REAL problems

[Anonymous]

I just spoke to an old friend who told me of how in the past few months she was raped at knife point, beaten up and thrown out of her home by her father when he found out about the rape as he didnt believe her. A few days later she took whatever drugs she could get hold of and overdosed cause she couldnt take any more.

I feel so pathetic right now. Sitting in all day self-pitying myself and my stupid life, wondering why i'm too scared to fucking talk to people..really puts it into perspective dont you think. I mean I live in a good home, been brought up well, have some close friends who really care, doing well in college, the list goes on. My problem= I'm scared to talk to other people. HOW SAD IS THAT? I mean what the fuck am i doing with my life??! Whats the point in being on this planet? I dont know but I definitely want to do something worthwile while I'm here. Otherwise what's the point. I think this was a much needed wake-up call.

We all gotta conquer this..life really is too short

 

[Remus]

some of us here have had that happen to us aswell, maybe thats why our SP is so bad????
I dont think it takes away anything from those who didnt suffer such a trauma, other examples can be bullying at school, bullying parents (physical or mental) relationship trauma, grief for a lost loved one, the list is endless, alot of the people I have met over time have some traumatic event of other thats made them alot worse.

dont feel like you have no reason to be suffering, as you do.
It is up to you to work on ridding yourself of it at the end of the day.Not that I'm saying I have but I certainly have inproved alot through persaverence.

 

[Anonymous]

i've always thought that it's whatever is in our perspective. yeah, someone else may be going through alot more than we are, but whatever we find troubling, or traumatic to us, (whether it may be to others are not) it runs just as deep as something that could be alot worse (ex: pet dying vs. a parent). it's all in how you look at things. but then again, when you see what other people go through, it does put the world in perspective when it's so easy to get caught up in our own.

sorry to hear about your friend!

 

[Chilling_Echo]

i've always thought that it's whatever is in our perspective. yeah, someone else may be going through alot more than we are, but whatever we find troubling, or traumatic to us, (whether it may be to others are not) it runs just as deep as something that could be alot worse (ex: pet dying vs. a parent). it's all in how you look at things. but then again, when you see what other people go through, it does put the world in perspective when it's so easy to get caught up in our own.

sorry to hear about your friend!

me not logged in

 

[Anonymous]

I've been raped too, but being raped has nothing to do with my SA. It was here way before that.

 

[Remus]

I've been raped too, but being raped has nothing to do with my SA. It was here way before that.

I'd say the same, I remember being that way at 4years old, 2 years before I was abused.

I think it makes it a hell of alot worse though to suffer a traumatic event.

the more traumatic events I've had ,the worse it has become it seems.

 

[Anonymous]

i've never had anythig that..serious happen tome, so i suppose you could say theres no reason for me to suffer from SA..and yes i find it annoying..but it makes what little trouble i have seem so much worse. My friend's parents beat her..and she gets on with it. Mine would not touch me but i have a bad relationship with them because of the way they insult/ patronise/ view me on the whole.

as someone told me once, theres always going to be someone out there who is worse off then you are.
for example a chils parents might not be bothered to feed them, it is up to themselves to find their food. This child is suffering..but then..theres children in africa who havent eaten in months and are dying. Surely these need help more.


The severity of our problems is personal, it cannot and should not be judged against others problems.

 

[Anonymous]

A friend of mine attempted suicide a few years back by shooting herself in the stomach, she lived on a farm and a shotgun was to hand. Sh was admitted to hospital following this, when i went to visit her she would constantly berate herself about the fact that she had a perfectly happy childhood, good marriage etc, whilst others had been through really traumatic events.
She also suffered with SP which is how we became friends, however she felt bad because she couldn't identify a reason as to why she had this. As somebodey else here as already said, traumatic events don't help, however my friend felt so bad about her SP that she actively tried to end her life.
What i'm trying to say is evrybody has their problems and it effects them all in different ways, when a problem effects your thimking to the point you harm youself than it is very real, regardless of what may or may not happened in the past.

 

[loucat]

that was me forgot to sign in

 

[Nightshade]

I've been meaning to reply to this (actually I've been meaning to reply to lots of things but my answers never seem quite right).

CB, you raise a good point about keeping problems in perspective, but it is unhealthy to feel that you have no right to feel bad because your problems are different or less tangible compared to someone else.

Your point has made me realise how one aspect of my SP problem developed, and I would like to tell you about it because you really should know just how dangerous comparing your problems to others can be.

