. It is impossible not to make mistake and hurt someone - no matter how much we try to be good and cause no one pain.
Also trauma education and allowing ourselves to make mistakes and be embarrassed gives us new options, that were not previously available to us. For example, in the movie "The Verdict" by Sidney Lumet the main character Paul Newman suffers from panic attacks - but he does not keep it inside, nor he mask it. He has them in public, and if he is in the room - he steps away from the situation and gives his panic attack private room in the bathroom. And even if the person who was rude to him tries to come in, he explains to leave him alone. With social anxiety and people pleasing - we do not allow ourselves to show our fears. We put on a mask of chirpy happy no problem face - even though when we feel discomfort by someone's rude and unjust and brutal accusations. We stifle it in, and thus we tell our self worth that we are not important. That other people's importance and entitlement and their pleasantness is important, while our fears must be masked and not expressed - even behind closed doors and in private. We think if we show it, we will be labelled as weak, non masculine, and that we want to draw attention or someone's sympathy - and this is the proof that we are not victim actors. Some people who do not understand anxiety nor trauma - they try to wrongly accuse us as we have victim mentality. Putting a people pleasing mask of having the same expression all the time is the proof that we are not seeking privilege for having trauma. Also we think if we show fears or panic, that this label us as weak and we must then wear the mask of someone weak, who shuts up and who is not allowed to be seen or explained as arrogant in ways we make our standpoint.
Another component of social anxiety is that our opinion or conflict about something - it is based on our mistake - which might actually be our intelligence - that we actually did not make any mistake - because with our over active amygdala and people pleasing and trauma not to hurt someone and not to cause pain to someone - we are in hypervigilance mode all the time. This restricts us from many options that we would otherwise take. So when someone complains, throw criticism or accuse us of some mistake, flaw or lack of knowledge - it hurts deeply - since it is unfair. We already did everything humanly possible not to make mistake. Other people would do half of it. That part needs to be voiced out and explained. We don't. We shut up and we never speak it out -- and we take the blame, shame and guilt and unfair accusation. Then we end up with anxiety that feels like social anxiety - anxiety from someone's nagging, complaining and criticism and our inability to explain what happened. Many times toxic people who engage in attack and being stubborn - do not listen at all - they walk away, they do not listen they turn around and walk away - and again - this is what we need to voice out: their inability to communicate and face the truth, our side of story. It is abnormal to be tyrannical and not listen to someone's side of story. During growing up we never were taught that we can speak our our side of story, it was always our guilt, our shame, we were automatically guilty and any problem was quickly resolved this way.
I guess some people do "give in" and show emotion - and that is healthy. But for a people pleaser, someone who is codependent, who is afraid of criticism - the social anxiety will keep us trapped in being philosophical zombie, someone without bad emotions to show, anything that could be interpreted as criticism is avoided. And that is trauma, that is something about social anxiety that is unhealthy aspect. We are slaves to someone's real or imaginary tyranny - that is not healthy.
To me social anxiety is ability to sniff out "irregularities" and this irritates toxic people who have hidden agenda - and they have pre-emptive strategies to keep noisy people away from their crime and wrongdoings. This is why it is important to know what is happening, to regulate our fears and panic which we will feel when they attack us, and that we do not turn it into self blame and embarrassment. The only way to do this is to label them as toxic. This way we can separate our guilt being hypnotized into irrational, and it keeps away their injection of guilt being placed onto us. When I do not feel guilty - I will not have reason to shut up - I will voice out the irregularities that I am able to see and sniff out and detect - since I was traumatized by toxic people - and each negative experience, each anger, each injustice makes me sharper in detecting the irregularities. If I choose to explain this ability to detect someone's BS as my weakness or paranoia - I will shut up, I will feel as weak and too sensitive. It is up to me to trust my self worth, and reject someone's labels and Ad Hominems and work on self advocacy, truth, honesty, facts and objective facts.
Question to ask.
Social anxiety disorder is hallucination. Social anxiety is real fear.
So we can measure the fear in order to evaluate what is behind it. I can ask myself question What kind of damage they can do?
What kind of damage can some person do to me - if I say no to them? If I make a mistake. If I do not do something that they did or would ask from me? Am I realistic about the damage. Does this damage hurt? Can I estimate the damage?
Also:
What are my rights and what am I entitled to in this relationship with them?
It appears that there are assertive rights that no self help books talk about - something like I have a right to say no and to change my mind and to refuse conversation or something. What are my rights. With fears I do not think about my rights. With toxic shame I do not put forward myself - my needs and what I payed for. With toxic people I have no rights at all. This needs to be challenged and spoken out. With social anxiety I do not evaluate neither I make any calculations about these two questions.
With social anxiety we are afraid to hurt someone's feelings - codependency and need to fix other people and keep them comfortable. What I never think about it point of view: if the other person is really hurt about my opinion, demand, action - then this person has delusions. The exactly the same delusions that CBT is using to ashame socially anxious people! CBT never explains - well, what if the other person has delusions and over-reacts to us? Should we fawn to their delusions and shut up because their aggression will set of discomfort inside me - which I might label as social anxiety due to CBT?
With social anxiety I believe that when someone is angry - that they have absolutely right to be hysterical. This is trauma - this is the reason why social anxiety is actually complex trauma. The truth is when they are hysterical about something I said or did - I have no hidden agenda, and I am not rude - I guard my words and their accusations of me being arrogant or deserving of their abuse is lie and delusion. They are rationalizing their abuse based on delusion. With codependency and people pleasing I will never think about this from this angle. I will automatically feel toxic shame and guilt - for them being hysterical and this makes me easy target for toxic people. I miss retort words, phrases and defense to make it clear that I am not aggressive, stop being defensive and that their anger controls me, that I shut up or fawn to them. They are delusional - so if I fawn, that will be confirmation for their delusion that I am aggressive. CBT sets socially anxious people to shut up and thus CBT keeps us stuck in toxic relationships - since toxic person never hears our side of story at all. Toxic person ends up believing we are guilty ones. Due to toxic shame and codependency we believe that the other person is intelligent enough to see and that they will think about it and that they will come to conclusion that they over-reacted. They won't. Toxic people do not care about other people.
In real life situations our speaking up the truth, our actions, anything we do - it will hurt toxic people even when there is no ill will nor any hidden agenda against anyone. It will still be interpreted as criticism by toxic people who are easily injured by truth and transparency. With CBT I am instructed to distrust my thoughts as distorted - so when someone speaks to me that I am wrong, I will believe them. This way toxic person can easily control me - since I distrust my brain as delusional. CBT explains that all my anxiety is hallucination - so including the discomfort that I feel when someone is rude - based on me discovering their ploys and unfair games and manipulation. That is what makes CBT extremely dysfunctional and dangerous for anyone who tries to be good and nice and fair to others. That is how toxic people exploit unwritten rules and beat us up at our own niceness.
With trauma and codependency whenever there is no violence and open aggression but only potential criticism I will still feel fear and I will react to fear without thinking deeply whether there is hysteria or not. I will fawn, shut down, have dysregulation, defense mechanisms. I simply react as habit to triggers and anything that looks like triggers. CBT labels this as delusion. Realistically speaking it is delusion on the surface, but it has its roots in the past abuse. It is product of conditioning - so realization that this is delusion will not help me, it will only spark toxic shame and distrust in my own thinking possibilities and abilities and toxic belief that I am inept to manage life.
Whenever there is any need and when I am down - when I need help - in those circumstances the toxic people will parasite over such conditions. So I need to be aware that whenever I am needy - there will be toxic people offering "help". CBT says - expose always. Nope, in this case exposure is not good idea. I will not learn anything, I will get into trouble. Avoidance here is better way than throwing myself into arms of psychopaths who just wait someone desperate.
CBT solves the question of making a good choices in life by self-pathologizing and sacrificing yourself to toxic people. In reality, social anxiety is automatic feeling of guilt even when there is none to be measured or seen. The guilt is within, toxic shame. It is motor that messes our decisions, it is hidden and it gets triggered - which means I can appear without it. This CBT explains as delusions. Toxic shame is real injury, but its off-springs are hallucination: belief that I am inferior and that I am not on par with other people, or that I am not good if I wear certain clothes. Toxic people impose guilt through shaming and nitpicking over mistakes. CBT does not recognize this. Instead, CBT targets person's ability to think as abnormal - this is dangerous strategy. With belief that my mind is abnormal - while in reality it is totally functional - I am setting myself to delusions. Therefore CBT is a set of instructions that create delusions.
As I said before, our task with social anxiety is self-advocacy and retort, to voice out the wrongdoings of toxic people. We don't do it due to fear that they can do serious damage (which needs to be evaluated by us), we don't do it due to trauma and codependency (we believe that they are superior and strong because they scream while in reality these people are weak and cowards), we don't do it - self advocacy nor retort because CBT instructs us that we are having hallucinations and that we must be calm and that there are not toxic people.
Another reason why with social anxiety I will shut up and self censor myself is due to belief that I will embarrass the other person, and I do not want them to feel the same anxiety of being ashamed as I felt it. That stops me from reacting to their abuse and toxic behaviour. So my definition of what means good is distorted. It is not my mind that is distorted as CBT explains - it is that I have injury from trauma of being exposed to relentless criticism and invalidation - that now I have issues of recognizing what a good person means by definition.
I believe that it is evil to speak the truth - my opinion, do my thing, being myself - even when it is uncomfortable to the evil person. So I do not see other person as evil. I do not see their action as evil. I see my action as evil, for being me, myself. This part is messed up. And thus it seems to me that conflict is useless since there is fawning as option to any request. With self worth concept I can stand up for myself when someone is unreasonable. When I fawn - I will feel trauma, I will feel social anxiety. So it is crucial to define what is unreasonable to me- that definition comes from my self worth.
And once again the reminder, the general rule for all toxic people is: 1) if I need to seek definition what is evil - that this is a sign that there is toxic person in the first place since they are not governed by unwritten rules of social interaction, give and take, and 2) that it will most probably end up with relocation and cutting the contact - which means I need to have money. Which means that if I do not have money to go away I will have to fawn and experience moral injury. Also, in certain situations there is nothing that I can do - so moral injury is the only experience that I cannot avoid. That I accept that life is unfair sometimes, and that bad things happen no matter how hard I tried to avoid bad things from happening.
Georg Cantor came up with new type of infinity -unlistable. He was ridiculed for idea there were different types of infinity. He spent his later life in and out of mental institutions, where he died in the end. Near end of his life it was recognized, it was true
YT Infinity is bigger than you think - Numberphile
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elvOZm0d4H0
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. We must not only remember past experiences, but also be able to learn from them; to see different ways. The psyche structures new beliefs through experiences, prevents repeating mistakes.
GEORGE SANTAYANA (1863-1952)
Can we make long term prediction of any kind of system?
Problem is when we try to control that which is out of control, we become incredibly anxiety prone society.
How can we make prediction on long term basis, given fine components of system, complexities of human being, how one human being sees something. How one human being react to something. There are so many infinite possibilities, we can't make long term prediction.
"Chaos and order are not enemies, only opposites." RICHARD GARRIOTT
If I am afraid of getting mugged in NY I'd become very cautious. As I become cautious I become a target. Therefore I am inviting the very thing I am afraid of. Chaos and fear of chaos actually invites more chaos.
"Chaos was the law of nature; order was the dream of man." HENRY BROOKS ADAMS
Is chaos bad? If we could live in society of understanding chaos and living with chaos what we are talking about is concept in psychology called spontaneity. Being able to go with the moment. Being able to stay with what is, rather than control that which might be. If we could flow with, if we could stay with the moment, if we could stay with here and now, which is another psychological term, if we could be with what is, we wouldn't need necessarily to attempt so much to control what might be in the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq8prvEyj9s
The Greeks weren’t sure
what to do with the concept of infinity. They called it apeiron
But for the Greeks, apeiron had the same
sort of negative connotations that “chaos” does today. In a culture that placed a
great deal of emphasis on precision, apeiron was indefinite and immeasurable.
-
Philosopher David Hume (1711–76) decided not only that human beings can’t conceive of infinity (because our
minds are finite), but also that the infinite (and particularly the infinitesimally small) could not exist.
-
We are led to conclude that the attributes "larger", "smaller" and "equal" have no place in comparing infinite quantities.
Galileo
-
What Newton realized was that, when dealing with acceleration that follows a
curve, if you make the change small enough, zooming in to the detail of the
curve until you’re practically dealing with a point, then to all intents and
purposes here again is a straight line.
-
Cantor
came under academic attack. A one-time mentor, Leopold Kronecker (1823–
91), who was much more powerful in the academic establishment, set out to ruin
Cantor because Kronecker simply could not stand the implications of Cantor’s
work. Kronecker was a purist. He was happy only with the existence of integers
and numbers directly based on them, like rational fractions.
