Feelings of inadequacy and overabundance of thoughts stemming from it

So…
I feel inadequacy all around and find it extremely hard to stand here and say “I’m satisfied”. Thoughts about potential issues with what I believe or how I badly I did things run rampant, and I go over countless what-ifs to the point of madness. (Some of my friends just can’t believe the situations that go through my mind at times.) My mind is constantly on the fact I didn’t do it good enough…And even when I felt like I did something “good enough”, I still end up with obsessive thoughts and strangling anxiety about the things that could possibly contradict it or things I just wasn’t able to reach. It passed the point of criticism a long time ago and it has reached a point of aimless depression at times, interfering with my ability to do what I need/want to do constantly, making me do less then what I’d normally do, which further depresses me.

What I want to do is convince myself and my body that it’s okay to be normal and not perfect, it’s okay to be myself. I want a peace of mind of some sort, and the ability to say “I’m a good person again.” I really don’t view myself as a bad person, and I know what I’m going to do to make myself an even better person, but it never feels like enough. That’s why I use the word “inadequate”…It’s there, but never but always missing the bar. What I promise myself to do, what I actually do…No matter what I say or do I cannot get these inner critical thoughts out of my mind that degrade my ability to feel satisfied, or even better, happy. It seems endless and that is depressing in of itself…
In general I’ve always been a sensitive girl, even when I didn’t have these depressive thoughts I was still sensitive to many many situations and stuff like that. So I don’t expect myself to completely rid myself of all doubt; heck, I’d be mad at myself if I did! But this is too much and sometimes I feel so lost at how to stop it. Its stagnated things I want personally and although its reduced the amount of gigantic attacks of sadness I used to have; it’s so constant now sometimes I wish I had that back.

What I really want is just to be satisfied. I guess. I want to not feel nearly the anxiety about this that I do right now, and I want to feel like…Like...I did good! Agh. Anybody have any ideas on what to do?

Errr, I hope that makes sense…

if it doesn’t, I’ll quote a conversation with a friend where I felt I explained it rather well:

“[1/8/2016 3:00:01 PM] Aife: I just feel inadequate. That's pretty much it. There are a lot of things I do that aren't really the most effective way to deal with the situation, whether I'm respecting my limits or just because I did it wrongly. There's always...More I could do, or a better way to do it, or something.

For some reason that causes me a lot of angst, feels like I'm not doing enough or that i'm not good enough as a person because I wasn't able to brave through it without issue. (The latter is mostly related to sensitivity issues itself) After a lot of feeling and thinking I realized this type of thinking is very toxic to my mental state. For the most part i end up stagnant and doing less if i feel too ****** about my inability to do things. So I'm trying to force myself to frame it differently, the same way I teach others to frame their progress.

Does that make sense?
[1/8/2016 3:01:07 PM] Saku: yea i think so
[1/8/2016 3:01:58 PM] Saku: well
[1/8/2016 3:02:14 PM] Saku: you just think too hard about everything
[1/8/2016 3:02:23 PM] Saku: like me im kinda just like
[1/8/2016 3:02:35 PM] Saku: "I didnt do so hot this time,
So ill do better next time"
[1/8/2016 3:02:39 PM] Saku: and its overwith
[1/8/2016 3:02:51 PM] Saku: tho you tend to linger on the same thing for long periods of time
[1/8/2016 3:03:30 PM] Aife: well two things
[1/8/2016 3:03:31 PM] Aife: first of all
“tho you tend to linger on the same thing for long periods of time”
[1/8/2016 3:03:35 PM] Aife: ow
[1/8/2016 3:03:36 PM] Aife: second
"I didnt do so hot this time,
So ill do better next time"
[1/8/2016 3:04:34 PM] Aife: part of the issue is that sometimes I feel like this even when I tend to feel like I actually did rather well.
[1/8/2016 3:05:33 PM] Aife: Even when I feel certain aspects are adequete, and even when i think I have good reason to believe what i do
[1/8/2016 3:05:51 PM] Aife: my mind instinctively goes over situations that would challange when it possibly wouldn't work
[1/8/2016 3:06:05 PM] Aife: this is endless and really starts to depress me after a while
[1/8/2016 3:06:13 PM] Aife: and its why Im trying to fight that thought process
[1/8/2016 3:06:15 PM] Aife: lol
[1/8/2016 3:08:19 PM] Aife: and then I feel very pressured by people when they tell me to question myself harder, as if I'm not doing it enough as it is.

the pain and thinking just tends to be endless, and theres no common goal so I end up in quite the miserable state. That's why I'm trying to so hard to convince myself its okay to be normal, because otherwise I end up crushed.

but I'm meeting a **** ton of resistance, which pisses me off
[1/8/2016 3:08:20 PM] Aife: ;<
[1/8/2016 3:10:05 PM] Saku: im not really sure what to say. .
[1/8/2016 3:14:02 PM] Aife: its fine, it's my fight, not yours.

trust me I'm not sure what to say either; I told you this fight with myself tends to be incrediabtely circular and gets nowhere but making me more depressed.

