Opening doors

I do already envy you and OpenEyes. Being in a farm, surrounded by horses and I guess, also dogs and cats. My dream!!!

You seems to be a person who is very understanding and compassionate. I mean I can guess you relating to whoever and getting on well with them.

I like this idea, you mention, about people being able to say or talk straight about what they think. It gives you the possibility to understand them very clearly, from the beginning.

There are will be always people who challenge us, right? And, this is where we will have the opportunity to put the points on the “i”s on one hand (because we have to be ourselves) but on another hand to pull out the best of us to reach to an agreement.

What’s the problem that these people have with God’s little animal, your horse?

Me too. I experienced a lot of times the fact of interpreting something in a way that the following day, I didn’t see or interpret in the same way. Many times, just the opposite.

Totally agree with you. The only way we may have for sure how the other person live or experience a situation is by asking and touching or bringing out the topic.
I’m trying to do it now.
My psychologist told me that the best was to clarify with my loved ones a certain situation that could have bothered me, instead of keeping remorse and say anything, keeping it to myself and put it in the affronts sack.

God for you, giving your client the choice to feel comfortable by being her/himself and expressing as (s)he needs.

I’m now trying to strengthen ties with my mom who I already considered strange and lost, even years before my dad passing away.
I want to understand her and get closer to her because I know my mental health issues played a role in our distance. I felt as the ugly duck in the family. Not just now, but since I was born. But, one thing is what I may feel and live and another is what reality is.

I stand for a middle point.

Yeah, a warm and welcoming atmosphere, sounds like it. I can understand what you like about it all. That is awesome about how helpful the community is and sounds like a real community, yes. That is what I don't often find in the area where I live.

It's totally OK if it took time, it's normal that things take time when we have to overcome mental health issues. I've taken time too to learn some things and healing can be a gradual process, not necessarily quick.

For me too, my family, my social worker, another woman at the university who was studying/training to be a therapist, other psychologists, some people in support groups etc. have helped see things differently when I was in a worse state.

I'm still learning from my family actually. It's absolutely true how sometimes it's people who don't even have any degree in psychology or counselling that can help you learn more.




I think you put that very well!




I sometimes find it helps too when I ask someone else about alternative interpretations. And in general, it helps just giving time too to myself until my mind relaxes more and I can face and understand more of my emotions. I have an issue with not feeling my emotional reaction on the spot, in a new situation, it takes me several days or even a week or two weeks, to be able to feel and verbalise the emotional reaction to myself and get the "essence" of it. If that made sense. I improved a lot, it used to take years! (or worse), now I can often find my emotions in hours or in 1-2 days.



And I REALLY like this thought because I had this worry for a while that my partner or a close friend maybe keeps things to themselves when they feel offended or hurt and then over time it piles up and then I just see that they feel and seem distant from me. And then it could be harder to fix things. So I do believe in clarifying and sharing feelings when that can help understand each other. It's not always necessary to share, but sometimes that is what helps resolve arguments, that is my experience too, yes. Of course all that does need trust too, to open up so much.

And yes, asking the other person for a clarification is useful too a lot. Maybe that is the first thing to be done really, and if that doesn't help enough to resolve the misunderstanding, then sharing feelings can help too. And I was taught that when we are sharing how we feel, it's about the feelings themselves. e.g. "I feel sad". It's not about a judgment or "reasoning" or "interpretation" that we made but about the feeling itself.

I wish you luck to having a closer relationship with your mother. I also used to feel distant from my family and then it got better when I started trusting more (long story) and they understood me better too. I hope you won't always have to feel like the "ugly duck".

And it's again very true!, that feelings on their own are not reality. They just help us pay attention to aspects in reality. They are part of reality but they are not the only reality.

You are not alone in this. I never felt the feeling of belonging anywhere. I know that it had a lot to do with my tendency to withdraw from people because of my social anxiety.
But, it’s a thing I always craved. But, at the same time, I sabotaged for not believing myself worth of it.

In your case, why do you think it happens.
* If you want to elaborate about it.
(I don’t want to press you, anyway, you can always contact me by a pm, you know it)

Thank you. I meant that I don't often experience that feeling. I have had good times with some people, it's just rare/doesn't happen with most people. I did have a period when I was younger when I didn't feel good with people at all, because of bad experiences as a teenager/at university. It seemed like I built a wall around myself, both inside me and around me, so others thought that I'm ignoring them and that I don't care, while I also thought they don't care. Tricky. It first started resolving when I had a little business on the side and met some people as part of it and had good experiences with them. Then I had more good experiences when I started regularly running and went to relay races and met some nice people there. Then eventually I decided to work on myself, psychoeducation, therapy, .... And then from then on, I just started to get better over time, my brain healed more, and I got comfortable enough. So now I can be really comfortable with some people, but with most people I'm still distant, maybe that's just how I will always be. I don't need more than a few people who I like being around, if it's mutual I really worked a lot on the belief that "people don't care" (either in close relationships or in groups/communities). That helped, too. I hope I explained well. Let me know if you have any questions! And I also hope that you will get to feel more comfortable too and that you will feel that you are worth it

It happened the same to me. I built a wall around me and I’m sure people notice it and felt uncomfortable with.
I would have also felt very uncomfortable with a person like me lol!
People have already enough things running on their lives, we can’t ask them for doing this big effort that is to break a wall of bricks to reach out to us.