-
Kurt Gödel (1906–78) devised the most shocking proof in mathematics. His
masterpiece, the incompleteness theorem, states that in any system of
mathematics there will be some problems that it’s impossible to solve.
A crude approximation to Gödel’s theorem is to imagine dealing with the
statement: “This system of mathematics can’t prove that this statement is true.”
Is this statement true?
-
If the system proves the statement, then it can't prove it. If the system can't prove the statement, it still can't prove it.
Whatever happens, this is an unprovable statement.
-
Paul Cohen (1934–2007), who showed that it would never be
possible to either prove or disprove the continuum hypothesis. No one can be
certain if χc, the infinity of the continuum from 0 to 1, is the same as χ1
-
It was also realized that many natural formations are like fractals. Trees, mountain ranges, snowflakes, clouds are all roughly fractal. the way these natural objects are formed involves a similar repeated simple process.
-
But even if it did have an edge, we now think
that nothing could cross the boundary, as the universe is expanding so quickly
that nothing could catch it up.
Introducing Infinity: A Graphic Guide
Book by Brian Clegg
How people see me, how people view me, it's none of my business. I cannot control that. It has nothing to do with me because as a human being we all walk around with a filter anyway. You see what you want to see. You don't actually see the reality, none of us see the reality. We just see what we want to see. Whatever people think of you, and how they think of you - that's their filters that are doing the thinking anyway. For one person - most profounding. For another - I disagree. It has to do with their upbringing and beliefs. So there is no point in arguing with them. And it's stupid to think that you can change them, it's a waste of time. When you know that there's nothing to change, it is waste of time to try to change people, don't bother. However you could care about people without caring what they think. You know what you're about, you know your values, you know what you stand for, how they say, how they feel, how they view - it none of that matters. When you understand that any social setting - you will be calm, cool and don't give a sh*. It is ok. You know what to do.
Dan Lok
YT STOP Caring What OTHER People THINK of YOU! | Dan Lok | Top 10 Rules
The loudest voices rarely represent the majority. They're usually speaking for the extremes.
You won't understand the views of a group until you've invited the quieter voices into the discussion.
Don't mistake silence for disengagement. It's often a sign of deep reflection.
(20.6.2022)
I noticed that I have serious issues with social situations due to toxic shame and external reference locus of control. First I deny my anxiety as illusion - then I feel guilty for having anger emotions if someone is rude, intrusive or unreasonable. And lastly I am ashamed to take any action that rejects someone who is unbearable.
Even at my own detriment.
I lack information about my rights.
I do not see how dangerous it is to let anyone in my space, not having doors, not standing up for my protection. Which is paradoxical since I will avoid people and thus I will protect myself. As if my all protection through avoidance falls apart when in social situations. Other people control me too easily through fears and shame.
I cannot rely on myself if I label my anxiety as hallucination. Even at the cost of being wrong and making embarrassement for myself for rejecting someone - there is no other way to handle people. Being servile can include rejection and denial of their request.
At the bottom of social anxiety are traumatic experiences with toxic people where we were felt bullied and treated without respect and where others were unreasonable and unrealistic in their requests, words and actions - and we do not have and we did not have retort, effective strategy, we had no words to say back to them - and we were filled with terror that something bad will happen to us: we'll get fired and end up homeless - let's say this is the bottom line of our fear. Somehow toxic people cornered us and we did not have ways to defend ourselves - since they used our mistakes, flaw and ignornace as tool to ashame us and inject guilt inside us - which realistically was not mistake, flaw or ignorance at that level that they presented as shameful and aggressive. We need to voice out this transgression, that is abuse. That experience we had was abuse - but since we have empathy to toxic people - we automatically blamed ourselves and in the same time we never see these toxic people as toxic, at least not at the exact moment when they abused us. And we were left with triggers and new trauma on top of previous experiences of toxic shame from toxic people. This viscious circle of toxic shaming and abuse needs to be broken. I see the ways to be broken is that we are aware of manipulation and toxic people, that we can label it as toxic. So that we shift the blame away from us. Then that we educate ourselves how to deal with unreasonable, difficult people in funcitonal, healthy, proper manner, without explosions and trauma and wars and without isolation or avoidance.
From my experience - this cannot be always case. Sometimes our triggers will be overwhelming and we will lose our cool- so we will be left with double binding: either we fawn and experience trauma - or we take steam off and blow it off to someone who is pushing too far. This action is too radical, too controversial - and that is the reason why official medical community decided to go with CBT - as a worldwide tranquility method. If people are given permission to be radical and free in their expression of anger with toxic people - this can be misinterpreted and many people would define it as being monster and showing teeth. The problem with monster strategy is that - it will not solve anything, we will only feel better and we'll break trauma circle. Also, anger will push us into amygdala so we will have no reason and common sense - and this means we will make plethora or wrong moves - which toxic person will use against us. So the secret is to express ourselves, to express our anger - in a way that toxic person will interpret as us being monster - but without actually being hysterical.
I see this action as retort. It is no communication skill and it is not being assertive. It is only method that we break codependency and that we opt out of Karpman Drama Triangle. There is nothing to change about us - it is only a way to let toxic person know that they are toxic in direct manner - and it will hurt them. This takes a lot of knowledge and education - and due to amygdala we will probable go overboard and make mistake and we'll come off as hysterical and violent and rude and aggressive - which if we are not aware of making mistakes - we'll feel ashamed about. Another thing to know is that when we retort - when we no longer peolpe please and when we no longer fawn to others - even when we retort in clear and non violent manner - when we do it most perfectly in the world - that we will still be most likely punished by toxic people. We will lose our job, we will be talked behind our back, we will be attacked and other person will refuse to take responsibility.
So we have to take these things into consideration - but we have no choice. Fawning and ignoring manipulation and gaslighting will chip off our mental health and it will trap us in trauma and social anxiety.
This means that we need to have money and options to relocate available to us. That is hars reality - which means that we are left with social anxiety as reality until we do not make ourselves available to be without job for certain amount of time. That is why toxic people are toxic - they blackmail people into subservience and they allow themselves to be toxic since they parasite over kind nice people who are silent to their abuse.
This issues are not covered by CBT.
Some CBT resource will tell you - well, simple go away. Which of course is fantasy and not as option to many people - people would leave long time ago if they can. This is also indicative that CBT does not understand social anxiety - that it is connected to codepenedency and toxic shame - belief that we are inept to manage life and that we depend on other people to guide us and instruct us how to manage our life.
What I have seen from my experience - is that retort is very powerful method. You will discover also as soon as you do not fawn to toxic people - that most of them will change their rethorics, they will back down. This is because most toxic people are extreme cowards, and they wear mask. It only depends how big that mask is. They abuse other people in order to be authority over other people and they do not care how other people feel - and they disovered that many people are kind and nice and easily manipulated through yelling and screaming. Well, with social anxiety - due to trauma - we feel social anxiety whenever we are triggered by abuse similar to original trauma. We will get triggered by fake, toxic people with their narcissitic mask of superiority and their methods of abusing other people - we will feel panic inside. This is our past trauma reacting to abuse and it knows how much dangerous, twisted and difficult such people can lead to and that they cannot take no for answer. With social anxiety and trauma we never learned how to deal with such people, since it is painful and brain will always protect us by shifting our focus away from pain - and we will be stuck with inability to handle and manage toxic people in any other way than what helped us during past: fawning, people pleasing, being pushover, being codependent, taking the blame automatically and believing in toxic shame.
We can divide social anxiety occurance in two categories: 1) when someone is directly talking to us and demands something 2) situations where we need to go and someone might be aggressive.
This tells us that in second example - we can work ourseleves up - by ensuring there will be now one aggressive.
The second situation is tricky. Where do we go? What we want? We need self worth to know this. If we have external reference locus of control and toxic shame - other people will decide this for us, and most often we will go nowhere, we will choose avoidance and isolation due to trauma. When I realize that toxic shame is inside me and that I can have other entity inside me by accepting myself and validating myself - that self worth can decide where to go and what to explore.
With social anxiety - we need to have information how to handle difficult person when they are talking directly to us. Current methods: shutting up, going along with demands, being pushover, taking self blame, not shifting the blame at the true cause, not voicing out the elephant in the room - is not effective and it is enabling of narcissistic abuse to continue.
It helps to zoom out from social anxiety and to see the big picture. When we feel social anxiety it is like energy field and hypnosis - we become extremely aware of danger, due to trauma, and it feels electrifying and in the same time we change our persona - we fawn because we expect danger from other people. So we can see social anxiety as reaction. We are like reactive material that changes it's properties around other people. We do not feel social anxiety in safe settings, in psychological security environment. People who feel social anxiety there have disorder related to paranoid delusional disorder. I see this very important information, that we realize that we react and that we are reactive. The goal is that we become less reactive and that our reactions are natural, which would they be when we are in safe environment.
Since social anxiety is based on trauma - the first thing we need to do when social anxiety appears is to scan for potential threat. This is why we feel social anxiety - our brain remembered bad experiences in social situations before, it picked up triggers from the past - and now it wants us to take action - usually to run away - or at least that we know how to handle the danger in proper manner. So it is useless to spend energy on something and someone who is not dangerous at all - can we do something about that. Perhaps we can see if the other person is only behaving in similar way to original trauma experience - using words or posture that is similar to whatever is triggering us. We can test it - by being authentic, by being honest and being ourselves, speaking out our opinion and see how people react to it. Unless we are annoying and intrusive - people would not mind it. If they have hidden agenda or if they are intrusive they will react. Then we need to retort to them - because toxic people once they are recognized are difficult and they feel entitled, and they hate transparency and they want to world revolve around them to obey them and that they can control other people. We need to see such people as inferior and weak, no matter how hard they try to come off as strong and aggressive, it is only a mask. Also, it is most likely that any communication and relationship is impossible with such people - so we need to calculate if we have money to support our relocation and moving away from them. Our brain wants us safe - and with self worth inside us, our own safety is now primary goal. Not toxic people anymore. With social anxiety we have self blame bases on toxic shame and we try to people please toxic people and fawn to their unresonable requests. Brain wants us to feel safe so that we are not taken advantage anymore. It will broadcast panic symptoms when it feels trapped and when it repeats the trauma from before. So - if we have option to cut contact and move away - we need to do it. If we have power and options to retort - we need to do it and that will be different route than habitual social anxiety.
That is why reaction is critical. The point of being healthy and without hypervigilance is that we feel safe, that we keep ourselves safe, that other people do not dictate how we make any decisions about anything, that other people do not dictate our traits (being coward, being stupid, being different etc). The point is that we feel calm and without urge to please someone and without urge to evade someone's attack and hysteria. Following our self worth will mean a lot of changes in our lives. We will relocate - in any way, we will cut contact with unbearable people and we will change habits which were toxic to us. Again the point of these changes is that we live our life, that we take actions without having weight of anxiety and hypervigilance behind our back. The goal is that we do not feel reaction from other people when we are around people. Instead that our mood is based on our inner locus of control. This is the lesson we never learned while growing up and without knowing it, we are at the mercy of our environment and people around us. With constantly adjusting our actions and words to other people - we are perfect target for toxic people.
Self worth means standing behind our words and opinions - even when they are wrong. It is about knowing that whatever we do will be wrong. And it is about knowing that our mistakes are normal part of life - and that we will make mistakes always - that we cannot prevent them by self blame, by being afraid of someone's anger due to our mistakes. This is the message we never learned at the time when our persona was forming: that mistakes are natural, that we will make mistakes all the time and that we have certain rights such as right to be respected and right to change our mind. So we miss these rights - and they are foreign, strange concept that we reject as fantasy due to trauma and abuse. Instead of rights we were constantly being exposed to criticism and we were being told what is correct and acceptable. This way we never learned that it is normal to make mistake and that people will always be unhappy and always demand more. We instead learned that we must serve others and their demands - even though they are unreasonable and unrealistic - and that we have no right to complain. We are allowed to receive complaints and criticism but we are not allowed to make complaints and to criticize people back. In toxic environment we will be punish when we express our opinion and that abuse is at the root of our trauma.
We simply miss information about our rights and we will feel less anxiety when we expres ourselves, our opinion no matter of mocking and disaproval and dislike from others.
The Human Rights Act, Article 3: Freedom from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment.
Being yelled at, being ashamed, someone throwing temper tantrum - it is degrading treatment.
Toxic people will rationalize their abuse as if we are being toxic and they were defending themselves.
So we need to document abuse and we need to retort to their lies - by telling what is truth. Toxic people are prone to shortcuts and biases and their argument for abuse will be based on our mistakes, flaws and ignorance. With social anxiety we will shut up and fawn and self-censor ourselves. That is non functional way - and we do not know anything better - since we grew up in dysfunction and never had model to realize that we are valid and acceptable and we never learned that our mistakes are not the same as our worth as person. This is due to criticism and telling what to do - we never had autonomy to figure it out - and we were never guided to discover it on our own, and it was never done with love. It was always the message that mistakes are the same as our character, that mistakes are catastophe and that mistakes are related to emotional dysregulation of person who is supervising and discovering our mistakes and nitpicking on them.
