Can I Change Myself?

Hello, since being kid, i always thought something is not right with me. As time progressed, i started seeing more downsides/problems of/with my personality. I will tell you about them in this post.

2 Sides Of Personality But Not Split Personality

With close people to me like my mom, a person that i know most well in my life and know that this person will always understand my downsides of personality, i do not think of how do i look in her eyes, what my reputation is in her eyes. Therefore i do not try to hide anything from her and always behave the way i truly am. I am not trying to pretend somebody i am not.

With other people, i always try to show myself as serious, intelligent person. I try not to talk when there are many people around me, because i am not good at it. I am simple person and when it comes to talking with people, i try to appear as serious and intelligent person to them. I do not want them to know anything bad about myself like how lazy i am as an example.

It seems to me that what other people think is more important what my mother thinks of me. So if i am with mother and somebody else is near, i try to be "somebody else". This ties to the following:

The Value Of Reputation - Losing Myself And Feeling Stupid

Somehow i feel ashamed when people call me with bad words or when they raise their voice or yell at me. It makes me feel ashamed somehow feeling that i have problem and misunderstood something - feeling some kind of guilt and often my face becomes read and i am stressed in tension especially when a lot of people are around and following this i stop hearing and cannot understand what person continues to say to me after that as i am concentrated on what yelling person thinks about me at the moment and what people around me think about me also. This ties to the following problem:

Lack Of Attention And Understanding

When people speak to me, i often find myself losing attention and do not understand what they say to me. This leads back to Value Of Reputation. This also happens when i watch certain type of movie which involves "investigation and finding the bad guy", movie like recent "Sherlock Holmes" movie. I watch such movies with "brain turned off" when i start feeling that i do not understand movie. Somehow i cannot connect dots or forget about some dots (scenes). Mother said it is dylexia, but i don't know what to think.

Sometimes i feel like i am about to understand something, i feel very close to it like something is about to "click", but something in my mind prevents me to figure it out. Mostly this happens with mathematical equations.

When all the above happens, i lose my confidence completely. I try to talk as less as possible with people, lose focus on my goals, start criticizing myself and all thoughts i have for the rest of day is about this making me upset with myself for half or the rest of the day.

There is another hurdle. I am more than 11 years in Israel after immigration and do not possess enough knowledge of hebrew language and 50% of time do not understand what people saying. Instead of telling them that i did not understand them, i keep on listening because saying that i do not understand hebrew well makes me feel somehow uncomfortable which ties to 2 Sides Of Personality But Not Split Personality.

Also i fear people, especially after i come outside after spending half week at home with computer. Looks like i live in virtual life and feel easier to talk with people online by typing on keyboard than talking with them in real life. When i talk with them online, i have time to think things out and make right/logical decision. When i talk with real person, i am in tension and cannot think smart or forward or analyze situation and often find myself lacking answers on some questions that i could have asked if i talked with that person online by typing.

Feeling That Other People Have Bad Opinion About Me

Sometimes it seems to me people have bad opinion about me which mostly is not the case. If somebody had a bad day, looks at me with angry face, i feel that it has something to do with me.

There was once time when i asked bank accountant to re-calculate something and she did face that seemed to tell that i am stupid by asking that question, while, probably this wasn't the case. Maybe she just questioned herself that maybe something in her calculation was not right?

I Am Close To 30 And Still Do Not Have Girlfriend

All above is the reason i don't have girlfriend. I am not confident i can give her something like my confidence, safety and protection (i never fought seriously and now i am with glasses). Maybe there are girls out there who do not think what i said above is important and will love me for the way i truly am. I also do not want girlfriend because i will have responsibility like entertaining her, protecting her, giving her gifts or go to public places with her. I will have to socialize with people and experience problems mentioned above which will reveal to her who truly i am, so there is no point pretending somebody who i am not. I think this all ties to above problems.

I do not have driver's license mostly because lack of confidence of being able to drive and all reasons above. I did not work for a few years now, because of last incident and stress i had on job. I cannot do 2 things at the same time (lack of multitasking i assume)? If i am to do something then it will be the only thing i will do and can concentrate on. I had a job requiring attention, speed and politeness. When i was losing myself and felt stupid (see above), i think i experienced panic attacks.

However in my life i tried to start with several girls without thinking of responsibility, but luckily or unluckily i was not their guy.

