Dream on

i seriously doubt that anuyone would ever want me, especially if they sawe inside me. Ipm ugly inside and out.

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-Everyone- feels that way sometimes.

It's just a matter of learning to pull yourself out of it. After all, I'm sure you know as well as I do that these moods aren't fun, so obviously they're to be avoided.

One of my favourite reasoning about the matter is it doesn't matter how I look or am inside, at the end of the day this is me and wallowing in self-depreciation isn't going to do any good. If I just cut myself a break I can have a lot more fun, have whatever little joy I can, and probably people will end up liking me more anyway (positive people are more attractive than negative people, just plain fact)

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Might work for you, but dowesnpt work for me. Ipm nothing but a useless, ugly lumpo who will never amount to anything,a nd everyone konows it jsut as well as I do.

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If you believe that you're never amount to anything, you may just find you make it true.

Question is, would you rather be wrong about this?

Really, just try it, one day at a time, try to think more positivly about yourself and get out and enjoy life. Confidence is one of those things that enriches life beyond measure, and I know this despite only having a small measure of the stuff.

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GO out to where and enjoy what life? there´¨ snothing worth doing within, oh, 70 miles or so. and I mean that - this town is absolutyely barren. nothing worth doing.

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That is pretty harsh to deal with, but if it's impossible to move then there are plenty of things that can be enjoyed without the city life.

I spend most of my time alone anyway myself.

Also, if the place is that barren, you may want to cut yourself some slack about dating. I doubt I'd ever have got much in the way of dates if I didn't live in a city.

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Perfectly impossible; not enough money to get a place elsewhere, and the only person who would put up with me is Domina and she can't.

there isnpt anything here that I would weant to do: Everyuthing brings up painful memories of when i was growing up, and.. well, lets just say that I hate even stepping out of the door.

adn it has alwatys been like this - in the city, when i travel.. everywheere. Even online. No one Ever wants me.-

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By the sounds of it you can't have spent that long in the city or travelling really to be able to say that.

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I spent 4 years in the city. well, mostly in institutions, but i I was able to go to a normal school and have... a biut of a vague resmblance of a social life.

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school doesn't count. I never had any romances during school.

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Suppose so. But as it is, i fucked up way bad with, oh, everything else int he city, too.

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well, time to leave that in the past.

I certainly don't hassle myself about how life was and what I was like whilst I was at school

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I pretty mcujh dropped out and am one of those losers who never fgot any sort of a secondary education. makes me even more useless in general.

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If you're concerned about education then you can always address that.

Meanwhile my father dropped out of school and I do NOT consider him a loser or useless.

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ipve tried. Nothing works - ipåm totally useless when it comes to actually attending classes, I wish i could just walk in and take the exams - I know I could probably get a better-than-average result if that weere possibnle.

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I'm sorry, I know you're trying to help Ara here, but there's this little problem.. You kinda over-rationalize everything, but really, rational thinking can rarely solve an emotional problem. Yes, it would certainly make sense to stop being depressed (or whatever). But that's not the way it works.

So the real problem is.. when you are telling Ara that her problems are just a matter of choosing to think the wrong thoughts, you are actually just putting a bigger burden on her shoulders. Now, in addition to being miserable, she's also guilty of not stopping being miserable. Validation of feelings is the key, not belittlement!

Perhaps you are able to think yourself out of a depressed mood. It might not work for others. Again, I'm sorry, I know you're trying to give good advice. But perhaps, if your way is not the way for Ara to heal.. you should give her a little more room to feel whatever she's feeling, without her having to defend her position with arguments? After all.. the more Ara makes arguments for her case, the more reasons she will find to actually stick to her case.

But this isn't a matter of who's right and who's got the superior reasoning, here. I think we could use a little bit more understanding and support, in the sense of accepting that others may in fact be depressed and there's not necessarily a way to talk them out of it. So what one can do is to be there, non-judgementally.

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I mostly suggest this way of dealing with things because it's the method that has worked for me. I find rationality is a very good way of dealing with emotional problems, though it's possibly true that some people are incapable of dealing with life in this way (which is a shame)

I can perfectly understand what you're saying, it's just in these cases it often seems that there's nothing other people can do really. If I could at least make people realise that thier emotional problems are not rational, that may not make the problem go away, but at least it would give some (possible) comfort?

It's pretty much all I have to offer.

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(warning: rambling follows!)

I used to think that too.. that rational thought could be used to solve all problems. But I've learned, in therapy, that emotional problems just don't succumb to logic and reason. They require a whole new set of skills to deal with, skills that most people need to learn from scratch, since they are unfortunately very undervalued in our society (where logical/rational thinking is thought of as the highest form of brain function).

People are different, but that's not a shame at all. I have this vague idea that there might be about three kinds of people: rational, emotional, and intuitive. You of course understand that these aren't strict boundaries, they just describe the most commonly used mode of operation in that person's decision-making and problem-solving.

Intellectualization is a very tempting defense, but very easily overused. It might lead one to a situation where, rationally speaking, they have no real problems of devastating proportions, but where they still are paralyzed by feelings of hopelessness. Trying to fit emotional problems into solutions offered by rational thinking might just push the emotions under the surface where they no longer can be reached, where you no longer have the capacity to even describe them. Let's use the previous discussion as an example.. someone feels they are ugly and unworthy of love. I suppose you would argue that these feelings are damaging to self-esteem, and should be gotten rid of to achieve a better self-esteem. I'd argue that these feelings are just a symptom of a low self-esteem, not the cause. The real issue is *What caused the low self-esteem in the first place?*. When that is taken care of, self-deprecating thoughts will also be gone.