The goal is that we come to the place of not reacting to rude people anymore. It is not about over-reaction - it is about changing how we see danger from rude people. I see it like automatically cutting contact people who are rude - when we have clear option to do it. So there is no analyzing or giving them second chance or trying to work it out. Also, it is about situations where we cannot cut contact - that our actions, thoughts and words are not coming from expecting how to evade person's anger - instead it is focused on truth. Toxic people are exploitative and manipulative and they parasite on getting energy from easy targets. If we were never traumatized - I see important to realize how healthy people respond to toxic people - they did not go to any course how to deal with difficult people - I see they found functional way because they have intrinsic locus of control. They will pick jobs based on their interest, not what other people would expect from them. They will hang out with people who are honest and without secrets. This way they naturally cut of toxic people. Toxic people target our needs and this way they exploit our loneliness and immediate needs - perhaps hunger, or need to be away from hysterical people even. They will sniff out our needs. If our needs are related to evading hysteria - we will attract people who control us through their hystrical behaviour.
This means, that following our self worth will mean being alone - and this type of alone is different from being alone due to trauma and fears.
Social anxiety intertwined with codependency and fawning - is a sign that we are empath and we try not to hurt other people. This inability to make the right decision and to act right is causing social anxiety. Traumatic experience makes this process more complex - and it shows us that social anxiety is multifold entity. So from empathic angle - it would help that we realize that without "hurting" other people which means disliking and rejecting them - we will not form self worth, we will not build our persona. We will stay stuck in vague state without forming as personality - and this will keep us in social anxiety. Our urge to be good and nice and kind is keeping us in state of immobility. And it is connected to toxic people who traumatized us into believing in wrong definitions of what good means. We are programmed to believe that being nice means not making mistakes. That being good means that we never hurt anyone. We think having empathy means never saying the wrong thing that can be criticized and taken in wrong way and misinterpreted. So - we are left to realize that we give ourselves permission to say stupid, hurtful and wrong things as long as we are not unkind or violent - and if we think about this deeply - we will realize that we are incapable of really hurting anyone and that we will always have understanding and empathy - no matter if we choose to cut contact with someone toxic and speak the truth about their evil wrongdoings. Our anxiety will diminish when we speak out the evil, when we speak out wrongdoings of others.
Daily dynamics are full of conversation and explanations and there is no hidden agenda behind it. We do things for other without expecting anything in return. Toxic people will label this as people pleasing and they will explain our behaviour as wrong - and we will doubt ourselves if we do not have self worth. If we know that we are diplomatic and that we help others without wanting anything in return - we can reject others explanations that pathologize our actions as weak and unnaceptable. We have the right to be whatever we want as long as we do not hurt anyone. Social anxiety as toxic shame starts when we are witnessing someone's accusations and we believe them and we do not retort to them.
I see ability to retort and voice out our disagreement and dislike as healthy and as actions that we never were allowed in the past. And this inability to dislike and reject, avoid and cut contact is causing social anxiety and codependency. Where breaking anxiety and codependency would be to opt out of Karpman Drama Triangle - where we no longer go along with abuser's mind games, their galighting, their explanations, their definitions, their truths - and instead we believe ourselves what we know is truth for us - with the cost at being wrong in the end. It is about trusting ourselves that we have common sense that has inbuilt alarm system for egocentricity and confirmation bias - via doubting everyone and everything, including our thoughts.
One of retort strategies is to get unstuck and shift focus and move on, without being preoccupied with anxiety. I can only do this when I understand and acknowledge anxiety, when I take side with anxiety and realize its message: to keep myself safe and to stay away from toxic influence of toxic people - not because I am afraid of them, not because I shift focus as a way to escape or run away from problems. If there is something I cannot control - the only way I am left with is to accept it and move on and to try control anything that I can control - which may be my focus and where I spend my energy and time.
I see social anxiety as inability to be ourselves. Instead our persona, our words, opinions, actions are intertwined through shame and highly aware of other people's criticism. So if I decide to by myself, I will feel guilt and shame and I will depend on other people's approval. There is obvious wound and injury with self worth, there is toxic shame. If I feel guilt and shame and if I depend on other people's approval - this means I have no self worth inside me. That is how I now, otherwise I cannot be aware of myself. My thoughts, my thought line is everyday experience, so I cannot realize that I am fish in a water. I have no idea that I am in the water. In the same way, I do not know that I have serious problem with self worth and my persona. I am not myself with social anxiety and trauma and external reference locus of control. Whenever I would do what I truly want, guilt would be activated and hypervigilance about other people's comments and their criticism. That is why I see humanistic therapies as the correct therapy for social anxiety.
Another multifold side of social anxiety is communication mismatch. From socially anxious point of view, people are rude and inconsiderate. Some socially anxious people will interpret other people as "confident" and "talkative" as if they have some ability to be confident and talkative, while with social anxiety I stay aside with feeling panic and fear of being embarrassed. What I cannot see from social anxiety is that I am egocentric and I am viewing the people from the hole. People appear scary and the way the communicate - without rules and consideration it appears as if they are aggressive and potentially traumatic, scary. What I am unable to see that they are not tyrannical - that most people will not destroy me and that the freedom in their conversation also allows me to be free to express my own opinion no matter how much I consider it weird and unnaceptable. With social anxiety and CBT and assertiveness marketing ploy - I am convinced that I have to go through special training skill in order to learn how to talk and what to say. I do not believe that whatever I want to talk about by instinct is totally valid and it is not weird at all. And I never test it, I never break the ice - and I stay avoidant and scared and I shut up. I would test it. I would speak up - no matter how weird it may sound, and no matter what other person may comment about it. Even moreso, if someone mocks me, I would repeat it. I would not modify or modulate anything - since I know that in my mind I already have heavy censorship due to empathy and trauma - and that I am very careful not to hurt anyone, especially with the deep knowledge about social anxiety: the fact that I have nothing to be ashamed about as long as I do not objectively do evil things and have hidden agenda of manipulating other people - as I stick to those rules, I have nothing to be ashamed or guilty about no matter what critics may nag about.
With social anxiety we do not allow ourselves to be fools - but this keeps us stuck outside time - we get stuck in observation and this does not allow our persona to come alive. It is like being totally aware of my every movement - so I do not move. Paradox is that when I allow myself to make mistakes, I will be observed by the system - and this will allow for life to happen - I will make friendships, I will make plans, I will take action - my avatar will play the game as it suppose to. If I choose to observe myself I am stuck in immobility and fears.
I believe with trauma we are thrown out of life and we try not to make mistakes and experience pain and fears. Trauma is connected with trying not to make mistakes, not to bring attention to myself and that other people do not negatively judge me and potentially punish me. When in reality other people allow themselves to talk whatever they want, they do not care about other people - which I see as uncaring. And perhaps it is - but the point is the more free they are to be cruel, it means I have also freedom to be weird, different, odd, stuck up, stupid, geek, mocked and talked about in negative way. I have to connect these freedoms and allow myself to surf the wave and not sit aside and watch others how they live their lives.
When I voice out my concerns, fears, opinions - other people will not like it, and they will judge it - most people do not think deeply about anything in life and it will sound strange to them. With trauma of being punished whenever I would express my opinion and dislike - I will be convinced that they are correct. They are simply dumb and it is realistic to view it like that instead of self-pathologizing myself. As sensitive person I will notice details - people will find that strange - but I am not commiting crime and their discomfort is the same as I feel it with social anxiety when they babble incoherent irrelevant gossip and unimportant issues.
We repeat how we treat ourselves inside to external. So if I am my own advice giver and decision maker - I will allow this to others, that they are allowed to make mistakes and strange definitions and weird comments. That is why I say that with social anxiety I think that society is constricted and too much strict - in reality it is not. Society reflects everything I feel inside - so basically I am afraid of something that appears as real danger - which in reality is actually freedom to be myself as I am. I do not have to listen to others for approval at all. Exactely the same thing that frightens me in social situations is the exact same thing that actually is my ally to not be afraid of people. I have to make this connection which is hard due to trauma, toxic habits and confirmation bias which keeps me stuck in tunnel vision.
Anger needs to be there. Negative thoughts need to be there. With social anxiety I equate anger and negative thoughts as danger and harmful - either because of pain of being ashamed or through toxic people who ashame me if/when I express myself honestly and react to situation in instinct.
I need to become my own character that I was before social anxiety - before I got stuck in isolation and fear of what other people think of me. I need to remember who I was and live as me, as honest, authentic person with all emotions - not selected few that anxiety and toxic people allow me to show.
With social anxiety we do not have working model to handle people. We do not have frame where we can place our persona. We have no bowl to put our emotions inside. We have no home - instead walls are empty and any criticism, hardship, negative evaluation feels like catastrophe since we have no protection against it - we are naked, starved and malnurished placed at the whim out in open, we are thrown of the boat into ocean and try to keep our head above the water - since we have no boat to fish ourselves out into. So we invent fake life, fake temporaty persona to handle life and people. Any comment about what is lacking about us hurts us since we have no protection, we feel every breeze as twister, destroying anything that might become a shell. So CBT explanation that we are hallucinating abuse and that people are not toxic and dangerous - sets us up to never even start building our character and persona. CBT keeps us drowning in ocean, trying to turn us into swimmers, that we turn into amphibians - a coldblooded reptile without own emotions, without own dislikes, without own perks, quirks and particularities that some may judge as weird, stupid, annoying, irritating, unnaceptable or whatever negative trait that they are projecting from themselves onto us.
CBT is like disco ball in a dark room. It shines a little broken pieces of mirror in the dark - and it cannot lit the room like LED light would. The broken pieces of mirror are reflecting only at minute portions of the room. And shockingly, unbestknown to the socially anxious mind, that dark room is shattered and broken apart in many pieces. So CBT is unable to detect that there is no consistency in the room. CBT expects to find the room there since everyone has a room. Trauma breaks apart our room in little pieces and CBT does not recognize trauma. We can equate CBT both with uneducated socially anxious person and observers who never experienced true social anxiety, only a slight social discomfort for whom which they are conviced that it is social anxiety that everyone's has and feels about. Anxiety, phobia, panic, fears are messages of invalidation: parts of our Self, our persona, our character, our being, our soul that were traumatized, ridiculed, mocked, ignored, criticized, nagged, rejected and complained about - now these parts are shattered and in the dark. These parts include my ability to stand up for myself, my ability to not care what someone says about me and criticize me, these parts incluce my ability to retort to unjust accusations, these parts include my ability to know what to do in unknown situations and how to build walls and shelter inside me. That parts are squashed and in the dark and I am not aware that they are squashed and in the dark. I only know that I feel fears and panic when someone is rude. That is the only information that I have that I am aware of. And CBT is suppose to explain this - and it doesn't since it ignores the trauma as the factor, it ignores toxic people as the cause of darkness and destruction of Self. Trauma destroyed that part of me that would fight for my respect and respond to toxic people that now I am victim of their manipulation and taking advantage of me. Constant criticism is trauma. Constant telling me what to do and how to do and mocking and punishment when I do not do as I have been told - is trauma. So what toxic people and toxic system did not like about me was squashed, destroyed, put aside and rejected through their hysteria, criticizing, shaming, put downs, ignoring, negating, invalidation, mocking that was constant, relentless and consistent.
Instead of Self there is toxic shame inside, a fake persona, imposter, temporary shelter, temporary Self, illusion of Self, mirror of other people.
So the imprint of other people shoes which trampled on me are now trauma triggers that I feel. And my inability to react are the exact spots that are trampled upon. The areas of my persona are destroyed - that I need to socialize. And I end up with social anxiety as the result - social anxiety is message that Self does not exist inside me and that it has been evicted from its own house. And the exact parts of my Self that I need to rstore are the parts that can respond to stumbling blocks that now cause me to feel anxiety, fears, panic and depression.
This means that this will open the gate and I will come back to my senses, my own persona that I once was, before the trauma. I will become different yet the same as I was, as I was suppose to be and what I ought to be and what I was all the time. Social anxiety is not enemy, it is exact path and direction that I want, need and must take - there is no other way that is more perfect than social anxiety. So I can trust myself. Social anxiety is real me that is governed from the unconsciousness - since the Self was not able to come alive due to trauma. The point is that - in theory, if I never had social anxiety - that I would reject, remove myself and avoid exactely the same people, places and events that social anxiety told me to avoid and to be afraid of.