I do not like to shower often and i am fat, but when i fall in love, this changes 180 degrees - i shower every day, go to gym in order to be atractive and in shape, but again i am trying to be who i am not.

I do not believe that violence is the answer in first place. I am diplomatic person and try to resolve things in good way so everybody wins, but if that fails, i believe this is when violence comes because only then person understands.

I Have Only 2 Friends

I had a few more when i was in school, but as time gone by, i lost connection with them and they became "old friends" which sometimes i meet, but since everybody is grown up, i believe they don't have time for me since they must think about their lives i.e education, work, family...

Regarding my 2 friends in present, i do not want to meet with them sometimes when they ask (which is rarely) because i am all comfortable at home in front of my computer.

My Properties

My good properties: kind, generous, good deeply in heart, take grammar seriously because it tells something about person's intelligence, feel pain when looking on bums on streets and wishing i could help them, cannot stand when it comes to deceiving or scamming people, sometimes can do good things for others instead for myself, selfish but only for myself and not for others i.e if i want pizza i can refuse to myself but not for my friends, i never humiliate person unless he humiliates me first.

My bad properties: mostly unfriendly, egoistic, lazy, do not like when people are staring on me, avoiding direct contact with eyes of people i don't know, thinking too much, worrying about unnecessary things, taking everything too close to heart, suspicious, sometimes cheap, don't like to throw old things away especially if they mean much to me, have tendency to animal sadism (very disappointing. If you have advice and want to help me, please send me message)

What I Think Is My Purpose In Life

I discovered this 3 years ago. Prior to this, i never knew what was my purpose in life. Most people know what they want, but i didn't.

My First Objective: I want to become successful and honest businessman, improve my and my mom's health and improve quality of our lives.

My Final Objective: I want to help poor people, donate to non-profit organizations, establish workplaces to offer more jobs to unemployed.

I have a big goal in life, but am not confident if i can achieve this especially with my problems.

This is all i can tell at the moment. I would really appreciate professional advice. Maybe i have syndromes that must be identified?

I wish you had posted this thread in another part of the forums, where it would recieve more attention. You can ask a moderator to move it.

I think your biggest problem is low self-esteem but it's not unlikely for you to have a personality disorder. You definitely need professional help. Is it possible for you to see a psychiatrist and/or psychotherapist?

As for the question you asked, you definitely can change yourself if you really want to imho

You said you live in Israel; just out of curiosity, are you Jewish?

I used to take Respond and Xanax when treated by first psychiatrist, then i left him and found another one. She prescribed me Zyprexa and Viepax. After half year i finished with them and was prescribed Esto with Tripple B (B1, B6, B12 vitamins) and this is what i take now.

I see. And have the meds helped with the symptoms you mentioned? Do you know your diagnosis?

I first noticed that i was constantly waking up in the night because of a bell in my ears getting stronger until i wake up. Physician told me i have depression. Once i felt useless, loss of interest and hope in life. Priot to that my interest in life was video games - addiction. First psychiatrist stated that i have psychosis, second said that i have OCD. I have been at the alternative medicine professional and paid him for his service. He said i had weak bio-field and he restored it, but when he asked advice to continue the course i refused.

I don't know if meds helped me, but my situation changed almost 180 degrees when i discovered my new interest. It is connected with internet and computers. I think that was the reason i felt better, not medicines i was taking.

Yes, medicines aren't much of a help sometimes. Internet can help you only to some extent though, and it definitely can't help your self-esteem. You need to get over your socializing problems. You have to accept yourself the way you are and to be happy with presenting yourself as you are to other people.

Feel free to pm me whenever you need to talk

Clearly you are intelligent. You have some problems but who doesn't? You need to set some short and long term goals and then look at what steps you need to take to get there. A therapist could be helpful with this or talking with us at PC might help too.

Welcome. I look forward to getting to know you.

So far you only read my posts. When i write/type i try to make it best i.e correct grammar and spelling because i have time to think and analyze what i wrote. I may be good at writing, but i am not good when spoken with, because i cannot express myself correctly, often speaking in confusing way. To perform better when speaking, i need to focus and do it conciously.

I see a lot of "practical" ways you could work to help yourself. I would maybe take driving lessons, learn to drive; sounds like you might enjoy taking some advanced courses in college, maybe in business to work on your goals, etc. I think being around people and working with people could, over time, increase your self esteem and would certainly give you a better chance of meeting women and getting to know more people.

