«

[Playbahnosh]

Woah! I mean, hang in there dude! As Japofran said, we can give you advices but only you can do anything about yourself. That's true. But pointing out certain things to you might ease the progress a bit, that's also experience.

I tell you something about me. When I'm troubled by something, I always ask my friends for input. Note "friends" and "input". I'm not too fond of asking my parents because they are not objective to my cause. And only input. I don't ask for guidance or help, I only ask how they see certain things or what is their opinion on the subject, what would they do. Maybe get a tip or two. This way I can get objective points, see things from the outsider's perspective and than I can decide things FOR MYSELF. Don't let people decide things for you, not even a shrink. They can point you towards a certain way or goal, but the last word is always yours. Remember that.

Originally Posted by Mighty Midget

Ok, this is gonna sound really whiny but to hell with that. This is what I feel happened and what lead to much of this.

My entire life has been a search for acceptance. I wasn't accepted for who I was where I grew up and I never felt acceptance for who I was at home. I started to copy what others did and said. It did at least give me some feeling of acceptance. Basically it got out of hand in a short amount of time and I ended up pretty damn early living other peoples' lives as my own. Of course it never worked and of course I never understood. I wasn't them but to me it was more important to convince myself to keep leaving myself behind as long as I got some appreciation from my family and people around me.

Now that is called "growing up". It's not rocket science, dude. Kids learn by imitating grown-ups, even in the animal kingdom offsprings learn by observing their parents and try to copy them, it's pure biology. The fact, that you HAD TO copy others to get appreciation and feel good about yourself is sort of natural. You did NOT leave yourself behind, in fact, you were developing that thing you call yourself. I hope you know what I mean. You never understood why it never worked to try to live someone else's life. Well of course it did not work, because you simply incapable of doing that. It was only the process of developing your own character, your own self-image, the "I" part. Let me ask you something. When you think back to the experiences you had when you had this copycat stage in your life, what did you feel when somebody asked you "Who are you?". Ask yourself that very question now, and try to answer it for yourself as honest as possible. Remember, you can't hide anything from yourself, so don't lie to yourself. If I'm not mistaken, you need some effort to answer that. You need to think, piece it together. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in that time, when you were talking about yourself, you only told raw data, your age, your address, your feelings, your name, "yes, I'm fine, thank you"...etc. But you did not have a clear picture about yourself, your place in the world. That's natural too. Someone grows up faster than others, no problem. I myself had this crisis in my life not so long ago, when I realised that I unknowingly mimic other people.

Now, I'm not writing this for any sympathy or whatever but I write it because that's what happened and I'm just beginning to realize what damage that has done. Basically, I have been lying to myself and others out of fear my "real self" is something to loathe so consistently and for so long I no longer have any idea who I am. I have serious issues letting people know me and a lot has to do with the fact that somewhere inside my head I know what I let others see is just fake.

Quite the contrary. Not having a real, developed self-image is what makes it feel "fake" for you. Your "real self", as you call it, is....um...not "standalone" yet, it needs some outside framework to work, such as other people's personalities. It's not something to loathe or be ashamed about, it's life.

I think it becomes obvious I won't feel good about anything unless I can appreciate myself but that requires me first to get to know who the hell I am and have enough courage to dare being myself to myself and others.

To appreciate yourself, the first thing is to ACCEPT yourself. Accept that you are "you", accept yourself as your are here and now. Accept that guy looking back from the mirror, bacause it's not somebody else, it's you, dude, that guy is you. Not somebody you stuck in your body with. That guy in the mirror will follow your around wherever you go to the end of your life, and can't do anything about it, you might as well accept it. Trust me, if you accept yourself, your every personality flaw, birthmarks, bad skin, and everything you are, you will feel better, a whole new world will open up for you, a world you can explore, learn, experience...

I don't know, there are a lot of lies I need to sort and label as lies and I'm still scared of letting my mask fall so to speak, but that's about the only thing I never tried before and nothing has helped so far. I "only" need the courage to get started for real.

Remember, I said you CAN'T lie to yourself. Just think about it, you just can't. If you try it, you will immediatly feel bad and resent yourself for whatever you try to hide from you, because you are the liar and the person get lied to too. You will feel bad for lying, and feel bad being lied to at the same time, and that is some bad bad feeling. There is no mask to fall, because you can't hide anything from you, it's impossible, think about it. If you come to terms with yourself, you can then come to terms with others as well. No need to see this as a huge mountain you have to climb, as a task or whatever, no. It's dead simple really. The only thing you have to do is, get away from everybody else, find a quiet spot, and think. Talk to yourself. I know it sounds stoooopid, but go for it. You won't get any insaner than you are now :amused:. You might even get an unexpected answer

And for the record, you are not insane. You can stick a lot of medical diagnoses on yourself, depression, syndromes, whatever, but it's all male cow excrement. You are not sick, you are just growing up, dude. :amused: Have fun with it!

Don't take these things word by word, I'm no expert, I just said what worked for me. Some questions you can ask yourself, that's all. Life can throw hella lot towards you, and it can be indeed hard at times, but you will come out on top if you are in a good relationship with yourself. Remember, it's YOUR life, and only YOU can live it, and it will be what YOU make of it. No need to "gather courage" or prepare for battle with the vicious dragon, you don't have to defeat and bound yourfelf into slavery in order to be happy. You can achieve this by being nice to yourself, too.