So basically, with my Self coming back, restoring back to life - I will be both dramatically changes, but in the same time I will be exactly the same as I am all the time. The difference is that now I will not be afraid, I will take more actions, I will be involved more - but in direction that I like - I will not be stuck with toxic people, with toxic habits and at toxic places. That is the only difference. I will tell people off and I will not feel horrible and stuck when I say nothing and ignore the idiots. Social anxiety is not pathology. Trauma is. Toxic people are.
persona, in psychology, the personality that an individual projects to others, as differentiated from the authentic self. The term, coined by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, is derived from the Latin persona, referring to the masks worn by Etruscan mimes. One of the Jungian archetypes, the persona enables an individual to interrelate with the surrounding environment by reflecting the role in life that the individual is playing. In this way one can arrive at a compromise between one’s innate psychological constitution and society. Thus the persona enables the individual to adapt to society’s demands.
https://www.britannica.com/science/persona-psychology
(21.6.2022)
I might discover with social anxiety that I was not shy before trauma. That there was no social inhibition, no social anxiety in this type of severity that I am afraid to move. There was me, a child with it's own way of communicating and likes and dislikes and plans and inventions how to play and what to do next outside. Well, some kids and adults find parts of this kid unnaceptable and they saw probably their own reflection, that there is something about me that strikes them as weird or too strong or offish. So they abused me and traumatized me in order to change me. The abuse striked exactely those parts that made me immobile and that I have the most problems ever since I started to avoid people due to trauma, bully event. And parts of my persona were gone from my consciousness. Parts that liked red color. Parts that like to talk. Parts that like parties. Parts that like to express its own opinion. Parts that like to confront and defend someone who is annoying. Parts that like to have fun. Parts that are loud and obnoxious to some people who are too serious and grumpy all the time. Parts that others labeled as weak or sissy or feminine to their taste. Parts that were not allowed to them, to their definitions of what is normal. Parts that were not fitting into the standard of their vision of community.
The point is that I was not aware that this blow has happened. To me, from my perspective I was bullied and that is all. I did not see that they killed parts of myself that I need to socialize and build full persona and walls. From one angle I was lucky since trauma happened at the age when I have memories of what my true persona looks like - so I can compare with other people now and recognize myself - and this will help me to learn myself. This makes job much easier because I have a map, I do not need to go through hit and run and being stuck in long discovery what and who I am. In that way, my persona before social anxiety issues and trauma was someone like Sandra Bernhard. When I saw her interview at Letterman with Madonna - that was me as kid. Spontaneous, without worry, without hypervigilance. And I could see now as adult why at the time when I was growing up, why certain neurotic people would see me as a threat and something to abuse.
Sandra Bernhard has a tounge. She is funny but in the same time she will cut you off if you are aggressive and unreasonable. And she would do it in "retort" way - in the psychologically speaking - the most perfect way in the world. Because it will be direct way, it will be packaged and sprinkled with sugar, it will be abrasive, it will be effective, it will be loud enough to get your attention, confident yet without pretending, it would be honest, authentic and without guilt or shame or codependency behind it. Others may label it as wrong and others may project their own reflections which are based on their own delusions and fears, they may say this retort is arrogant without knowing the definition of arogance. Some would say their dislike about her that she is narcissistic, while all words convey is love and interdependence and fair relationship. Some critics would say that she is too much but you feel energy and friendship and genuine heart behind each word.
The point is that her character, her persona is functional. It is funny, charming and it is on target reaction to toxic people. It encorporates her strength and her ability to be interesting and attractive and it works in any circumstance. But the most importantly - it is built - as any persona - as a reaction to toxic, controlling, nagging people - to deflect their nasty comments and unfair judgements, bias and garbage. So her character is like crinkle crankle wall - with serpentine, it is rich character, that has much better ability to sustain damage than a straight wall - that is toxic shame.
The biggest point about Self discovery is that persona is build on and upon dislikes of other people - not because other people are creators, but because they make imprint on soft cushion, similar to the memory foam pillow. At one point it will stop and develop resistance. If the foam has ability to choose or to follow its own pattern - it would have pre-designed points inside itself which would follow such pattern. And the places where the imprint comes would find resistance at those places which are pre-determined by the creator of the foam pillow. Which means, true persona would know where it begins and where it stands firm - and as such it can operate as foam pillow intended for particular use.
When there is trauma, the pillow will not exist. There would be an immitation of pillow. And of course, the purpose would not be accepted. Neither by the owner, nor by others. Others would easily pick material they want and suit it to fit their purpose - and they would imprint the target through manipulation, guilt and shame as the most effective and quickest form of communication to something that they perceive as weak, nuisanse and slave to them. If they can kick it around, if there is no resistance, other people will not care for something that appears dead to them. However if something that appears dead to them kicks them back, yells back at them and snap them out of hysteria of treating other people like trash - they would not feel so free to kick and push space that seemed empty to them or filled with material that was no use to them. They would not use that space as a placeholder or some room where they fill it up with their garbage.
So basically functional, healthy person is person who has persona inside, Self inside that can push people back without engaging in wars. Since this is complicated due to many personalities out there - the only reasonable solution is to turn to inner GPS that will be my true self, authentic self where I feel the most comfortable with and in the same time that is able to form relationships with others, too. So that I am not neither authistic not either tyrannical to others. Which is basically proof that there is God. We would not be able to create masterpiece inside ourselves. Social anxiety is masterpiece - it is the best and the most functional way to give yourself therapy to handle toxic people and toxic demands in toxic environment. It looks scary, social anxiety is brutal and painful - but it is imprint of trauma that is blown into it. It is reflection of untreated mentally ill people who attacked and abused an innocent person. Many aspects of social anxiety look dysfunctional and unhealthy - at first. But they are perfectly aligned with the level of education of the target and aggression of toxic person from the external side. Social anxiety also reflects my persona that is in the dark and shattered due to trauma. This means, that without social anxiety - I would take care of myself - by avoiding and removing myself from toxic people. It would be an act of self care, not pathological avoidance.
That is why socially anxious person cannot let go. That is why you cannot forget about it and shift focus. You feel criticism as painful and you cannot know how to respond to difficult people - all because you do not have Self, you do not have alive and functional parts of yourself that respond to scary and deceptive and unreasonable people. Walls and boundaries and borders inside me, inside my mind, inside my psyche that were suppose to block nonsense are non existant.
How others are doing it - they are also not aware that they have healthy persona inside, since when they grew up, their persona formed into speciment that serves their purpose which does not include hypersensitivity, higher form of empathy, deeper IQ or desire to form firm and meaningful relationships with others. They are fine with being superficial and it works for them, it works for them to be fake, to immitate, to be conformist and follow the herd mentality and groupthink. They do not feel uncomfortable when they are being told what to do, they either to not pick on radar that they are manipuated by others, or they find criticism and nagging and complaining even interesting and exotic, something to savour and examine, perhaps learn and immitate later on. The point is that their persona is not so much ethical, deep or good enough to cause them trauma or discomfort, neither as kid nor as adult. They are simply either dumb or evil enough to have functional walls to them.
When you have Self inside you, you can recognize toxic people and thus create better life for yourself. Sometimes you get it wrong - since nobody is perfect, but that is rare occurance and it probably was not perfect mistake anyway. With all parts inside me, I will be able to not care what other people think. I will have armour to defend myself and I will not even bother to use it in most cases. And I will be able to see angry people as people who have permission to be angry and I am not here to fix their emotions nor to control them.
Persona and false self.
So persona is mask we create to interact with other people. With social anxiety - this feels like - if we pay close attention to our behaviour - that we tense up when someone is present, like a scared cat almost, our body becomes hard like cement, frozen and there are intrusive thoughts of being watched and observed. That is persona for socially anxious - this mask is not there when we are relaxed, when we are not observed, when there is a psychological security. Due to trauma we learned that we must be on guard, since people bullied us and hurt us and criticized us - so now we are preparing for the danger.
If we look at anxiety, pureOCD, and fears - as something normal that we ought to accept - it means that we change the way how we see our fears. But the first step is to actually recognize that there are fears and intrusive thoughts. This change of thought line is almost unnoticable and people due to confirmation bias will mislabel or ignore their emotions - and this is like flying blind. Often we end up on auto-pilot, we allow our fears to take over, we experience amygdala hijacking due to fears - and when we do not bring to awareness Polyvagal Theory, we will experience social situations painful. Other people's words will hurt and annoy us especially if they are intrusive and demand cortex brain - they investigate about some details, or they are outright rude and hysterical. In such situations we will not know what to do. And then this will be added up to our brain's list of scary situations and soon social anxiety will spread. However if we decide to notice our emotions and that we allow fears to guide us and accept them as messengers - we will feel calmer, since we will be en sync with our body and mind. This means, if we are in the same room with a serial killer, we will notice red flags that someone is intrusive. And instead of persona of being chirpy, happy, pleasant, nice, confident, party animal - we won't smile and engage in conversation. Anxiety wants us to go away or at least to minimize contact - and I would listen to it.
Problem is toxic people from the outside - who will explain to us that being lonely is illness. That thinking about some matter deeply is illness. We will be explained that we must be healthy by being outside all the time. All these things are external commands and orders. Problem is that trauma make us believe that we cannot trust our own decisions - and that we must listen to others and their criticism and obey it. So we have here hidden problem that we cannot detect - since we will not feel the same fears as we feel them when someone is rude. We were traumatized - and now when someone is unreasonable and ashaming - this will appear to us as friendly act and we will rationalize it as we are sick and we must let other people to guide us. And we will feel good when we obey people - when we say yes to them and when we do as being told. But we won't feel good. And that is because we are not following our inner common sense. That is problem with Persona. We have toxic shame inside - whenever we take external instructions (guidelines, criticism, nagging, complainig) as something to be automatically accepted without ever doubting it. This is codependency. And we do not see it as toxic shame, we do not see it as codependency. What we see when we have toxic shame, anxiety and trauma - is that we believe we are abnormal in some way and that we need to change and modulate ourselves and self improve ourselves and that we must prove ourselves that we are something better: usually that we are a man and not whimp, sissy, weak, stupid or mistaken. We think we must be confident - that is actually toxic shame. We think we are doing ourselves a service by nitpicking our natural inhibitions and we are convinced that we are healing sickness by exposing ourselves to scary situations - since we know that isolation is sickness because when trauma started we withdrew from people. So now we have thought-emotion fusion related to being isolated or non talkative as sickness. We equate being reserved and introverted as sickness and we want to become chirpy, happy and socializable - like everyone else. That is toxic shame. And it is distorted thinking. Other "confident" people are really not chirpy nor happy nor socializable. They also wear mask and that is their own persona that tries to fit in or get to some hidden agenda - to be liked by someone who they want to exploit.
I see solution as intrinsic locus of control: which means that we accept ourselves as we are and that we base our decisions on our own common sense and that we do not self-pathologize our fears and any uncomfortable emotions, and that we discover "toxic" people - and do something about it: if necessary cut contact. With need to be liked and approved and to be like everyone else - we will stay in contact with toxic people. Because we are afraid to be alone and lonely, and we are afraid that isolation is equal to fears and anxiety that we experienced when we were traumatized into isolation when being bullied and abused in the past.
If we discover that we have Persona before the trauma happened - and if we allow our child inside to come out - we will discover that our anxieties, intrusive thoughts are synchronized with that child. This child has ability to retort toxic people and to choose what is best for us - since it knows ourselves, it is our natural self. Other people who are "healthy" and "confident" and who have many friends and go to many parties and travel a lot and have great job - they did not get all these at the press of button. It is the result of years following their own true Persona. Day by day. And now they rip the fruit of loving themselves and following their own inner GPS.
With social anxiety and avoidance and trauma - we do not follow this inner true Persona that is carefree and brutally honest - instead we built toxic shame: traumatized belief how we ought to be. And this false self is brutally cruel. It demands perfectionism, it demands that other/all people accept us, it demands no mistakes, it demands instant gratification, it demands covering up true opinion and true emotions, it demands strength and resentment, passive aggression and holding on to grudge when other people are cruel it demands from us not to have any mistake, flaw or ignorance. It must be perfect, there must be nothing that might be criticized about us, and it must know everything - so it is not allowed to say I don't know, I don't care or I need help about this since I can't do it now due to any reason.
Our true persona is something that we can chisel - so if we still have instant gratification issues - we will notice that when we accept ourselves and love our Self that advice how to handle certain issues will come more naturally to execute. Mostly, we will no longer demand perfectionism neither we will be guided by demands and opinions of other people - and this will set us free, we will get rid of hypervigilance and pressure that otherwise is constantly shouldering and shoulding above us.
