Noticing Yourself in Others.

This has happened on several occasions. I’ll be talking with someone or with a group of people and there will be gossip about another person and how skanky, douchie, or psycho they are. Most of the time it’s just comments in passing, but it’s embarrassing to notice some of my own (past or present) behaviors in the “weirdos” that others talk about.

You can read borderline stories online all the time. Those are easily avoidable and involve people I don’t know. It’s when people I work with or am friends with have these conversations that I start to feel really uncomfortable with how lame I really am.

Obviously not many people know about me or my occasional brushes with bizarre, borderline behavior. I have to wonder who else in my little group is also nodding and laughing while secretly feeling ashamed and embarrassed. It makes me squirm to know that somewhere out there I’m someone else’s little horror/weirdo story.

Generally speaking, when people gossip it's in order to avoid facing their own issues. It's so much easier to scapegoat and point out the foibles in others, rather than focus and address our own. I just had a conversation about this with a "friend" of mine who spends a lot of her energy on other people's problems, whether it be under the guise of "concerned friend" or via gossiping. The concerned friend bit actually aids her in accumulating information on other people, which she then passes around like cupcakes. Meanwhile, her polished self-image remains intact because she's set up a construct in which everyone around her is the screwed up freakazoid.

Anyway, the conversation started with her describing how horribly so-and-so behaved at such-and-such event. I stopped her and asked her to please consider what this person is going through right now, to not personalize the behavior, and to allow for some flexibility and forgiveness when she is relating to people. AND to please stop telling me about other people's problems because it's not fair to them and it causes me to mistrust her WRT to things I've shared with her in the past.

We can all see ourselves in each other. Nobody is perfect, certainly not those who spend their time dissecting other people for so-called entertainment. It is weak, malicious, unhealthy, unproductive behavior. If you think you are "lame" because of things other people have said about other people, you are over-personalizing. You are a reflection of your own behaviors. Not those of people once, twice, or six times removed.

Typically, it's what you hate about yourself that will spawn hate toward others.
I know it's true for me...

Explains why I hate so many people.

I remember reading a line that said talking about others is the ventilation of the heart. I kind of agree with it. It’s natural to talk about other people. It’s just something we do to entertain ourselves, to pass the time, to make ourselves better about our self and to vent about people we otherwise don’t mind.

I guess for me it just stirs up my own self-loathing. I suppose the same thing can happen if I’m watching a movie or TV. There are things in my past that I just want to forget and these kinds of scenarios just remind me of them. It makes it harder to move on when it’s being rubbed in your face and the general consensus is “isn’t that f’d up!?”

i think my actions in situations like this are one of the reasons i have alienated so many people.
when i hear people speaking like that about others.
i guess that part of me that lacks self control just kicks in.
i will speak my mind on just how i feel.

someone made fun of people who self-injure.
i yanked up my sleeve and asked them if they had a problem with people who self-injure.
shut her up quick.
someone was a rumor around (based slightly on true info and partly on made up stuff) a girl taking meds for mental health reasons.
i asked her if she would like me to list off the meds i am on.
shut that girl up too.

i think if i kept my thoughts to myself i might have more of a social life.
then again idk if i would want friends like that.

I almost wish I was that confrontational. For better or worse I'm not at all. I also seem to care too much about what other people think of me, and I'd rather not give them anymore ammunition.

agirlbyanyothername wrote:Obviously not many people know about me or my occasional brushes with bizarre, borderline behavior. I have to wonder who else in my little group is also nodding and laughing while secretly feeling ashamed and embarrassed. It makes me squirm to know that somewhere out there I’m someone else’s little horror/weirdo story.

Welcome to the club of recovery. I've read there is recovery. Then I have read there is not. Tami Green says there is, and if you have thousands of dollars you can visit her in Texas and do some seminars and, hopefully, become "cured". But take a look at her youtube channel comments

http://www.youtube.com/user/bpdsupport

You see some people scoffing her. Tami Green seems to be recovered. Is she on meds? For the rest of her life? Is she an exception?

Is the only cure suicide? More isolation? What?

I am with you, agirlbyanyothername. I have friends that have tried to tell me that I am fine and that I am just unhappy and that there's no need for concern. But they haven't been suicidal for a decade, nor have they had scores of failed relationships that have ripped out their soul. So, yeah, I am quite sure we are the pariah for many people. Just another chalk-up for our tortured condition.

I apologize that I have no encouraging words for you. Please forgive me.