But I can't stop thinking about it for too long...Ignoring it is only there to put myself in a better emotional state to deal with it. And even if i want too I litterally can't ignore it forever, my body doesn't let me. lmao.
I have already decided on my conclusion, I think, I just need to get myself to obey it and not fret so much over what ifs.
How thats going to happen idk”

____
As a note, I have ADHD and gender dysphoria. So far no diagnosis of any other type of mental disorder. That doesn’t mean I don’t have one, but it seems as though a lot of people (my therapist, myself) seem to believe that this is all situational bar the gender dysphoria related issues. Trans related issues have caused me a lot of stress and a lot of release at the same time, and for a time this level of overthinking was exclusive to that only. However as of around 6-7 months ago, this changed. Overthinking and feeling like crap extends into every fiber of my being.
That’s it.

Also, if anybody believes this should go in the anxiety area or someplace else, feel free to move it. I put it here because it relates to my self image and I was never diagnosed with any form of anxiety that I know of. I'm new here and confused q
Sorry this is so long by the way...

When I was working through what it meant to be an Adult Child of Dysfunction, many of the very things listed in your post were part of this list of 100 traits that result from a dysfunctional upbringing. I needed to work through sensitive thinking patterns, such as reframing how I took criticism to heart. That's one part of what can be worked through to find a sense of feeling adequate.



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Hello Well, you just described me right there, with everything you said. I found that identifying why I had developed this negative, inadequate view of myself was extremely helpful. healingforme mentioned dysfunctional families, and that definitely applies to me. My dad was very emotionally abusive and neglectful. Feelings weren't a thing we talked about in my family, so I grew up not knowing what the heck they were, or how to deal with them. Being told that I was worthless, nothing I did was good enough, I was never going to amount to anything, I was a failure, and all the instability caused me to start doubting myself. It severely damaged my self esteem.

I don't know if you experienced anything similar, but if somewhere along the way, you were led to believe that you were never good enough, or even if you were never rewarded for doing something good, you could pick up that thinking. I tend to harshly criticize everything I'm doing, all the time. I don't expect to do a good job, and I don't expect anyone to recognize my efforts. My biggest issue is feeling like I'm not doing enough in life. I could have 2 jobs and be in college full time and I still feel like I'm lazy. Everything I do is picked over.

I also noticed when I'm making decisions, I have to get LOTS input and approval from multiple people. I'll keep asking them "are you sure I should do this? Are you sure? What if this happens? Or this? Or this? Or..." And then I start freaking out about all the possibilities and flaws in my decision. So we have a lot in common! I can't say that I have any great advice for you. Making a schedule helps, so that you know exactly what you have to do, and when you complete it, congratulate yourself for doing it, and tell yourself that's all you have to get done for the day. Then you can look over your progress. Another thing is trying to catch those negative thought. It's really self-abuse, and it's not good for you. Whenever a negative thought about you pops into your head, stop that though, acknowledge that you caught it, and replace it with something positive. I also find talking to a therapist extremely helpful. I can tell her all these irrational worries and she can remind me that I am being productive, and all of my positive qualities.

Sorry this turned into such a long rambling novel. I hope some of that makes sense and might even help. Don't be too hard on yourself!

I have been taking Cognative Behaviour Therapy (CBT) for about 8 weeks now and it has been helpful. Lots of homework though. Regarding my sense of self esteem and self worth I've done a great deal of work. Many charts, pie charts, and lists basically of evidence I am a worthwhile person Vs evidence I'm not. It HAS helped. A big break though was admitting I AM deserving of good things.

Could you define what you mean by dysfunctional upbringing?
I don't know the parameters of this so its hard for me to determine if i am or not...

But i don't feel as though I a uh...

"bad family"

I'm 99% sure that's not what dysfunctional means, but
I have really only two sources of hurt in regards to family, third if you count dynamics and where i stand in it.

The first one is the fact I'm trans, or probably want to be it/go through the changes. I haven't told them, so when i feel a lot of angst about it I can't speak to them of it, due to my family's harsh reaction I'll know they'll give.

I'm not entirely sure how harsh the reaction would be but...
I know my mom massively disapproves of it and banned my sister from the internet years ago for like a couple months when she learned that she was writing about a story with cross-dressers in it. And a few other issues she's reacted not so kindly too...

The second thing is the disconnection between the adult members of my family, that live down here.

My grandpa and my mom have never really gotten along and he has caused her crazy amounts of stress, along with bring downs and all that. She has managed to deal with him rather well while also not kicking him out, and he's made a turn for the better in regards to alcohol addiction and stuff.