With social anxiety and intrusive thoughts we have toxic shame and we have thus urge to overcome fears, that we battle with demons, that we slay toxic people away, that we retort to them away and that we have no problems in life - that no one bother us. And intrusive thoughts and social anxiety wants us out, we want to run away. We do not make discrenment that and when we react to toxic people and toxic environment - which is crucial. It is crucial to recognize that toxic people are what we dislike and that is from where our fears are coming from. So CBT will tell us to expose and to fight fears and to be out there and spend and be in corporations. While - our healthy part - if we never had social anxiety or intrusive thoughts would go away long time ago. We would not choose and make decisions and stick around to anything that is toxic to us. With toxic shame we deny ourselves the right to move away from toxicity. Due to job, money, status, approval. So our intrusive thoughts and social anxiety are actually messages and direction what we dislike, what we need to reject and it is actualy sign where to go - opposite than what scare us. With CBT and toxic shame we ignore our instinct and we try hard to fit in into someone's crap. Also with circumstances like not having money - we are forced to stay in toxic environment - however there is a difference.
With our true Self inside (which means someone who own his intrusive thoughts and social anxiety as signal and smoke alarm) we would make plans and we would invest in Delayed Gratification and wait for better days - as Stockdale Paradox states - in difficult and cornered and paralized circustances that we are brutally honest with ourselves -
there is a difference. With toxic shame we give up on hope, we are scared and we feel trapped - since there is no motor inside to keep us moving. There is no True Self, our true Persona that will act, do and live as it wants to. With toxic shame we prune any needs off and we operate from our dislikes and reaction to toxic people, seeking their approval and validation. Social anxiety and intrusive thoughts tell us that we do not seek approval from others - that we cut contact with that which we find dangerous. We can cut contact in many ways - it does not have to necessarily involve act of leaving. We can ignore. We can be gray rock. We can be calm inside us - when we know we have our True Self inside us to rely on and feel support from within, ground to stand onto. With toxic shame we do not have ground - we float in space and try to simulate reality and ground by our thoughts. Then when someone criticize us and make us feel unsafe - this simulation is broken down - and we feel intrusive thoughts and social anxiety. So intrusive thoughts and social anxiety as always are only signals and alarm detector that something is wrong.
With abuse and trauma we will have more detailed knowledge and awareness and ability to detect toxic people and toxic shame inside them and inside us. If we pathologize this ability as illness - we will reject our true Persona - since our true Persona is in charge of that area: whom we let in our lives, with whom we create bonds and contacts and what we tolerate, what is good for us.
Repeated abuse, trauma, criticism and toxic people - therefore will not make us cripple and immobile as it seems on the surface. We are immobile and crippled because we have no true Self inside us that would not care what other people think of us, we would not feel shame when they accuse us - and we would know how it is best to respond and react to someone who is mentally ill and aggressive to us. Sometimes it is best to ignore. Somtimes it is needed to say something. Sometimes it is best to have hysterical reaction. Sometimes it is best to have compassion and forgive. We can be nice and kind and still reject people. With toxic shame we can't do that - since we have no true Self. With toxic shame other people create our Self, simulation of Self - and that is why their criticism and actions hurt us too deeply - since we have no walls, and everything that they do we experience as it is happening inside our body. That is due to trauma bonding - we are inside other people when they abuse us. There is no true Self that would defend against it and block them.
If we reflect back in our life, we will see that social fears happened only at times when our child spontaneity was attacked, criticized and any potential of the expressing it. Being unable to express yourself created social anxiety every time. However from our point of view - we focused only on panic symptoms and person who was rude and aggressive - we totally ignored that right to be child, spontenous, without worry, without care, without caring if someone see us vulnerable.
Which means that insight practically causes narcissism and anxiety and social withdrawal. More education creates hypervigilance. More of responsibility as adults and beneficial desire to be good and nice and not to hurt anyone paradoxically created more narcissism - fake image, inferiority complex.
And the next revelation based on this means - that fears, anxiety, worry - anything that I find psychologically difficult - is reflection and shape of my true Persona. From my point of view - it appears as panic attack and chaos, I see desire to run and hide and I feel threatened. However if I was allowed to express myself totally freely in all situations when I feel social anxiety - I would find out that my fears would end up with the same result. For in each situation where I meet someone who is unreasonable and non agreeable - I would run away and cut contact with that person and avoid them. With social anxiety I did that anyways. The difference is that with true Persona inside me - I would say something sometimes. With social anxiety I shut up and self-censor myself. So social anxiety is and always will be neutral - it is signal, red flag, it is smoke detector alarm - and it is probably that I detected someone antagonistic - due to long and deep experience with critical and narcissistic people before. The only difference is that with True Persona - I might check this assumptions and talk to them - without running away immediately. My fuse will not be short anymore. And most importantly - I will not ruminate about it. I will not spend hours and days and weeks being stuck in a loop of analyzing what happened and who I offended and how I need to act.
People without social anxiety grew up - by witholding their child inside, they did not reject it. They allowed themselves to make fool of themselves and to naturally react to anything unusual, they did not interpret uncomfortable feelings as signal to run away or worry. And they were not set up to abuse - meaning, they did not develop Darwinistic evolution inside. Practically, they remained stuck as kids. So socially anxious person is propelled in another state - which causes fears and panic and it is stuck in worry to return to order and safety. While non socially anxious people never grew up - and they are stuck in arrested development of their own. They simply brushed their child persona up. They never created true Persona - since they did not had abuse to do such thing. The cure for fears is not rejecting and throwing everything we learned and our obligations nor our beliefs - it is about integrating parts of ourselves that were smashed down - and these particular parts are what we desperately seek as solution for feeling confident, without hypervigilance, without rumination, without external referencing.
Which means that we totally accept our social anxiety. It is also part of experience. Our False self is also part of experience. It is not something to be ashamed about - it is lesson what we dislike and that we dislike what we dislike. That we know the difference between our false obligations, false definitions and false conclusions. Without social anxiety we would never be able to understand this complex lesson.
So our social anxiety is perfectly orchestrated plan, part of our goal and task in life, it is not mistake and we did not lose anything - in fact we gain very important lesson. Being socially anxious does not make us sick, weak, stupid, weird nor disgusting. Instead it is a diamond inside us.
Social anxiety gives us tools and ability to tap into another dimensions - which we could not be able to do without it.
With true Persona - when I allow myself to express myself, to play, I will no longer see difficult and fearful people and events as toxic nor as blockage. It is technically speaking toxic and blockage - but I will see it as lesson - to know what I need to avoid and how to recognize similar objects that must be avoided in the future - without ruminating and worrying about it. I already do that with social anxiety, however I interpret my fears as pathology and I am preoccupied to "cure" panic symptoms and uncomfortable feelings that I feel in reaction to anything that scares me. These feelings are totally fine and natural - my task is to remain being open, to retain ability to express myself and that I do this from my true Persona, not as manipulation or with hidden agenda, something that is False. That I make my decision from True Self, and not Fake Self. Fake Self means anything that is under obligation, rule, which are rigid and biased. That is why CBT denies toxic people - since if we decide to label people as toxic - we will become rigid and biased. Yet - our true Self demands safety to express itself - so the precedency goes to our right to avoid, reject and deny others when we decide to do so. If we don't have any obligations, if we never did anything wrong to them - there is no reason to fix, follow or care about people who are not interested in healthy relationship.
We do not know that other person is struggling and that current state is the best version that they can withold. We do not know that it takes them a lot of energy, time and focus to be in that state that we experience as rude and aggressive. We never know what other people are going through. We only see that we were hurt in the past by people who had everything, that they did not lack in anything and we were mere insect that they crushed. And this judgement cloud our judgement. So I see functional, healthy retort as kind one. Without hysteria and without drama - that we understand that someone is hysterical, angry, loud, chaotic - that this is reflection of chaos in their life and head - once we understand this we could only have empathy for them, since they are on the brink. Yet - being pushover and people pleaser for us is also not an option - we have our Self to defend and our life to lead. And we do not know and we will never know other people - so I have full right to express facts which will hurt them - and do it in kind manner. Where kind manner is very flexible. It might be even be labelled as unkind to some observer. I could use the knowledge that chaotic person has chaotic mind - and express that fact.
'What is going on with you?' or 'What is going on in your head?' is alternative to 'You are hysterical'.
In the West being extroverted is celebrated as correct manner of life, while introversion is scorned as illness and something to cure. So if I overthink - I will be labeled as depressive. If I speak about broad topics - I will be labeled as negative thinker and seeing toxic. If I have social anxiety - which means I am codependent and I depend on other people's opinion to label me and thus define me - I will never realize that the people are not hating me. They want to help me to become like them. To me it seems they are not interested and that they are annoyed at me for unknown reason. In reality they perceive the sickness and see themselves as saviour, someone who set incorrect thoughts straight. Similar to my comments related to social anxiety. I see a lot of incorrect information - and I want to speak up my opinion - since I know that when I followed videos about social anxiety I did not find them helpful - but I didn't know why. Now I know - and I want to explain and shorten other people's time by exposing them to information that they may find out much later on, wasting their time. However many authors and commentators interpeted my comments as aggression. In the same way socially anxious will interpret other people aggressive - since social anxiety make us lump safe and unsafe people in one danger. Now when I understand the Persona and Self concept - I can see that all the people without social anxiety - perceive shyness and being quiet as something that is related automatically to shame and pain, which they experienced, too - however their Persona and their Self supported them to deflect the pain and shame. They probably used some methods - and they simply want to share these with socially anxious. However these methods look like aggressive attack - and it causes reaction formation, the opposite effect.
So, someone might force conversation, or mock even. Since humor helped them, they are convinced that making fun is the only way to break the ice and remove what they perceived as social anxiety. And for someone anxious, mocking is the worst that they could receive in social situation. Yet if I am aware of Self and Persona - I can discern if someone is abusive or simply not so clever about social communication and that they might be using non functional communication methods that helped them to battle anxiety symptoms.
So quick fix to social anxiety - is to play. Engage in childlike play, playground and do silly stuff, like a child. It will set me free to speak out and to react and to initiate something. Instead of narcissistic tools such as criticizing others, mocking them or instigating drama - I can allow myself to go free, as I would in school before trauma.
Method of retort would be that I examine am I allowed to be honest and open. Can I play like a child - and why not? What is stopping me? That is why CBT labels social anxiety as hallucination - since in the most situation I am free to be "nuts" and thus break the ice of social inhibition. Instead of False self which means to be rigid and controlling - I can allow myself to chill. Then I can notice the criticism directed at me being on ease. Why would I listen to anyone when I am based on play, something fun, without constrictions, obligations, imposed order.
The False Self for narcissist is based on being concerned to have backbone, to be masculine, to be monster, to show teeth and most imporantly to have power status. This aligns with social anxiety where I have inhibitions to be concerned about criticism from others - due to loss of job. So socio-economic situation can create narcissists: predatory personality that seeks greed and money - due to belief that anything other than that is non acceptable.
If I know this fact that they are driven by status - can I use it in retort?
I need traumatized parts to express myself. I need parts that I shut down and self-censor to be activated. And social anxiety and intrusive thoughts are pointing me at these parts that I surpress. I will get anxiety and pureOCD about what I need to do or what I am not allowed - and I simply need to go against it. Most often social anxiety is activated when I imagine someone criticizing how I look or what I wear or if I am carrying something - I need to still do it. Now I can be aware that what I am feeling is my fake Self and trauma trying to shut down my true Persona, child that was traumatized. So it is repetition of trauma, running the program and hypnosis. That is a new perspective to see, perceive and explain trauma and anxiety. Also I know that anxiety is reaction to toxic people - so in case when there is imaginary audience which CBT explains as hallucination - I simply do the exact thing that fears will tell me that I am not up to it and that I must hide. Now when I know that traumatized parts are my Self and Persona that will deflact Social anxiety - or toxic people who are traumatizing me - now I can see that being there and looking as I look, and doing what I am doing - was ashamed by toxic people - and that fawning to them caused trauma. That I stopped going out and start hiding caused trauma. It is now a wound.
Anxiety is here to remind me of danger and that I learn about the danger - and preferebly that I avoid danger. The danger is not that I look somehow or that I am out there - the danger is and always was - toxic people who criticize. Toxic shame will cover this up and explain it as self blame - that I am problem and that I must change. Nope. Darwinism, Darwinist evolution means adaptibility - it is not about destroying something.
Social anxiety related to how I look and that I simply am out there - signals that I have no true Persona inside me. Toxic shame makes decision how I will look and where will I go, preferably nowhere, and that I look as much as not different as others, that I blend in without criticism that might be caused by how I look. So I need traumatized part to be in decision making process when I decide how I look and where to go. And now I know how toxic shame and trauma block me - in any way that I am open and honest - if I am unable to be open and honest, unable to express myself - this is indication I am based on toxic shame inside. There is fake Self that is in charge. The true Self would be flexible and present without fears or being afraid of being exposed.
