rejection

xdude wrote:

vertices wrote:...Constantly fishing for affirmation of their false self. It's just bleh. ...

Funny thing. Like many I use to get so caught up in that, but my mind has flipped and now I just wonder who are you trying to convince, me, or yourself?

I'm guilty of doing that myself (seeking affirmation, but also labels). When it comes to labels, trying just as much to convince others as to convince myself of it too.

For me, it was as much an identity thing as anything else. Trying to find answers to everything, too.

But yeah. When you fit a label 80%, but try to convince everyone that it's totally who you are, and thus yourself too... I've been guilty of doing that.

xdude wrote:My therapist thought BPD/NPD but I've been introspecting for a long time, and I genuinely never took joy in hurting others (though have if felt backed into a corner, but I think most cluster B types can go for the jugular if pushed too hard).

Maybe you had kind of a cerebral NPD thing going on? I could see it. You never seemed BPD to me at all.

But NPD is weird, it's such a broad category of different types of people...

Funny thing. Like many I use to get so caught up in that, but my mind has flipped and now I just wonder who are you trying to convince, me, or yourself?

wooow I can't imagine!!! Those dudes, sure it is impressive that they're usually so independent and successful but they totally ruin it by cloying and just being WEIRD and aggressively unstable. I can see through the pathology and all but it's so tiring. Personality wise they are like a 3/10 whereas afaik you must be an 8 or 9/10. You are strong, supportive, kind, conscientious, strong, intelligent, independent-minded, positive and full of integrity.

I also genuinely admire the posters here

Daddy

-- Wed Jul 26, 2017 9:33 pm --

blank wrote:

xdude wrote:

vertices wrote:...Constantly fishing for affirmation of their false self. It's just bleh. ...

Funny thing. Like many I use to get so caught up in that, but my mind has flipped and now I just wonder who are you trying to convince, me, or yourself?

I'm guilty of doing that myself (seeking affirmation, but also labels). When it comes to labels, trying just as much to convince others as to convince myself of it too.

For me, it was as much an identity thing as anything else. Trying to find answers to everything, too.

But yeah. When you fit a label 80%, but try to convince everyone that it's totally who you are, and thus yourself too... I've been guilty of doing that.

Blank why did you switch your type to ISTJ? What was wrong with INFP?

I sort of attach myself to labels but the only difference is I usually end up trying to BE the label in a chameleon way rather than trying to convince people that the label fits the way I am. I guess it's the impressionable thing. However HPD is a label that I think fundamentally fits me as I naturally am... or at least used to, I don't think I am so bad that I have a full-blown PD anymore but I still have a ways to go too....

Anyway I find it really HARD and scary to describe myself without resorting to labels. There is a desire to just fit what is "appropriate" and what people expect rather than to deviate from their expectations at all. I find it much more comfortable to match someone else's expectations than to go against them and risk rejection.

^ ^ It's just how the last MBTI test I took came out.

Thanks vert!

My therapist got to see my breakdowns too

Something I think is true... most cluster B types are primarily driven by self-esteem threats, and boosts. Not that others aren't affected, just not to the same extreme. So even after someone becomes self-aware, it doesn't change that reactions are just as strong. It still can take a long time (years or a lifetime) of working on it, but it is possible to get somewhat better. Not normal, but better, a degree of peace with ourselves.

I wrote most because I don't know about AsPD types. Maybe it's the same for some, and their way of coping is to adopt an I don't give a f**k attitude, so nothing can hurt them? Maybe, it's hard to know, few of them will speak of what is going on inside.

What makes the HPD posters here so cool is the self-awareness, the trying. Many people with cluster B personalities just cannot or will not look at self.

Personally, the main thing I've found helpful is to stop fighting it when I feel rejected. The whole thing passes much faster when I just go here it comes, I'm going to feel like crap for a while, I know why, it's going to happen, and if anyone doesn't like it, oh well. It's self-acceptance, even if it doesn't match what others want.

xdude wrote:I wrote most because I don't know about AsPD types. Maybe it's the same for some, and their way of coping is to adopt an I don't give a f**k attitude, so nothing can hurt them? Maybe, it's hard to know, few of them will speak of what is going on inside.

I think it's because there aren't many real 'Aspd types' in the forum.

xdude wrote:What makes the HPD posters here so cool is the self-awareness, the trying. Many people with cluster B personalities just cannot or will not look at self.

I can just speak for myself, but facing myself and my feelings has been the hardest thing I have ever had to do.

blank wrote:I can just speak for myself, but facing myself and my feelings has been the hardest thing I have ever had to do.

Big kudos for having the cajones to try. Not everyone can. That hard look at ourselves hurts even more than denial. I do hope it leads to some sense of peace though.

A realization that has been helpful for me, maybe for you, is that I've surrounded myself with people that I've put on a show for. They liked the show, but not me. I've been taking some time out to just be alone, try to get in touch with who I am. Some departed, some stayed. It sucks but also it doesn't. I don't like myself much, but that is the heart of many with cluster B personalities. I actually have no reason not to like myself, but old tape loops from childhood. Time to brush away the BS, toxic relationships, and really go all in. There is a sense of peace that comes with putting the act aside, a heavy weight to let go of.

xdude wrote:Time to brush away the BS, toxic relationships, and really go all in. There is a sense of peace that comes with putting the act aside, a heavy weight to let go of.