Perna that was wise what you said. Indeed when i worked previously with people i had high self esteem. I was trying to start with girls i remember... But i was not thinking of consequences and responsibility.

I have been to CCNA course and quit it in its last month because of lack of understanding and strangely being bored. I was interested but felt bored maybe because i did not understand things and lacked language skills. When i did not understand something i know i should have asked for help from other people but what interest would they have to help me? I also was seating with one girl and was shy and uncomfortable to ask her for help. If it was man i would comfortably asked. Moreover it was a commuting for 1 hour and i had to wake up at almost 7 A.M. and waking up was not easy because my day regime has changed and i was used to waking up at 1 P.M.

Also after finishing army (that is prior to cource) i continued to fulfill my high school certificate and mostly failed because of reasons above.

Ever since i have no longer belief that i can succeed in education. Same is for driving lessons, only to imagine teacher yells at me and calls me stupid because i did not understand him or was confused. Or even if i get my driving license, what will happen if i bumo into other car? Driver will come out angry, start yelling and i will not understand him or be focused on something else and look like a fool... I don't know. I cannot myself imagine how is it driving for me. If i lack attention then how will i be able to spot road signs? Orientate?

Some years ago, when I'd been online for only a few weeks, I joined a community about as big and active as this one. I noticed some of the other members doing interesting things with links and graphics and decided to ask them how they did it. Somewhat to my surprise I found I actually enjoyed the feeling of asking, leaving it up to them how to respond, accepting whatever happened, and moving on from there. After a few months I even posted (there, not here) that I was glad there wasn't an onsite manual on technical stuff just because I was having so much fun learning from other members and in turn passing along what I'd learned.

One thing that I'm sure helped my confidence a lot was that I'd already been working with computers for several years and had learned (and forgotten ) how to program and debug in several languages. Although HTML, the Internet, and web browsers were completely new to me, none of it was different in principle from things I was already good at -- and there was no longer any question that I was good at learning things and figuring them out.
Any idea what that was about for you -- how asking a woman would have been different from asking a man?

It sounds as if the things you're imagining/expecting are consistently those you'd like the least if they actually happened.

I grew up in a family where nobody drove, everybody was afraid to, and they'd passed their fears along to me. I didn't get my license till I was 22 and when I did, I was thinking all along of different ways I could get in trouble. I'd be unable to remember the rules of the road and fail the written test (only, I maxed it instead ). The instructor would tell me I was hopeless because I wouldn't know where to find second gear, when to step on the clutch, or how far to turn the steering wheel (but he'd worked with lots of students who'd had to learn those same things, and already knew how to avoid panicking them). When I was first driving on my own, I was afraid I'd space out, overlook a "PEDESTRIAN CROSSING" sign, and hit a pedestrian or something. It took me a while to notice that I drove better when I focused on actual road conditions than when I tried to scrupulously read signs and recite regulations to myself.

Some of the fears you mention remind me of a time when I was finishing some work at a house in a nearby city where I don't go very often. I wasn't done yet, it was getting dark, the forecast called for rain, and I was thinking, "Oh, NO! I'm going to have to drive home over narrow, unfamiliar streets with rain on my windshield and other cars' headlights glaring off the wet road so I can't even see the lane markings! I'm in trouble now. It was such a mistake to take on this job!"

As it turned out, it wasn't actually raining when I left, I could see just fine, and I had no trouble finding my way home -- but my dire predictions had felt so much more real and, well, interesting than the actual prosaic outcome.

I didn't answer your poll, by the way. For me, the only possible answer would have been, "It depends."

Well when i was sitting next to woman in that course i never talked to her (although i wanted to ask her questions) and she never talked to me. 2 months passed and asking her suddenly after 2 months would be strange and uncomfortable.

Also if that woman was one who i got crush on or fell in love with, i would be too shy to talk to her and feel uncomfortable not being to focus.

With man i feel easy like he is my brother and i can ask him whatever i want.

I am the same. I write more clearly than I speak. I always have. That is one reason I prefer posting on the forums instead of being in chat. I feel pressured to respond in chat and I freeze.

Give yourself credit for self realization. You know you have some problems. Now you need to find the solutions. I hope that Psychcentral may be helpful to you.

Well i like posting and chatting. They let me think things through and i am not pressured as much as in real life. In real life, person is expecting almost immediate response.