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brassy but caring
shamelessly bold, one who you think talks too loudly, seems too confident, and wears clothes that are bright and do not have much style
pontie - Urban Dictionary
A “over confident” guy
But when others see our vulnerability, they might perceive something quite different, something alluring. A recent set of studies calls this phenomenon “the beautiful mess effect.” It suggests that everyone should be less afraid of opening up—at least in certain cases. Don't miss what matters.Jan 9, 2019
Your Flaws Are Probably More Attractive Than You Think They ..
(23.6.2022)
It seems that with social anxiety we have ability to sense someone's hidden intent. That intent from someone may be dangerous, may be neutral, or even a positive one. However social anxiety interprets this supernatural ability (which is scientifically speaking a product of noticing minusculus, minute details about other person and all elements that surround them) does not have ability to voice out that we sniff out the intent - and we do not have mind reading ability to know the characteristic, morals of their hidden intent. That is causing the confusion - since social anxiety then appears as fear and uncomfortable emotion - that you'd rather ignore or run away as reaction.
So our purpose is to be aware that we sniffed out someone's hidden intent - whenever we feel socially anxious. And it is our job that we play a detective and pay close attention to clues and solve the riddle - what is behind the intent. We cannot ask them directly - since they either will lie or they will not be aware that they have intent - we have ability to sniff out their own unconsciousness, their actions and words that are governed by their own mind and them not being aware that they do it on auto-pilot.
If I observe anxiety as survival mechanism - where the point is that I adapt to new reality - then it means that in case of trauma I cannot adapt any other way than to accept it. I cannot adapt to anything that I deem as immoral - violence, hysteria, being aggressive. When I cannot adapt - it means that I will be scared of such situations in the future and avoid them. So - the only option is that whenever I cannot react to something - that I accept myself - and then I am left with void. Since I do not know how to react in any other way, and I find that violence and unkindness are not acceptable - I need to not only find way how to react and retort - but also find my own self before trauma. I already had parts of myself that would reject such people. And that rejection is social anxiety itself. My rejected and stifled self is social anxiety itself - I do not have to look any further. That is the only way to accept anything that blocks me in life and integrate it as full and whole personality and persona. And that means accepting and loving myself. It also means that I need protection against whatever scares me.
And here enters toxic people concept.
It is about education how to deal and handle difficult people in healthy and functional manner. It is useless to retort and to cut contact - if I am not by my side in full. If I am unable to accept my mistakes, flaws and ignorance - toxic people will trigger those and they will control me.
Without toxic shame inside me - I will have certain different thoughts and decisions from now on, since I will no longer trying to fix myself and I will no longer spend energy on hiding my mistakes, flaws and ignorance.
CBT is having similar method in ABCD where D is dispute:
"Dispute that belief and replace it with an empowering statement or belief or personal slogan 'I have the capacity to solve this issue', 'I deserve better', 'I can do it', 'My circumstances can change'.
And CBT claims "to internalize that belief, a lot of positive talk need to be done".
"What we tell ourselves in regard to our circumstances is a powerful agent of change whan what other people tell us!" (medical.unon.org)
This CBT will not work: because there is toxic shame issue and toxic people also.
Toxic shame - if we need to combat it - it will resist. Instead the correct method is integration and self-love, self-acceptance, accepting all inside, being fine with it. And if we do not examine our external factors such as toxic people - we won't make any changes. So I need to know where I am going, what are my goals and tasks, what I like to do in life. Positive thinking cannot lead me. And spending additional energy is taking a lot of energy and time. It also backfires - since toxic shame will know what I am capable and it will be aware of my flaws. I cannot trick it. I can only change how I see myself, and that only comes from acceptance.
If I see anxiety as missing part of my that I need to handle situations in life that cause anxiety - I am changing the way how I react to fears and difficult situations which provoke panic symptoms. If I see anxiety as signal that I need to either control something or ignore it - I will feel better if I am aware that I am as persona full and complete. With toxic shame I have distrust in myself and I see myself as inept - and this sets me up to betray myself and seek codependency as a strategy to solve problems. Asking people how to do something and feeling shame when they criticize.
The point is that I find working model where I will both accept anxiety and handle it without perceiving it as danger - which would set me off in intrusive rumination avoidance mode. I feel anxiety - I check if there is toxic shame inside me and why, and then I check other people - seek toxic people and what can I do about them in healthy manner. This goes with philosophical knowledge such as life is unfair, bad things happen, and that the existence of toxic person means almost most probably that I cut contact if possible - immediately. If it is longer experience - that I plan relocation.
The perfect solution would be that I know retort - however this would require me that I spend time in rumination and hypervigilance - and then I am back at square one, since I will experience social anxiety as enemy, not ally.
The compromise would be that I educate myself about toxic people and how to handle them as general knowledge or life school. Since I have social anxiety - it means that my mind demands this kind of protection. It is setting me up for something in the future that I will need to be prepared for.
Also information that I lack is - due to lack of love and being programmed with toxic shame - I do not know where I want to go. This part of me is empty. With social anxiety I am focused only on the danger - and I do not move. And I can't move if I do not know what I want and what I like. And if I cannot express myself freely.
This is where Persona comes into play. I cannot activate myself without Persona. I can know all logic, what is correct to do - but without mistakes, flaws, ignorance, playfulness, someone who is willing to explore, take risks - I will not be able to break the ice. I need energy to move - and that is why I need Persona. This would be therefore something fake however more like icon, idea to guide me. It is fake and unreal however it is like guidance and motivation. Motivation itself will not work. Persona must have something bad inside it to both combat external factor and my toxic shame inside me. Persona needs to have answer to aggression in healthy and functional manner, and it also must have ability to stand tall and be positive. It needs to have Stockdale Paradox inside it - to go on even when there is dark and difficulties. And I can only do this with allowing myself to make mistakes, to ease off with restrictions. I put restriction in order to protect myself from the pain and criticism.
With social anxiety these kind of restrictions are too severe and non functional. And now I know that anxiety that puts restrictions come from trauma.
This would mean that my true Persona wanted fake persona to take charge, that I end up scared and immobile and stuck with toxic shame. It was a way to protect myself.
Child that got traumatized was criticized relentlessly, there was no love and there was no acceptance. This is important factor related to isolation and safety mechanisms. So I could identify safety mechanisms - avoidance, toxic shame and immobility - as trauma, injury, external force, mental illness, something outside of my control that was injected inside me. It combined itself with my belief systems and it influenced my thinking and making decisions - like a virus that replicate itself and infiltrates into the system.
This means that I need anti-virus, too.
This presents problem - since any action around anxiety creates resistance and thus makes it stronger.
Toxic shame is not virus - it is reaction to the virus. Toxic shame is internal - so it is reaction to abnormality. The external force is the problem - since it does not add up to mechanism inside me.
All reactions are in line with my persona and needs. The existence of virus injected through trauma - requires me to create a new strategy.
Virus means that there is a foreign programming that does not belong to my Persona. It is added up and thus joined and fused with my thoughts. And now I have bias, prejudices, thoughts, conclusions that are coming from this foreign element. So the problem with accepting my Shadow - is that if I accept this foreign programming from abuse - I will accept foreign element, too - and then I am back at the beginning.
The point to notice here is that we are not aware of virus, so we have no idea that there is false information inside us whenever we are with someone toxic. This way they are manipulating us. So toxic people are important clue in social anxiety, too. This means, whenever we are triggered - by memory of past event being trapped with toxic person without our reaction to it - and when we are triggered by someone who is hysterical - we have to be aware that communication with such people contained a virus. And our natural reactions to toxic people is not helping - since there is external data streaming with their words and actions. I see this when they criticize, nitpick, yell and scream, when they put down, belittle and curse, when they behave in erratic way, unpredictable with unprovoked anger and mood swings. It is all designed that we react with fears, being immobile, scared and to fawn.
So problem here is unawareness what is going on. With social anxiety and without education about it, we do not know what is healthy and what is unhealthy.
So we go with auto-pilot and use natural reactions - which are now tainted with virus message and virus is hypnotizing us and making us to listen to commands, which is unhealthy:
- we shut up
- self censor
- fawn, obey in order to avoid punishment, hysteria and temper tantrums if we don't
- we are immobile
- we do not do what we want to do - but we must do what we are being screamed at
- there is toxic shame inside, lack of love, invalidation
- we make toxic connections - form codependency and have toxic habits
- we find hard to clean and keep healthy environment
- we are shaped by criticism, our life becomes reaction to toxic people - mostly as obeying their commands
- where I will believe strongly in one truth and be unable to accept other's opinions into consideration because of indoctrination - which made us into receiver of any data as absolute truth
If we have our true Self - we would react in natural way - but this true Self is blocked with virus message: that we are inept, that we are not allowed, being trapped, that what we want it not important, and basically that we are weak - without defenses. We have no where to run, to hide, options to fight are reduced to hysteria and screaming which are highly dysfunctional. So we are stuck in fear, immobile and we do not know what we want - we will feel shame about what we want, we will feel shame no matter what we do - since we are being told by words or behavior that we are inept, weird, unacceptable - which is invalidation and trauma. And we have no idea what to do, since shame is all around - and the best solution seems to be quiet, alone, withdrawn. That is social anxiety. Social anxiety is not feeling mere uncomfortable feelings with people. Instead it is reaction to trauma where we are stuck and immobile.
And we have no idea what is normal and healthy.
Healthy would be:
- that we express ourselves openly, honestly, authentically without self-censorship
- that we react in normal manner without questioning myself am I normal if I do that
- that we do not feel shame or guilt - when we never did anything wrong
- that we do not fuse shame and guilt when we make a mistake with our character and whole being
- that we know what we want to do
- when we take care of ourselves and make healthy decisions
- when there are no toxic habits
- we are able to reject what we dislike, retort
- that we are aware of egocentricity and we doubt our own thoughts and others
With social anxiety and trauma we do not know what we want and where to go - and I see that this is creating shame and guilt. With shame and guilt other people can control us and predatory personalities will sniff out us - and we will make connections with them due to codependency. And codependency stems from lack of self love, there is nothing to love inside, since we have toxic shame instead of living person inside us.
With toxic shame, since there is no true Self inside - we are stuck in imprint stage - where other people will easily control us through shaming and violence and hysteria. This happens because we do not have persona inside to have walls that would deflect dislikes. In toxic shame we are formed by dislikes, dislike from other people, their criticism will influence us, it will shape us. We will form our decisions and direction based on dislikes - that will be our guiding lights, direction. Which is unhealthy - since we are not following our own common sense inside. We are manipulated like circus animals through criticism, nitpicking, negative comments. We have no idea how to retort. And we are unable to reject information and data as possible unreliable - instead we take it as absolute truth - and this makes us easily manipulated, since we have no mechanism inside us to reject something suspicious. The only protective mechanism is isolation, withdrawal - and CBT removes this protection hoping that somehow we will learn how to build borders when we expose. That never happens since we have toxic shame inside instead of working and functional Self - and we develop people pleasing and fawning issues - since we have no option to reject and to retort, we don't even allow ourselves to doubt others. We automatically put ourselves under their wing, we see ourselves small and other as superior - and we believe that they are superior simply because they do not show any external sign of anxiety and apprehension - since they have working Persona, mask that does not show wounds and injuries which are open inside us. We have no Persona to hide how bizarre we are - and then we cannot form Persona due to lack of love - and we are exposed to our mistakes, flaws and ignorance. That people will comment and attack - and we will feel afraid and panicked - since we have no shell to deflect their criticism. So we are defined and grooved by criticism - which we will try to correct and improve.
The problem with criticism is that - there is a high chance that other people are mentally ill, that they are predatory, that they have delusions, that they are bluntly wrong, that they have low IQ so their instructions are faulty and lead to catastrophe. We do not see that with social anxiety and shame. We perceive others through their mask - and we are convinced that they are superior, better, more competent - they are not. We are all on par. My opinion matters as much as the other person.
With social anxiety I am not allowed to express my opinion - and my life is shaped by other people. That is what needs to be addressed.
So the problem here is that I must see anxiety as ally - in order to quiet it down. Social anxiety is in fact reaction to trauma and toxic people - and CBT is fusing this with the outcomes of shaming. We are also fusing thoughts with emotions and our worth. We are unable to discern social anxiety as signal that there is someone manipulative with our reactions of fear to hysteria - when we fawn and self-censor ourselves. We lump these two together and then it is impossible to develop ourselves. Since we believe we are inept - and toxic shame is cemented inside us. We can only remove feeling of being inept by no longer being affected by social anxiety, red flags that something is not right when we are with other people. We have to make separation between anxiety and the actual external trigger of anxiety. CBT is not doing that. CBT labels anxiety as hallucination - and it totally ignores possibility that there are toxic people, manipulators who are making us feel uncomfortable.