Sometimes we just have to admit that there's nothing or very little that we can do. Not every problem can be solved, not everything can be fixed, at least not in an instant, or not by us. It isn't a shame, in my mind, to quit being the all-around problem-solver, wave the white flag and admit that you don't know how to help. A simple "I feel you" and "I'm here for you" and "I will listen" can sometimes be very valuable.

I'm sorry for hijacking your journal for the presentation of my own personal views Ara!

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I've always had trouble with the idea of dividing people up into emotional/rational because I find myself to be both. There are many components of my personality that are entirely irrational (intuitive?) and emotionally based, but I don't find them to confict at all with rationality.

I can understand the issue of finding the real problem, though I don't see that conflicting with rationality as such. Sounds rather that we just need a more deep rational exploration and knowledge of the self.

Can't really agree with the self-esteem issue itself, probably because I'm not sure what you mean by self-esteem. Self esteem is simply equivelent to self-respect and like, and tied directly into how far short a person's perception of themselves falls from thier idea of who they should be, hence can be addressed either by changing the way one feels about themselves (by no driving themselves into the ground and telling themselves they're ugly all the time) or by changing thier expectations of themselves (I don't need to be perfect). There doesn't seem much more to it.

Though yea, realisation that the way we feel about ourselves is irrational isn't the whole journey, but I do feel it's the first step.

Now, there may be emotional issues behind that, some reason why they don't want to feel good about themselves, some fear of failure if they do allow themselves for instance? But again, no reason to repeat previous steps on the new problem.

One problem I have had recently in an unrelated case was someone I had talked to a few times on VF messaging me to look at her journal where she was complaining about a lack of attention and blaming everyone else for it. Now, in fact what she wanted was obvious, she was looking for attention, but rather than getting it in a healthy way like the rest of us might, she did it in a defensive self-depreciative way. She was a bit put-out when I didn't fall into the line of throwing complements at her and telling her how we do all appreciate her, but told her what she ought to be doing and how this kind of behavour is actually counter-productive.

Fortunatly as I didn't know her that well it doesn't matter so much if she hates me for it, but I felt the chance of saying it doing some good was worth the risk.

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I've always had trouble with the idea of dividing people up into emotional/rational because I find myself to be both. There are many components of my personality that are entirely irrational (intuitive?) and emotionally based, but I don't find them to confict at all with rationality.

Yes, it's just a way to describe the three most common ways of decision-making, in my mind. These three methods aren't mutually exclusive. Problems start to arise when you're lacking in skills to solve them, or when you try to use the wrong tool for the task.

But I would say it takes a very stable person to be able to say that different parts of their personality are not conflicting (and that this is not due to suppression of but one part). It's a good thing if you have this sorted out, for sure.

I can understand the issue of finding the real problem, though I don't see that conflicting with rationality as such. Sounds rather that we just need a more deep rational exploration and knowledge of the self.

In my opinion rationality only goes so far in addressing emotional problems. The world of logic is a world of words, but when you explore your mind, you will soon come to a place where words no longer have meaningful application. You have to put the "rational map" away and start drawing a new one, describing your landscape with.. feelings, for a lack of a better word (!).

This may not be a good example, but anyway. I associate a certain traumatizing event in my childhood with an unpleasant physical feeling. Sure, it can be labelled as a repressed memory, and my reaction as post-traumatic stress, etc. But no words can help me find my way in my own mind, they can't make me feel the feelings I need in order to heal. Only later on, a word-construct can be made to describe the events. Ack, I'm so sorry if this makes no sense..

Trying to describe everything in rational terms just keeps you from crossing that border to the world of formless emotion and irrational thoughts. And unfortunately, you can't give an emotional map to someone else.

Can't really agree with the self-esteem issue itself, probably because I'm not sure what you mean by self-esteem. Self esteem is simply equivelent to self-respect and like, and tied directly into how far short a person's perception of themselves falls from thier idea of who they should be, hence can be addressed either by changing the way one feels about themselves (by no driving themselves into the ground and telling themselves they're ugly all the time) or by changing thier expectations of themselves (I don't need to be perfect). There doesn't seem much more to it.

Ok, I would give self-esteem a much wider definition. I would say it is basically a _feeling of security in the self_. This means that one understands why they are who they are, and have a coherent self-image. One must also be comfortable with their own self-image (I think this is your definition). It also means that one trusts in their self, in their ability to continue to maintain a desired self in the face of threats and conflicts.

You can see how self-esteem defined this way could be thwarted in many ways.
Unfortunately, perhaps, it seems that the basic foundation is laid in childhood and adolescense. But, of course, the faith in one's ability to heal, change and develop is a part of good self-esteem. Building something like this from scratch can be extremely hard, though.

Though yea, realisation that the way we feel about ourselves is irrational isn't the whole journey, but I do feel it's the first step.

I would say the desire to change is the first step, but this is probably irrelevant - all these steps are necessary. However, it may be quite hard to get out of the vicious cycle of negative self-image - self-deprecating thoughts - more negative self-image... I'm not sure rational thinking alone can turn the course to positive thoughts - more positive self-image - more positive thoughts. Though, if it can.. it sure is worth trying.

[cut for length]

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