May I ask how? What I'm curious about is how do you discriminate between toxic and healthy relationships? And how do you discriminate between "the act" and what you're longing for underneath the act?

xdude wrote:Thanks vert!

My therapist got to see my breakdowns too

Something I think is true... most cluster B types are primarily driven by self-esteem threats, and boosts. Not that others aren't affected, just not to the same extreme. So even after someone becomes self-aware, it doesn't change that reactions are just as strong. It still can take a long time (years or a lifetime) of working on it, but it is possible to get somewhat better. Not normal, but better, a degree of peace with ourselves.

I wrote most because I don't know about AsPD types. Maybe it's the same for some, and their way of coping is to adopt an I don't give a f**k attitude, so nothing can hurt them? Maybe, it's hard to know, few of them will speak of what is going on inside.

What makes the HPD posters here so cool is the self-awareness, the trying. Many people with cluster B personalities just cannot or will not look at self.

Personally, the main thing I've found helpful is to stop fighting it when I feel rejected. The whole thing passes much faster when I just go here it comes, I'm going to feel like crap for a while, I know why, it's going to happen, and if anyone doesn't like it, oh well. It's self-acceptance, even if it doesn't match what others want.

Ohh, that's a good way to put it. It's so true. I know that feeling when I start to feel rejection. However for me I start to feel it especially in the ABSENCE of feedback. The worst rejection to me is to be ignored. So a lot of times it's like, oh, I didn't get a reply to my text... the longer it takes for the reply to come, the more I'm going "omg they hate me I literally am human trash wow I should go disappear in a ditch." Then it comes and I get a rush of good hormones and feel relief. I am very bad with uncertainty and generally just being/functioning independently of others, I think receiving attention gives a dose of certainty that orients me back to reality again and makes me feel secure again. But the more I crave attention the more other people can threaten me and control me with withdrawal and indifference.

Like you I have had to learn to become able to cope with the storms of emotion that come with that kind of rejection. It is very difficult. It requires developing an internal sense of self even when to me my internal self had always felt alien and actually burdensome when contrasted with my need to become the object of others' desire.

I feel very fortunate that I was able to turn my momentum around and begin to change. Before I started changing, my life was rapidly becoming very bad.

Now I'm finally taking a serious, honest and self-aware look at my life and it has led to a lot of deep sadness. I have gone without so much and sacrificed so much just for a string of dysfunctional relationships. I have had to go without real love. I have never been truly loved. What used to make me feel loved, when I look at it now, was actually just plain abuse. I would romanticize the way it felt to allow someone to use, exploit and control me. The way it made me feel special.

Now I can't believe what I called "love" before, and instead, the desire to truly be loved is overwhelming. When I look at nons who have always been nons, I am so jealous, they have always more or less felt worthy of true love, like they didn't have to change themselves to deserve to be loved.

I am only just beginning to fathom the idea that I am allowed to be less than perfect on the surface. I am allowed to not always have to be exciting and beautiful and agreeable and totally submissive. I am allowed to not always mirror or reciprocate other people's interests, beliefs and opinions. I am allowed to set boundaries.

But I just have this desperate fear that if I let go of all that, I will never be enough.... it's literally so hard to get over that fear... there's people out there who would treat me right and I'm legitimately afraid of them, afraid of how they could end up hurting me because I got my hopes up.

vertices -

Yes, it all starts with what was so wrong with me that I couldn't be loved just cause? We end up with out that foundation of implicit self-esteem. We can do this or that to build explicit self-esteem, but it doesn't change that our implicit sense of self hurts. I don't know anyone who enjoys rejection, but it doesn't trigger the whole spiraling down into self-loathing, the big crash, because their implicit sense of self is still okay.

I do hope you are at least having some moments of peace now, times when you are feeling 'okay this is who I am', and that is okay! And a sincere compliment - Wow, look at you. You have grown so strong.

Castle -

I guess the best way to explain it is the way my ex thinks. I got her report card (really), and when I did, it fully clicked with me what is toxic. Here is another true analogous situation - I love my pet because I just do. The reasons don't matter. When he is around I feel better, and I like to think he enjoys me, hence he hangs out in my lap or nearby. For her, spending time with her pet is most often an annoyance, and she spends more time yelling at her pet than expressing enjoyment. She loves her list, what her pet does for her. It reflects her whole life mindset toward others. Love is predicated on what others do for her versus on what she does for them. She doesn't really enjoy the part of, I just enjoy being with you.

Not everyone can feel 'I just enjoy you', but that is also the thing some of us with cluster B personalities missed. It's all too easy for us then to pick a partner that loves the what we do for them parts (fine to a degree), and to try and live up to those lists, but in the end, it just ends up being a reminder, you don't love me, you love what I do for you. The very thing that is at the heart of why we don't feel good about ourselves.

Thx Xdude, makes perfect sense to me: I had to learn to put my needs first. Took me a while.

But what does "the act" mean to you? In which way and to which degree were you acting?