I can feel good about myself only when I feel comfortable with everything about me. That includes negative emotions such as fear and social anxiety. I can accept social anxiety - if I start to see it as red alarm, so that I can study, pay attention and seek evidence about what is wrong. How is other person behaving. Which means I have to know psychology - not only about myself, but of other people as well. If I am able to see that someone is borderline - with mood swings and unprovoked anger - instead of forming close connection with them and going along with their manipulation such as talking about private matters that they exploit later on when in hysteria - I can decide to reject and minimize contact with them.
With social anxiety I never reject others. I believe them, I believe they are superior and gods - so I form decisions based on what they might like or dislike, what will make them feel pleasant and avoid their wrath. This is impossible since mistakes are natural part of life.
So basically the problem here is started with social anxiety - however my fawning is trauma response. It is no longer social anxiety. And I have keep fusing avoidance with social anxiety - while withdrawal and isolation and fawning is a part of Complex Trauma.
This is not healthy perspective because it keeps me stuck. Because I see social anxiety as illness and something to reject - but social anxiety is part of me, it is stemming from within me, it is signal that is coming from my body as reaction to trauma.
If I decide to be afraid of social anxiety - I will not be able to form my Persona - and I will create toxic shame. This happens because I am convinced that feeling scared is equal to being a bad person. So CBT is making emotional-character fusion, it is unhealthy therapy and it is misleading.
When I see social anxiety as part of me that is helping me to construct social life and deal with social issues that are blocking me and making me feel scared, I will be able to feel confident about myself, I will not see myself as inept and weird and sick.
The fears that I feel, and panic - are stemming from Complex Trauma, abuse and toxic people who are manipulating me into subordination. If I decide to label social anxiety as the guilty party - I will self sabotage myself - since I will not be aware that there is external factor as problem. And then toxic people will manipulate me. I will shut up, self censor, I will stay silent, I will abdicate my choices and I will go along with herd mentality and I will distrust my own choices, decisions as invalid and basically wrong.
Being healthy would mean that we are not afraid of making mistakes nor making a fool out of ourselves, being embarrassed about something that is not realistically embarrassing. And this is connected with punishment from other people - where toxic people will target our mistakes, flaws and ignorance as a tool to control us.
Toxic people are functioning in the world by manipulation and gaslighting and negative, sinister ways that are directed to other people, like energy vampires. With toxic shame we attract them. So social anxiety itself is not problem - social anxiety will give us signal when we are in the presence of such people - so instead of fawning - which would attract and welcome such people - when we listen to our social anxiety as warning - we would retort and deflect and reject them in functional way without drama nor hysteria or avoidance. So there is a difference between avoidance and cutting, minimizing contact. "Gentlemen will walk but never run", said Sting. Again due to programming and toxic shame we are fusing a lot of unhealthy reactions with healthy actions and lump them all together - and this makes us unable to take the right choice, we are left without retort option.
When we listen to our True Self - it would direct and guide us - and we would lean on our common sense in such situations when there is double binding and manipulation. With trauma we never learned that and we ended up being codependent on other people. We trust others, we destruct our own capabilities.
With social anxiety - there is trauma - there are beliefs that make us believe that we are evil people if we are honest. That makes us being codependent and shut up and never retort - and when we do - we feel guilt and shame. We even forget that we are allowed to have warrior side. And if we show it, we feel guilt. That is what people take advantage of. They label and direct our mistakes - and we have no defense against it.
We cannot say Is it ok to create drama because of my mistake? You have no right to hurt others, to create drama about it.
I believe this creates moral injury and that is reflection of the original trauma.
People who exploit mistakes to be brutal. Then this adds to the list and we are aware of such people in the future - and panic kicks in.
What appears to us as socially confident - are actually - normal people with social anxiety who have find effective ways how to construct social life. They have set of beliefs and methods that is working for them. From trauma and social anxiety viewpoint - we do not actually see their methods - we are only observing the fear - how they act from the viewpoint of being dangerous - rude, aggressive. We cannot discern to check if they are borderline, narcissistic, psychopath or Machiavellian. We lump them all together in one entity - someone who is superior and who is not allowed to be doubted and really seen objectively. If we could see them from the perspective of person who is feeling social anxiety but their actions are functional (at least to them) methods and tools to handle social anxiety - we will be on par with them, we will be able to communicate. We will be able to see that "confident" people express their persona, they show off what they like, they do not hide their likes. With toxic shame we are the opposite of that - our dislikes run our central mental focus. We are preoccupied on fear - how to avoid something and our decisions are primarily the result of our dislikes. Since we do not operate from being content with ourselves. If we accepted ourselves, we would treat ourselves better - we would make up, fix and groom ourselves and our environment. We would feel content from within and show it externally, we would repeat the process in our external environment.
With shame and anxiety - we are rigid and closed and we repeat this process in external reality - by avoiding people or being silent and quiet. We expect the attack, criticism and antagonism and that rules our life. So toxic people trigger this already present hypervigilance - and they confirm our focus on fear. Toxic people therefore are crucial factor - both as triggers and as our inability to retort them.
CBT tells us that they do not exist - so we are left with fawning and people pleasing methods to handle them. While in reality - they need, they deserve to hear direct and honest truth.
If they are intrusive - it would be wrong to keep communication and contact ongoing. In the future, they will be more intrusive. There has to be some kind of communication back to them that we do not like their act and behaviour which is toxic.
Usually with social anxiety we are stuck at this - we believe and we probably are in reality slaves to toxic people. Our finances, shelter, service depends on them. And we are afraid if we lose them, we will be homeless. That is codependency.
When we live in toxic country, when we are inside toxic system - the system itself will make us to be codependent. And our complacency is making system alive.
We have to relocate. This is unhealthy. There has to be some retort.
With "confident" people I noticed that many of them appear like dorks to us. At least at first. We reject them since they are not ideal of someone who we'd admire. So we cut ourselves off from good and kind people and we gravitate towards toxic people. That is programming from trauma and being exposed to abuse and invalidation. We repeat the program that we must have abuse - and anything other than that is not profitable for us. It does not feel like home if there is no punishment and drama. That is extremely dangerous belief for us - and I see social anxiety as signal that we are stuck in such unhealthy dynamics.
There are good and kind people out there. People with whom we can try make relationships and friendships. We dismiss them too easily due to trauma. That has to stop. We believe that relationship and friendship must be a deal and that we must be service provider in such connection. That our opinion and input is invalid by default. And often - such people will tell us that we are stubborn and unacceptable - too much this or too much that, that our traits are unacceptable - that we are not good enough and that we must change. That will feel natural to us - when we are build on trauma.
If we are able to crack open lives of "confident", non socially anxious people - we would see that they are trained at social anxiety. They found healthy and efficient tool to battle social anxiety. But we do not see it. We only see their Persona and words that they may say. We do not know all the details - which would be important to us - such as that they are trained martial artist so they are prepared for physical protection. With social anxiety we do not work on our protection - since CBT tells us that toxic people do not exist and that we are hallucinating when we are being attacked.
With social anxiety there is problem - when we detect that someone has crossed their line. We have ability to detect toxic people - and we detect them all. We detect the small details - and it causes the same reaction as if they are either partially or fully toxic. This messes up our boundaries - which are non existent anyway. When someone is out of line - we will have trouble evaluate when we and how we react to it. Since at the start we have nothing inside as a reference point - what we will tolerate. We only have imprints of dislikes and what people expect from us. These are our boundaries. And CBT does not help in this process - since it says it is all hallucination so we never investigate the fact that other people's expectations are our self worth. Other people's needs are our primary concern and reference point.
People are criticizing us when they want something. That can be hidden exploitation. Criticism can be sign of manipulation.
However some people use criticism as a way to discipline someone. That backfires. Because instead of education and discipline - the criticized person will become dependent. The criticized will not being able to be independent – and ask for things when he needs things. So when I retort to people, when I put boundaries - I have to be aware that in the same time I am making myself independent. Toxic shame will try to hide this fact - and turn it into guilt and shame and about me hurting them as denying their unreasonable requests.
The point of social anxiety - is that we integrate it in our lives - that our actions, thoughts are not influenced by trauma and hypervigilance. That we are open to people and have walls and deflection shield when necessary. With social anxiety there is rumination, fear of criticism, dread and inability to handle difficult people. We can integrate social anxiety when we are fine with it. And we can be fine with social anxiety when we are listening to it in healthy manner - to check what it tries to tells us. There is always a message or point that we are not aware of. If we psychologically study and analyze our fears - we would notice that there is trauma, that there is inferiority complex that is governing toxic shame and that trauma has messed up and stifled our natural reactions - and replaced it with rigid rules and obligations that we blindly follow without ever doubting them nor toxic people.
The purpose of living life without anxiety is that we come up with new ideas and that we take business instead of standing aside and watch life roll by.
Herman Hesse said: "If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.".
And Jung said: "Everything that irritates us about others can lea us to an understanding of ourselves".
This is why CBT is based on the idea that there are no toxic people.
However I would introduce External Factor here - where we are met with something that is manipulation, Machiavellianism. Since manipulators are good at manipulation - we do not perceive their abuse as abuse - it is covered up as help and altruistic sprinkled with exploitation and honeymoon periods intermixed. So basically we are not irritated - we are gaslighted and instead of hate and awareness that they are toxic, we are only aware of self blame and belief that I am inept. It is as if they succeed at being evil without appearing evil on the surface.
For me, it seems that social anxiety and avoidance is ability to see beneath the mask. We can sense and sniff out the evil behind the mask of good. The same way that toxic people can sniff out easily in us that we have empathy and codependent issues and trauma bonds issues - being givers and them being takers.
Then social anxiety is no longer hallucination - but alarm system and something to accept and integrate as data that needs to be studied.
Similar to the shadow, the ability to confront and to be firm and defensive requires us to be "bad". Without it we will not have energy and shield - and we will end up with guilt and shame. So the mechanism that we need is the mechanism which corrupt people use - they commit crime and they do not feel guilt. We do the correct thing (like standing up for ourselves or ask for what we need) and we feel guilt. That happens due to trauma, being exposed to criticism and invalidation and toxic shaming.
So in order not to feel shame - we have to have ability to be "bad" and be fine with it. We can't be "bad" if we are traumatized to keep kid inside us locked. Part of us that is yelled and screamed at - and mostly part of ourselves that was criticized, mocked and nagged about his mistakes, flaws and ignorance - anything that we feel today as social anxiety. With trauma, we tried hard to be good, not to make mistakes and to be nice. Carl Jung said: "The brighter the light, the darker the shadow". When I try not to make mistakes, I will end up with social anxiety. It reaction to action of being good and nice and being told of my mistakes as catastrophe.
"Unless you learn to face your own shadows, you will continue to see them in others, because the world outside you is only a reflection of the world inside you".
With social anxiety we see good in others - due to external referencing - and that keeps us hooked to people who are not well meaning, but toxic shame tells us that we are inept to handle life - and other people are competent. So the world outside is seen as superior and scary in the same time. Criticism hurts - we see criticism and we believe it. We do not reject it. Social anxiety is fear of criticism and negative evaluation. We accept them, we do not doubt them. Social anxiety is therefore seen as our own problem - something that we invent.
However - in reality - with social anxiety due to trauma - we have ability to see abusive people - but we are not aware of it. Because our shadow only reflect what is inside us - and inside us is repressed kid that was ashamed for being different. Now this kid is silenced and we silence ourselves around others. Other people are seen as gods, superior - because our shadow is part of ourselves that is confident. In the shadow it suppose to be everything that is evil and wrong and mistaken. But in social anxiety due to trauma - in our shadow are things that are considered positive and correct and legally lawful - nothing is criminal about it. That is suppressed inside us, and we see that in other people - and we believe them unconditionally. We do not have ability to reject bad people, and we have no energy to reject anyone. Because our confidence is in shadow, it is in prison.
The goal would be to bring out good parts of ourselves that are wrongfully accused as criminal.
CBT is misleading since it generalizes shadow as bad. It doesn't recognize that socially anxious supressed parts are good and legal and normal, ones we need to have social life.
Instead CBT pathologizes our good parts as hallucination.
Suppressed good parts are seen as reflection in people and social anxiety is born. It is inability to reject people since they appear good and god-like, worthy and everything that we do not have inside our Persona due to toxic shame.
Well, there are manipulative and abusive people out there and they are not reflection of us- they are reflection of trauma. And CBT is convinced that we have natural ability to reject abusive toxic people. We don't - since our good parts are rejected and suppressed - so we have no energy and ability to say no without feeling guilt. Guilt is produced by good parts being locked away.
I noticed this mislabeling in other people - they would label me as arrogant - when I was setting boundaries. The same labeling is ongoing inside social anxiety when I feel guilty for simply being there. And making mistakes.
Some mentors talk about embracing our shadow in order to fight evil intrusive people. However if we drag on the surface parts of ourselves that are good - we won't need to engage in wars and drama. We won't care anymore, we will be able to say who cares and move on.
