[Onward2wards]

What if ...

You realize that recurrent negative situations in your life "tricked you" into suspecting your deepest motivating situations may very well end in failure? Not FEAR OF failure, but EXPECTATIONS of failure? Demoralization.

What if you realize that the anxiety this causes has fooled you into avoiding taking that risk, and that for years this "Anxiety Avoidance" has only led to self-fulfilling prophecies, so that today you desperately want real change which only you can accomplish, but these expectations of failure have become almost absolute? So absolute that the anxiety is now too big to face?

What if you realize that meds have done NOTHING to solve this problem? That the meds really are only glorified "uppers or downers" which have so many unexpected physical, cognitive and affective deficits along with MILD improvements only, that they really are not worth bothering with? What if they only make you "feel" a bit better, but they do NOTHING to alter your overall self-defeating behaviors?

What if you realize that this is like being in a TV show spaceship hovering above a black hole, with only enough engine power to keep stationary, never escaping the destructive pull?

What the *&%^ do you do? What!? I am not willing to live this way anymore, but I'm facing this cognitive/behavioral PERFECT catch-22 that nothing seems to resolve. I try and try to face my fears, but I still hold back just enough to defeat my own progress EVERY time. I am NOT willing to put up with "This is the best you will ever do". That just isn't good enough, because this isn't LIFE. And yes I want to LIVE, Capital L, not just "exist" in a motivational dead zone. The problem is my expectations have become too negative, and I am stuck NEEDING to believe better, expect more, to be able to get motivated again to try ... but without seeing myself succeed I can't seem to get that motivation to try in the first place. Damned if I try, damned if I don't try. The worst thing is, I am getting resigned to it.

All I'm left with is either avoiding, submitting to, or overcompensating for, these negative beliefs. (I WISH I had the energy and drive to get stuck in overcompensation, because the other two are HORRIBLE!) I refuse to give up but I don't believe I can succeed either. Limbo sucks!!! Getting VERY angry helps increase motivation a ton, but then I don't have any patience for the process and begin to panic.

[Onward2wards]

I am probably making this sound a lot worse than it really is. Today seems to be pity party day; I am trying not to get sucked into that, lol.

[Perna]

Originally Posted by Onward2wards

so that today you desperately want real change which only you can accomplish, but these expectations of failure have become almost absolute? So absolute that the anxiety is now too big to face?

Expectations of failure are not the same as the anxiety. So you fail? So what. We all fail at stuff, especially stuff we have never tried or practiced. Ain't none of us perfect. The kid learning to add and subtract in grade school gets problems wrong on the test.

Embrace the failure, laugh at it. You know how you know you are going to fall when you are learning to ride a bicycle? Well, pretend you are learning to ride that bicycle now, now that you are an adult and know that eventually you did learn to ride (and even got good so you could do, "Look, Ma, no hands!" :-)

Watch some movies like "Big", "17 Again", "13 Going on 30", "Freaky Friday", movies like those. You can do this!

[wiretwister]

I read a saying about trains pulling into the station... you can choose to stand on the track and be run down by it or take the time and energy to exzamin every nut and bolt on the train or just stand on the platform and let the train come and go thru...you must learn how to let those thoughts just breeze on thru.......