But the lasting effect taking care of him shows; while she was always high strung, that boost to stress levels and put downs made her go crazy sometimes. It led to constant fights and threats in the house, and I occasionally (aka quite a lot over the years) had to mediate it.
This also somewhat has to do with my dad too, he's an excellent authority figure who keeps the house in order...However he is massively stubborn about it, even to his wife.

He's more "open" to things then her, aka he won't be high strung and yell at you for something, but he'll rarely get down on your level and try to understand you. If he disagrees, he'll do his damnest to make sure you know it if you push him ("sharing blame" is not in his dictionary, if you're wrong you're wrong, don't try to even speculate someone else might have had influence.). I'm still salty about his lack of apology to my little brother about his hurt elbow, but I digress, I don't watch every part of his life, so maybe he did when I wasn't looking.

He had an extremely tough home life growing up, so that sternness is probably because of how much effort he put into getting out of it. And i do admire him for that...It's just, well...
yeah. lol

And finally, My sister is bipolar (one of the varients) and has a ton of her own issues, ontop of my mom's high strungness and my dad's stubbornness.

This ends up forcing me into a position where i really have to mediate between them half the time, and its sometimes hard to express my own worries even if they're not related to transness.

Does that count as "dysfunctional"?

As I said in response to him, I'm not really sure. lol I don't know the "definition" of dysfunctional, so I can't determine. I know we have issues, but I can only do so much to fix it...

I have a huge issue in regards to reading and taking in a lot of what people say online as "truth", or at least, that everyone can possibly have a point in some regard, i should at least give them a shot.
This includes assholes because I'm not of the opinion that being assholish necessarily invalidates their point. And I accept this as fact...

However I am a hugely sensitive person, I'm not the type to be overly rude and I try to actively encourage sensitive, positive discussion. This constant stream of negativity from reading things has indeed vastly destroyed my self esteem, and then we've got things I've read about trans issues, which fly into another direction of "painful."
I just, I can never be enough for these people. Even when most of them aren't even directing comments to me, I still end up feeling it, or somehow twisting it to affect me. Because I want to change, I want to get better...I want to be better, I don't want to stay stagnant.
My ideals and desires end up crushing me, because my own sensitivity is not compatible with those types of actions. "being crushed under the weight of my ideals", I guess.

But most importantly, I get anxious about how to deal with the stuff and thoughts. Many different sources are telling me many different things, my body and experiences are telling me one thing (usually related to finding someplace safe and relaxing, or finding someone to emotionally hug me and tell me its alright) while other areas are reminding me just how much more i have to work and slug through. (avoiding things that make you anxious can just make you more anxious, for example.)
I know a few counters to these, but I never feel safe in my decisions...

I don't "trust myself" to do a good enough job. :x

When I'm making decisions i usually don't directly ask people, although I still do do that, I read a lot...
And a lot...

And a lot...

As you can see this a reoccurring theme here.

And I'll try to replace the negative thought, but its hard somethings. I can scramble around for hours thinking about something i did or might do,

its certainly not impossible to do but there are somethings that are just so ambiguous or morally specific that there's no real way to refute it inside my head.


No its fine, I really appreciate it!

*hugs tightly*
Given my influx of negativity, its always nice to hear someone understand, if nothing else.

those sound interesting...
I'm with a therapist right now, the same one my mom and sister go to, and she does indeed help, however she uses none of that and just tries to get to the bottom of it herself. (She's certainly helpful although its hard sometimes.)

Do you have examples of this, that i could possibly do myself? Or should i try looking into a different therapist?

Sorry about the late response, complications regarding my personal information made this take forever to get posted and I kind of forgot about it for a while. lol (no, Aife is not my real name, to my dismay.)

For the record, I'm definitely a 'her.' No worries though, the internet brings forth oodles of confusion over gender. See it happened often.

Dysfunctional can be a variety of things. Whether there was a hostile homelife, neglect, gambling, alcohol, drugs, abuse. There's a myriad of ways homelife growing up can be dysfunctional. It was your original post that reminded me of a checklist that I read years ago about Adult Children of Dysfunction. Granted I've had nurturing and loving moments, in my childhood I also experienced neglect from a parent that liked to go out at nights gambling. My parents divorced when I was young. Not that divorce alone is a precursor for the totality of dysfunction, yet my parents had a tumultuous one, to put it mildly.

Worth looking into, if looking to resolve these feelings of inadequacy, which might bring peace to your soul about being trans. And at least for me, working through adult child stuff, has lead to better coping skills, a maturated outlook, better self acceptance.

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I too take things way to personally. Hard to remember it is more about them than about me.

Opps, my bad qwq

its okay, people mistake my gender all the time.
Or, at least, they used to *laughs*

Q_Q

*offers hug*
I see...I'll try to keep it in mind, I looked up a checklist, haven't gotten to reading it yet.