I see these good parts as Sandra Bernhard character - someone who is honest. With social anxiety we define being authentic as dangerous - since traumatized self was punished whenever it was honest.
Practically - with discovering rejected parts of me that are good but sentenced to prison - will lessen social anxiety. Then I can allow them to make decisions and react to unknown situations and to reject difficult people. With social anxiety I am unable to handle unknown situations - since I do not know where I am going - there is no GPS, only other people's opinions and criticism. And I do not know what to say - since retort to toxic people is labeled as shameful and something that is wrong and should be hidden. So in toxic environment I am left to either be passive or to be hysterical. In both of these responses the manipulative person wins - because they win when I am immobile and they nitpick and shame when I lose control - I end up fawning to them in both cases.
With good parts restored - I will be able to cut contact without feeling guilty and I will be able to stand up for myself and eventually clear matters with conversation. With social anxiety I am stuck with shutting up and self-censorship - since there is no part of self advocacy inside me. There is no energy to stand up.
Jung: "Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darkness of other people."
Well, to deal with other people I need rejected parts of myself that are locked and that are projected into other people as superior. Then I will be on par. When I am on par I can talk to someone.
When I feel small and inept - I feel I have no rights to ask for what I want or alarm and alert someone.
"Projection of our own shadow makes the whole world a replica of our own unknown face" Carl Jung
That is social anxiety. Repressed traumatized parts related to social life are repressed and they are projected in other people.
"There is no light without shadow, and no psychic wholeness without imperfection" Carl Jung
In the case of social anxiety, imperfection is composed of good, natural, non criminal parts that do not belong into shadow category at all. Other people did not self pathologize themselves - so they never developed social anxiety. That was their secret. Other people are triggered by social anxious feelings when trapped and in difficult social life situations - but they are able to endure it since they do not self pathologize their good parts, they do not self-sabotage themselves.
Toxic - manipulative people may be better word to describe them - are targeting imperfections - and thus keep control. The easiest way to control socially anxious person is through criticizing imperfections.
"You can't truly call yourself peaceful unless you're capable of great violence.
If you are not capable of violence, you're not peaceful, you are harmless. Important distinction"
Not so - in social anxiety great violence means who cares. Tell people off and not feeling guilty about it. That part is destroyed and squashed. To me - if I do not show I care - it is equal to the great violence. There is no true violence - there is only invalidation. This part where I am convinced that I must be helpful to everyone is distorted. As if I am not allowed to say No. That part is distorted with social anxiety and trauma. The image of being good is distorted and tainted.
I guess this is distorted in other people too. They think that violence is needed to argue with someone. As if there is no alternative. Only fight response or not fight response.
So my task would be to warn and alarm people when they are unkind. And to substantiate it with proof.
Social anxiety is integrated when we look at it as normal part of life. It does not stops us from social life. Our trauma is doing that. Social anxiety is only hyper stimuli process - being highly aware of human evil and not knowing what to do about it - since we are convinced that feeling fear is illness and something to reject and deny.
I would both see anxiety and trauma as experience - it is bad, it is painful, it is not something to enjoy. However I cannot change it, and I can learn from it. It is endless source of data how to handle difficult situations - so I am not left in ocean to drown or in furnace to burn. In fact the fire will burn off the ropes and set me free. I will learn to walk on water. So I can view at social anxiety and trauma as experience that can help me express myself and being co-creater in better future and better world - as soon as I learn how it works. And the fact that it works, that there is a cure - and it was right in the front all along we just did not see it because of the transparent black veil over our eyes - is extraordinary in itself. It is work of art and clever design behind it. It does suggest higher dimension and it is deep spiritual experience rather than seeing it thought the lens of resentment and hate.
Nothing lasts,
Nothing is finished,
Nothing is perfect,
And therein lies its beauty.
Wabi-Sabi
It is inhuman to be totally good as it is to be totally evil.
Anthony Burgess
The first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego,
the second half is going inward and letting go of it.
Carl Jung
The more you deliberately seek happiness the more sure you are not to find it.
Carl Jung
Wholeness is not achieved by cutting off a portion of one's being, but by integration of the contraries.
Carl Jung
"Projection of our own shadow makes the whole world a replica of our own unknown face."
Carl Jung
If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.
Herman Hesse
Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.
Carl Jung
What Causes Your Anxiety? | Dr. Gabor Mate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2dzU86GXzE
Almost every mental disorder originates in childhood experience and originates as coping mechanism. When you are threatened with something you would not be anxious, you would be afraid as you should be.
When are we afraid? When we're threatened with something. Something bad happened to us. Or something that we perceive as we need is threatened to be taken away from us. In child's life anxiety is attachment alarm.
The child biggest need is attachment, connection with the parent. When not around, child feels fear. That serves a positive purpose. Child will cry, that fear is adaptive. It is coping mechanism. That natural fear is embedded.
Cry for help begins as coping mechanism and that becomes generalized. So under certain circumstances there should be fear and anxiety. But when I have anxiety and there is no immediate threat, what is that about?
When people are under general threat, less opportunity for meaningful employment and belonging, and a sense of purpose than their parents used to, there's more general threat. When it hits people who in childhood over immersed in anxiety that's not relieved by the parents coming to help them, now you have an anxiety situation.
Look at childhood. Anxiety is really the cry of some desperate childhood part of themselves for help and to learn to get help with that part. Not just to take tranquilizers, drink or go to Internet to soothe themselves.
See that anxiety is normal response on their part to what actually happened to them. And it can be relieved and recovered if they look at its sources.
When you set boundaries with the narcissist, you get called controlling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3_5dASMlj4
DoctorRamani
You set boundaries then narcissist call you controlling. They did not set boundaries before because they did not understand what they were dealing with. Some did not set them because they didn't know how to set them.
The vast majority of people are not taught how to set boundaries in childhood. And if you had narcissistic parent, then forget about it. You were never given persmission to set boundaries. If you did- face rage and punishment.
It is hard to do something that you were never taught or that you were never given permission to do. Once you set boundary anywhere – they will likely tell you, you are controlling – which is likely projection.
They aren't self aware, that's the issue. You, me, we all exist at their need and their whim. They are delusional enough to think that we are the problem that they are always right, and that we have no right to set a boundary.
Narcissistic people pathologize and shame qualities in others which make their lives more difficult or pick away at their sense of grandiosity and entitlement. Narcissistic people find that shaming and calling you crazy works.
These comments often will stop you from engaging in the behaviour that's inconveniencing them. It is clever manipulation. Setting boundaries with narcissist will not result in changing their behaviour, or honoring the boundaries.
Setting an appropriate boundary is not controlling, no matter what they say to you.
There are three things you must always ask yourself before you say anything.
Does this need to be said?
Does this need to be said by me?
Does this need to be said by me, now?
https://www.inc.com/justin-bariso/why-emotionally-intelligent-minds-embrace-3-question-rule.html?cid=sf01001
Why Emotionally Intelligent Minds Embrace the 3-Question RuleA few seconds can make a huge difference
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Mental Illness Is Not in Your Head
Decades of biological research haven’t improved diagnosis or treatment. We should look to society, not to the brain.
Psychiatry, across its history, has been dangerously susceptible to hype.
https://bostonreview.net/articles/mental-illness-is-not-in-your-head/
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Robert Greene, TWITTER:
Share your originality only with tolerant friends and those who are sure to appreciate your uniqueness.
Arthur Schopenhauer, TWITTER:
“The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience.”
Arthur Schopenhauer, TWITTER:
“Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.”
Gary Goodridge, TWITTER:
The best apology is changed behavior.
Robert Greene, TWITTER:
You must develop patience, which is like a muscle that requires training and repetition to make it strong.
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(30.6.2022)
Toxic shaming is targeting people who are fusing emotions and self worth. Toxic shame is fusion of emotions and self worth. Words that target mistakes, flaws and ignorance are voiced out for the received to fuse together action that they did (mistake) with the receiver's persona. In a way - toxic shame is hypnosis. Toxic people who are doing it consciously know what they are doing and this is abuse, this is criminal activity, and they are criminally insane. This is coertion of target into molestation. It is targeted that the victim/target let go their self control, self worth, self boundaries and let the trojan horse inside. Once we remove this veil of deceit - we can see quick anti-dote to toxic shame: defuse action and self worth. They are not the same. If I trip, I am not stupid. If I say something "stupid", I am not stupid. If I make mistake, I am not ill, unworthy, too sensitive, weird, unnaceptable, sissy, dumb, loser or any other label that toxic shamers try to evoke inside us. Also, they are projecting their own state onto us - so they are stupid losers - they are mentally ill. Normal people do not do this.
Toxic people fuse action with character. That is their giveaway. It hurts and it is painful - if I am not aware of what they are doing. I easily dismiss it when I know that they are commiting logical fallacy.
With social anxiety we modify our behaviour and it is rigid and inflexible. That is giveway that it is False self inside. Not only persona - all body becomes rigid in panic.
And without realizing we are the ones who are narcissistic and abusive - simply by having these panic feelings and rigid body and rigid posture and rigid mind. We hurt other people - since we do not engage with them and that seems authistic.
We have been programmed to believe that being nice, good and most importantly loving is equal to being tolerant to evil and bending our backs to it and self-censoring our natural reactions of anger towards it. We can speak the truth, voice out the elephant in the room and still be lovable and friendly. We were programmed to believe that we must shut up and thus show our life. Otherwise we were made to believe that we are bad people if we talk about evil and describing what happened. And foremost that we are not allowed to alarm and alert evil people about their evil actions nor retort to it.
As I discovered last year, resentment is the virus that is at the core of trauma.
What I did not know then is that resentment is still present even when I decide to be neutral or ignore it. Resentment leads to mental instability, it is the key to toxic shame.
So when I say that I am good, kind, nice person without ill will - it is not completely true. There is ill will inside, but it is covered.
The problem is that toxic environment and lack of information does not provide me information about how to retort to the evil and toxic people in the correct, proper and healthy manner. That ends up with me being people pleaser, with social anxiety and fears and inferiority complex. It makes sense when I realize that Jung's Self is False self composed of toxic shame and resentment. And that I expelled children parts of my mind into exile. So I cannot fight toxic shame and toxic people with logic - since they stem from imagination and hallucination.
Toxic shame will mess up my definition of tough love and being brutally honest with being evil.
Equating my mistakes with my character is the toxic shame modus operandi,
and now that I know that - I can choose differently and know what is my goal.
And the goal is to be exactely as I am - there is nothing to fix.
Me not being like others is ok. I am suppose to think more - there is no pathology in that.
Toxic shame and resentments are inner viruses that distorts the system. The same viruses operate in toxic people and I have ability to see them. I see this as the "cure" for social anxiety: to allow my child parts to come out of hiding from inside me and keep logic part in balance.
psychology of mind, TWITTER:
May you never have to sacrifice your mental health for a paycheck.
Robert Greene, TWITTER:
Understand: we are all too afraid - of offending people, of stirring up conflict, of standing out from the crowd, of taking bold action.
When confronted with a foe, bless her, praise her and let her go.
The Series Finale of The Carol Burnett Show - FULL Episode: S11 Ep.24
Law of Attraction, TWITTER:
Once you learn to control how you respond to things sent to destroy your peace, your life will change miraculously.
Blog posts:
Reddit posts:
- Why not Social Anxiety "Solutions" or "Fixes" or "Overcoming"?
- Concepts that helped me understand Social anxiety, Panic Triggers and Avoidance
- Toxic shame
- Intrusive Thoughts (PureOCD)
- Self Worth
- Being stuck
- Resentment
- Doubt and Descartes 'Evil genius argument'
- External reference locus of control and External validation
- Amygdala hijacking
- Egocentrism
- Classical CBT based Social Anxiety on faulty premises
- Fawning
- Ebbinghaus' Forgetting Curve
- Long-Term Narcissistic Abuse Can Cause Brain Damage
- 20 ideas and conclusions about social anxiety I learned without external help
- Philosophical zombie (NPC Wojak)
- Comment on YT video "Marcus Aurelius - Stop Caring What People Think"
- Interdependence
- Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) and Social anxiety
- Perfectionism is hidden factor of disorder in Social Anxiety
- Toxic people
- Three stages
- There is no absolute truth
- Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT)
- Dualism and Double bind
- Alternative explanations of Social anxiety
- Anti-psychiatry
- Anti-psychiatry (2)
- Social Anxiety Map (I)
- Social Anxiety Map (II)
- Social Anxiety Map (III)
- All people have social anxiety. All.
- Humanistic therapies
- False self (I)
- False self (II)
- Catcher in the Rye (I)
- Catcher in the Rye (II)
- Catcher in the Rye (III)
- Complex Trauma (c-PTSD)
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