Posted by mair on February 4, 2005, at 6:10:42
In reply to self sacrificing, shame, shyness, posted by jonh kimble on February 4, 2005, at 0:03:53
John
You know that very few of us see ourselves as others see us. Your notion that people only talk to you out of a sense of pity may be skewed.
On the other hand, you seem to be struggliing with the fact that what your own thinking about yourself is so different from how you might be presenting yourself to other people. So you might be able to act like it's ok for these guys to say they'll pick up after themselves, when you're really feeling like a doormat for letting them take advantage of you. (I hope I'm not being presumptuous here) I think trying to live a divided self puts a huge amount of pressure on you and does lead to shame. I think the shame comes because so much of what you're feeling and thinking about yourself gets played out in your head only and never gets expressed. When this happens you not only deny yourself the opportunity for alot of positive feedback, but also give yourself too many opportunities to place a negative cast on everything you say and do. It's what I call living inside my head, a state with which I'm all too familiar.
Do you have anyone you can talk to about this stuff? I'm assuming there's a counselling service at your school. If you're not talking to someone, I think it would really help you on alot of different levels. Being able to express some of what you're feeling to someone else will reduce your sense of isolation, and your sense of shame might also be reduced if you have the perspective of someone with a more detached perspective. I know it's probably not easy to even think about sharing some of what's going on in your head. I don't know about you, but I cycle around to being ashamed of my shame so there are so many layers that have to get peeled off to get to the heart of things.
BTW, has this gotten worse since you went away to school?
mair
poster:mair
thread:452899
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050129/msgs/452982.html