@seesaw and @eskielover, the States are so big and diverse that you can find and choose among so different places. There’s a place for each one. I find hard to choose among States as California or the rural areas as the one @eskielover is living in. I’m sure they all have their enchantment. I know it for the movies. lol!
Unfortunately, I wouldn’t feel integrated in any, since I don’t feel one more in any place.
I like the complicity that could take place in a rural area or community as the one @eskielover belongs to now, but I know it’s out of my possibility. The neighbours saw me as that strange person who is always out of availability. They won’t ever see me as a similar one. They would always see me as a withdrawal person, that it’s truth, by the way, that I wouldn’t ever feel one of them or being considered one of them.
Los Angeles, the same name says it, belongs to Heaven. I would love to visit it. I would also feel out of place though. Such a vast city, full of glamour and relevance people. I couldn’t ever dream to be up to them. However, I think that I could feel more unnoticed. What it’s good for me.

I don’t know if it’s all full of glamour. Every area has glamorous spots and back alleys. I don’t experience LA as all glamorous at all. It’s vast and has variety of things but so do other large metro areas in the US. These are just people, you don’t need to be “up to them”, they aren’t better than you.

People in other countries often have this perception of the US that isn’t particularly accurate. What’s true about it is that it’s very vast and diverse but you can find your own little corner and just do your own thing

You are very right, Divine. I only stated what I see more frightened to me, being a social outsider and a social phobic.
I do believe each place is charming and have a lots to offer. But, I’m gonna be always unable to enjoy any of that.

I live in a flat. All alone during the weeks. In a city not enough small, to be noticed. I thanks for this. I guess this is my corner in the world.

I am surprised you are alone all week. I thought you lived with your partner. But I apologize if you two aren’t together anymore. I remember you shared some serious issues with him. I might be confusing you with someone else, I also thought you are elementary/grammar school teacher and that should make you busy and tired and your quiet flat might be a blessing in the evening. I need my piece and quiet. Or are you retired?

I also wonder if you connect to children but not adults?

Well, my partner has to work outside along most of the weeks. He has to do it. There aren’t many opportunities to work here, in my city. So he’s sometimes sent to Madrid, sometimes to other Communities. He has been even sent to the very North and we live in the South.

To reply your question I always felt more comfortable dealing with kids, totally. Indeed, I worked with them for twenty years but I’m retired now partly because I couldn’t deal with the pressures we were exposed to in my profession and partly because of my own mental issues.

I have been having social anxiety since I was 12 so don’t be strange that I can’t find my place in the world. It won’t happen.

Connecting, connecting I don’t think I can do such a thing to be honest. My only improvement now is that I don’t put the blame onto others, what I do already consider a big step.
I used to see the world as hostile. My first psychologist stresses on that fact and asked me to let myself being known and being “penetrated” by others. At that very moment I understood that I was wrong and that I had to change my view.

Your last line....I don't know. I think it's a big and Sisyphean effort only if the other person with the wall isn't trying to reach out too.

I know that with the depression from the cPTSD, I'm taking way longer to get better if I don't ask people for any help. Or if I ask but I get turned down. When I do get help after I asked, it helps speed up the process so much, it makes healing speed up so much, makes the process so much more efficient that I just am like .......well yeah the world we live in is far from perfect lol.

So I just try to get the help wherever, whenever I can, from whoever I can. I also naturally feel the motivation to give back to them, too.






That is really big. A big step, yes. I wish the person that traumatised me had been told like this by such a psychologist. She also saw things, the world, people as hostile, randomly switching to see them as hostile.

I'm sure you will get there with connecting, too.

Thanks @AzulOscuro for this thread - it's very pertinent to me. I'm not sure of my own thoughts on this but much of what you say resonates.

My first response is that putting ones ego aside is a good thing, but not always that easy for everyone. I think it can be a process and that's okay.

For now I'm going to follow this thread. I feel I have more to learn than to add.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AzulOscuro It happened the same to me. I built a wall around me and I’m sure people notice it and felt uncomfortable with. I would have also felt very uncomfortable with a person like me lol! People have already enough things running on their lives, we can’t ask them for doing this big effort that is to break a wall of bricks to reach out to us.

Interesting because the first psychologist I had 3 years after moving here said a few years later when she was retiring that when I first came to her I had a thick wall built that she thought she would never get through. I also had 2 intense years of DBT with another wonderful psychologist & when my first psychologist retired she was amazed & pleased at the actual progress I made. It just kept getting better as I continued to see my DBT psychologist as my private T. I actually haven't seen her for therapy in over a year but she is always there when I need someone totally impartial to discuss things with. They both were amazed at the total healing that was accomplished. I am sure she would be amazed at how I have handled all the things that have happened since last seeing her. Walls can definitely come down. I am a living example of that

Hope we can both learn.