LittleMissMuffet
Well-known member
...I could even veture to say that I am cured.
But one thing for sure is that I don't feel ashamed anymore.
When I was a teenager, despite being sensitive and having anxiety, I was quite sure of my self. One time, a girl who didn't like me, actually told me: "You never get phased by anyone."
Since highschool, the world got bigger -with more unknowns and my sensitivity increased. I think I started to be ashamed and to doubt and question my place in the world.
Then I lost 2 jobs, and decided that I had to 'see someone'. Seeing a psychiatrist and the confusion and distress that I felt at this time, all was like facing doubts.
Now, ironically, because of being faced with such possibilities and other peoples' judgments about me (including stigma towards mental illness and even just diagnoses of mental illness) has actually strengthened my own beliefs about my self that I have deep down. Deep down I don't believe that I am strange or lesser and I have a way of defining my problems that is really simple and non-judgemental. And basically, I am believing in my own opinion about my self.
Also, I feel able to be reactive, lose control and be emotionally overwhelmed, all the while not caring or attaching so much or identifying so much with such aspects of my interaction with others. It is like I am claiming who I am according to my own definition -the one that I have always had about my self when I am on my own- now I can believe in that when I am around others.
I just don't care so much anymore for other peoples' opinions of me. And I can look at my having so-called 'social anxiety' based on my own views about what this means -or rather, I define my self my own way. And I see it that I struggle more than others with a fear of not fitting-in and of rejection and of judgement, because a higher than average sensitivity creates a bigger gap between me an others.
I am not ashamed anymore about being sensitive and I don't even view it, for that matter, as being a mental illness. It only became one because I was ashamed of being sensitive and more sensitive because I was ashamed! ...if you get my drift.
Now that I am not so ashamed -and I am less sensitive.
I am still going to work on it all. But I feel that I have gone into the darkness and now am on my way home out of it. ....back to how I was when I was a child and believed in my self and did not care what others thought. I am who I am.
I am not so afraid anymore and I believe I can face how I am different and I don't need anyone's approval anymore.
Thanks.
But one thing for sure is that I don't feel ashamed anymore.
When I was a teenager, despite being sensitive and having anxiety, I was quite sure of my self. One time, a girl who didn't like me, actually told me: "You never get phased by anyone."
Since highschool, the world got bigger -with more unknowns and my sensitivity increased. I think I started to be ashamed and to doubt and question my place in the world.
Then I lost 2 jobs, and decided that I had to 'see someone'. Seeing a psychiatrist and the confusion and distress that I felt at this time, all was like facing doubts.
Now, ironically, because of being faced with such possibilities and other peoples' judgments about me (including stigma towards mental illness and even just diagnoses of mental illness) has actually strengthened my own beliefs about my self that I have deep down. Deep down I don't believe that I am strange or lesser and I have a way of defining my problems that is really simple and non-judgemental. And basically, I am believing in my own opinion about my self.
Also, I feel able to be reactive, lose control and be emotionally overwhelmed, all the while not caring or attaching so much or identifying so much with such aspects of my interaction with others. It is like I am claiming who I am according to my own definition -the one that I have always had about my self when I am on my own- now I can believe in that when I am around others.
I just don't care so much anymore for other peoples' opinions of me. And I can look at my having so-called 'social anxiety' based on my own views about what this means -or rather, I define my self my own way. And I see it that I struggle more than others with a fear of not fitting-in and of rejection and of judgement, because a higher than average sensitivity creates a bigger gap between me an others.
I am not ashamed anymore about being sensitive and I don't even view it, for that matter, as being a mental illness. It only became one because I was ashamed of being sensitive and more sensitive because I was ashamed! ...if you get my drift.
Now that I am not so ashamed -and I am less sensitive.
I am still going to work on it all. But I feel that I have gone into the darkness and now am on my way home out of it. ....back to how I was when I was a child and believed in my self and did not care what others thought. I am who I am.
I am not so afraid anymore and I believe I can face how I am different and I don't need anyone's approval anymore.
Thanks.