Okay, when I was about 15 or so I already had some SP and depression problems (even though I didn't know what it was made me feel so bad so much) and also I had a lot of trouble fitting in with others at school - suffice to say I was a bit eccentric and while I had a few friends I got picked on a lot and had no idea why. At that time there was a lot of information in the media and at my school about domestic violence, child abuse, rape, alcoholism, drugs etc etc and how so many people had these terrible problems (bullying wasn't one of the problems mentioned at that time...).

I felt rather like you describe CB, in that I felt pathetic for feeling bad when I didn't have "real" problems. I felt horrible and guilty and like I had no right to feel bad. What developed was a situation where every time I heard about someone's problems, I felt guilty for feeling bad, which made me feel worse. I didn't want to feel this guilt (I felt bad alread), so I came to dread hearing about anybody's problems. Eventually this reached the point, after some years, where I tried to avoid as much as possible having people try and tell me anything about their problems, and the worse the problem, the more terrified I was. If I thought anyone might tell me some problem, I would start to feel afraid and try and get away. Also I just got frightened even reading books about some problems.

What a crap friend - who walks away or ignores you when you try and talk about your problems! It is hard to express how much I hated myself for doing this, but it became nearly impossible to do anything else.

I knew it was bad and I knew it was wrong, so I tried really hard not to avoid people's problems, and eventually got better at it. But I still hated myself for what I had done in the past, and couldn't forgive myself. Only in the last few months, have I started learning to forgive myself for doing this.

The thing is, feeling guilty or bad about yourself when you hear about other peoples' problems, whatever they are, helps nobody, and it can really hurt you and others. I was suicidal over this problem. My friends were hurt and confused by my strange behaviour.

It is good to see the comments from people here that you shouldn't compare or discount your own problems. I wish someone had told me that 17 years ago.

By all means let hearing about others problems motivate you to DO something, to remember to say nice things to people, especially when they are down, to donate a little something to charity, or to keep up with trying to make little changes in your own life to overcome your problems for example.

But please don't do what I did.

By the way, hi people, I'm new here.

 

[Remus]

thats a sad story Loucat about your freind

kinda touched me, hope she's doing better now.

 

[loucat]

she's doing really well, she's come a long way, it's nice to know people care, thanks

 

[racheH]

CB, you raise a good point about keeping problems in perspective, but it is unhealthy to feel that you have no right to feel bad because your problems are different or less tangible compared to someone else

Agree completely! Dismissing your own unhappiness as unjustified because it's caused by processes in your own brain is understandable, but not fair, I think. As Nightshade shows, it complicates things more, too.
Remember this: statistically, the amount of famous genius and creative minds with mental problems is a very disproportionate majority to the amount in the general population, as partially demonstrated here: http://www.covenanthealth.com/coldfusionapplication/covhlthwhatsnew/detail.cfm?Post_ID=3684
Many of these people also appear to have had ‘easy’ lives on the surface, in fact bipolar disorder is more common among those high on the socio-economic scale. Yet we know that great creativity can only come from people who know considerable suffering. This surely suggests that mental illness is at least as potentially harmful as other causes of depression. A theory of mine for how? Although the fear is irrational, subsequent depression isn’t. It makes perfect sense to me even now, how I felt then about my life. A difference between mental problems and those caused by the external world is that you can’t usually pin your hopes on it getting better (although it has for me). You can just resign yourself to the idea that you’re always going to feel a certain way, and because you don’t understand it, you can’t control it and the outside world can’t make any difference, because the problem isn’t with the outside world. Few problems I can think of share this feature of seeming uncontrollable and permanent. The future becomes an impending, pointless, constant battle, so life becomes that too.

^That probably was a depressing argument, sorry.^ It doesn’t have to be like that forever, I was just describing a feeling : )

 

[Nightshade]

You can just resign yourself to the idea that you’re always going to feel a certain way, and because you don’t understand it, you can’t control it and the outside world can’t make any difference, because the problem isn’t with the outside world. Few problems I can think of share this feature of seeming uncontrollable and permanent. The future becomes an impending, pointless, constant battle, so life becomes that too.

^That probably was a depressing argument, sorry.^ It doesn’t have to be like that forever, I was just describing a feeling : )

I can really relate to that feeling. Before I knew what depression was, and that I could get over it, it was just impossible to see a way out. I felt the same way about social phobia/ anxiety until a couple of weeks ago. But now, one of the things that really gets me through when I am down is knowing/ believing that it can and will get better.

I have to say that I'm feeling low right now because until I read this thread I hadn't really connected my previous difficulty dealing with other peoples problems as an aspect of social anxiety. It's progress to be able to understand the mechanism for the problem, but it's miserable remembering it. Still, "this too shall pass".