I hate it

I feel like a whole failure. I don't know how I could ever think that I was going to be able to deal with people like any other person. I used to think...kiddos are different. In some way, I saw them in a different way to adults. At least, I didn't feel them so threatening as I see adults.

How can someone feel when she realises that she neither is able to do the thing she was born for? I feel so empty. So, a noone.

I was so proud of myself. In spite of my psychological problems, in spite of having so many difficulties and feeling so bad towards myself...I felt as I could do something good and something that I can offer. But, I'm awared now that I can't deal with people without paying a price. A price in terms of health: sadness, worries, fears, feeling an outsider, and even worse, feeling that you are not able.
My psychologist says: the more you face to anxiety, the better you will be able to face to it later. I know it's true. I don't try to discredit that but what to do with the thought you have always in your mind that you can't do things well. What to do with this thought that tells you that you are not a person like any other and can be more harmful than helpful.

I arrived to the conclusion that I only can do things that don't involve to be with people. A mechanical job.
So, I'm in this inner debate.

My psychiatrist tells me that I only have to make my self-steen stronger. As if it was so easy. At least, I haven't been able to do it so far. After so many years.

Sorry for the long post. I wrote all this in my journal and I think I'm posting it here with the hope that someone tells me, hey, I know what you are feeling. I feel like you.

Thanks!

Hello AzulOscuro: The Skeezyks knows what you are feeling. I feel like you. I spent my whole life pretending to be someone I wasn't. It's difficult to pinpoint exactly why. Part of it was because I didn't realize I had any choice. (To some extent I didn't.) Part of it was because I didn't consciously understand what was going on. Part of it was that there was a part of me that wanted to be the person I was trying to be... but couldn't be. It's crazy...

I enjoy watching the British murder mysteries they show on our local Public Television Station. And every so often, there's a line in one of these shows that reverberates with me. Recently I watched the final episode of a series titled: "Wallender". In that program one of the characters, who was an older man (like me!) said: there comes a point in life where you realize you can only be the person you have always been. I think I've come to that point.

One of my problems has always been that I never seemed to get along with anyone... & somehow I always would seem to get myself into trouble one way or another. So now I just keep to myself. I don't know anyone. And I don't want to know anyone. It suits me. Yes, there was a time when I thought that if I faced my anxiety, & simply kept going, eventually it would get better. It never did. All it did was make things even more difficult than they would have been anyway. And, yes, I've also tried to build my self-esteem. But, as you wrote, it's not so easy. So, now, I've simply decided to allow myself to be the person I always was, to the extent possible. It's not perfect. But, for me, it's better than struggling with trying to be someone I never was. From my perspective, it's simply a matter of self-acceptance.

I don't have Avoidant PD but I do, or certainly have, had traits of a related one (OCPD). "Worked" all my adult life trying be "well" or my "real self", etc. I feel like a failure, too. I guess I've just been the person I have always been but it seems so disappointing. I'm in my late 60's, too.

One thing I might say about self-esteem -- I lacked a sense of real identity, a sense of myself, and I've gotten a better sense of that after 6 years of trauma therapy recently. It's hard to describe -- at first it felt like a clear membrane, like a bubble, forming, then more recently like skin with some toughness to it. I believe that many of us with PD's may lack this basic true "ego" or psychological skin and therapists that I've seen didn't really know how to help me with that or even understand that it was missing.

Self-esteem, without that real "skin" or membrane, has to be based on something incomplete or false. It won't be real. Therapists that I've seen haven't really understood that or, like I said, how to help.

Yeah, I do feel like you, too. I thought I might do all kinds of things with my life, but the PD and mental illness behind it really limited me. Thing is, I think PD's make it hard for us to see and understand that sometimes, which then just adds to the misery, maybe.

Maybe someday there will be some better understanding and help.

Wishing you the best!

Acceptace.
I'd wish I could have just a little bit of it. At least, I wouldn't be so cruel with myself. I say cruel, because it can't be real the things I say to myself. Only mathematically, it can't be real, but I believe it.
They say, change the messages you give to yourself for positive ones. What you think takes you to an emotion and the emotion produces an attitude. I say, ok...I know this is the right way, to counteract this bad thoughts. But, they eat and breath by themselves. I can't control them.
It doesn't matter how well I can be with myself...they are always here to remember me that I don't deserve happiness.
" Yes, I got this but...Oh, everything is going well. I don't understand it. It can't be real..."

I didn't use to be so pessimistic. Somehow I had faith and even believed that the impossible could be possible but perhaps, because of age, or after so many falling downs I can't see the light.

Thank you for your post.

I neither know who I am. The few times I was a little bit fear-free, I was another person. I felt strength, motivation, and mainly hopeful. But, most of the time, I'm the other one.

I can feel reflected myself in your words about how limitating PD's are. They make you see the reality through a very particular perspective and all that is out of it, it's perceived as vague, diffused.

Thank you and congratulations for your work in therapy.