When it comes to trans specifically, it usually has to do with the physical changes that trans people tend to go through and the troubles being trans can bring to finding lasting (sexual) relationships.
If I wasn't so into sexual things i'd feel very lax about it, romantically speaking, I think. The pain of being rejected for bodily things, lacking malice, hurts, and I can't really portray anyone as a villain.

I have to learn to accept this, but its rather hard at times. I often feel like a lot of my attempts are split between romantic/emotional and purely sexual relations. lol
Not to mention my past attempts at romance haven't really been the best...
Not the worst I've seen, but I never felt like I made a good BF. If I make a good GF, time will tell, but sometimes its hard to have confidence in myself regards to this.

and the physical changes thing is just a bugger all in regards to how to deal with trans issues. People take big issue with medical interventions for such things (Often comparing it to body dysmorphic disorder and what is recommended to deal with that). And while I'm totally for at least hormones I feel conflicted about bodily changes being something I should or shouldn't do. lol
Part of this stems from the fact that until I felt trans, I hadn't really been ever close to gung-ho about any sort of physical changes, even things like tattoos I was pretty disapproving of. It's kind of forced changed my perspective.

My inability to come to a justified conclusion regarding that and my romantic issues tend to over shadow a lot of my positive aspects, press hard this inadequacy.

(I'm not asking you to give me answers regarding this, I'm just venting because it feels good to let out insecurities. But of course i won't stop you from coming up with a response. lol.)

I'll look through it and perhaps try to work through those things; would it be a good idea to bring family with me?

I don't expect myself to become hardened steel, and i don't think you should either. lol *hugs*
But yes, I agree, its pretty hard to not take things personally.

Just find your limit and people that are willing to accept you regardless of your emotional sensitivity. finding the balance between challenging yourself and keeping yourself safe; its really hard for people that are naturally sensitive, so I feel you.

EDIT: holy crappers I completely misread what you just said Piano girl...

Derp.

Wellll, I'll leave it anyway. LOL

Hello again In response to your responses;

1) I'm not sure I can provide you with the textbook definition of dysfunctional, although I am really interested in this list of traits healingme4me was talking about. Honestly, I didn't realize there was anything wrong with my family until very recently. I just though my dad was strict and unaffectionate. And that I had all these random problems for no reason. But now that I have really taken a look inside myself, and evaluated my relationship with my family, and my childhood, it's very clear how emotionally neglectful and abusive it was. Of course, I don't know anything about your family, but from what you said about your moms reaction to cross-dressing, it sounds like you can't open up to her about something very important to your identity, and that in itself is damaging.

Do you have a support system outside of that? Other family members who you have a close relationship with? Or if you're affiliated with a religious group and feel comfortable talking to someone there? For things I can't or don't want to talk to other people about, I always share with my therapist. I also saw that you have the same therapist as your mom and sister. If you're comfortable with that, then great. But it's really important to find someone who works for you. If getting right to the bottom of things isn't what you need right now, then maybe look for someone else (if you can). My therapist (who I love!) lets me go at my own pace, and if I don't feel like talking about current issues, she'll just go with whatever I start talking about. She does art therapy, which I really enjoy. She also has her two dogs in the office and I love dogs Point is, someone who fits your needs/personality is ideal.

2) To clarify, I am in no way telling you to believe or follow what I'm saying! I'm just putting out some things I've realized about myself, and things that have been helpful for me in the past. Just stuff for you to think about.

When you said " This constant stream of negativity from reading things has indeed vastly destroyed my self esteem" were you talking about things you read on here? From my own experience (apparently I find it hard to talk about things without including my own experience..) reading things that support fears I already have, or what goes along with unavoidable stuff I have to deal with is both depressing and relieving. Yes, it sucks for sure, but there's nothing you can do to change the past, and you cant change who you are for other people and still be happy. So then you can go on to learn about what you CAN do. I know, easier said than done.

Overall your reply to that just sounds all too familiar. Not trusting yourself, conflicting thoughts and feelings etc. What I've finally learned is that i've got to trust and listen to what MY brain and MY body are telling me. Not society, not my family, no one but me. This was very hard for me to accept. Of course it is helpful to talk this over with someone, preferably a therapist, because everyone has different views and opinions. I guess my point is, you've got all this information telling you to do this and to do that and what's right and what's wrong (which, hehe I also go on research rampages for all the info I can possibly find on something). Go with your gut. You seem to be pretty confident that you know who you are, as far as being transgendered. If your mom is upset with that, then she's either going to have to try to understand and accept you because she loves you, or she is going to lose you. Your happiness is the most important, because you're the one who's going to have to live with yourself the rest of your life If it means anything, this random person from the internet believes in you!

As usual, I ended up getting on so many tangents that I don't know what my actual point was to begin with, or if I helped at all! Anyways, it was my form of an emotional hug! Take care