myclippedwings

inquirius, on 25 Feb 2016 - 9:50 PM, said: "unicorn"

No, I'm genuinely curious why you believe a "virtuous" women is impossible to find? Could you just elaborate on that point please?

Wow, so you really believe there are no "virtuous" women out there? I mean from my personal life, I have seen a clear difference between emotionally aware women with a healthy sense of self, compared to women who are emotionally empty, with an unhealthy sense of self?

For example, instead of being present with my emotions, I flee into gaming/music or any other sort of distraction. I then lose the time I could have spent learning to be comfortable with y emotions rather than escaping them. And since I suppress my sense of self, all I feel then is a sense of uncomfortable anxiety that then further fuels the cycle. In a nutshell, some of the effects I experience are: Poor health A massive wasting of time Almost no sense of self after "escaping" for a long time Procrastination, not being able to be productive etc.

This post is spot on. This pretty much sums up my problems with how I deal with my emotions, and the negative effects this has on my relationships. One thing I want to add though, is that when I am escaping my emotions, the cost of escape seems less than the cost of facing my emotions at that moment. Only later, after I become emotionally conscious, do I realize the destructive effects of escape. I think a lot of people are caught up in this cycle of cost-benefit

Hi Kurtis, Could you please summarize what you fond you learned from Real Time Relationships? I have read it like twice, but I feel like the overall lesson to be learned was that emotionally honesty is what determines the health of a relationship? But I don't understand why a lot of FDR members feel it's an invaluable book, maybe it's just me because I tend to skim read a lot when I feel like I can't focus?

Hi Troubadour, Yeah I definitely heard about the term like attracts like, I also read about it in one of Nathaniel Branden's books where he mentioned that people of low self esteem seek other people of low self esteem and vice versa. Yeah since I feel emotionally empty myself, I just connect with other emotionally empty people out of convenience, comfort and familiarity. I have definitely noticed that on my "better" days when I am emotionally conscious, I seek relationships with other emotionally conscious people. I think what blocks my emotions, is my refusal to feel my emotions of sadness, weakness, fear and insecurity. I fear being overwhelmed by the pain and being alone with it. And I fear what perceptions may come up about myself or my life. And my disappointment for destroying my life by being emotionally blind.. I avoid these feelings every day in a cycle of constant distraction and addiction. I feel at the moment that I am trying to do things by myself, I am just trying to connect to my feelings on my own. But I am considering therapy because it would make the process much easier and less lonely. Also I think I have trust issues because since childhood, my parents instilled in me the sense that who I am is not "good" enough, I have to be "me plus" and that my emotions are bad and should be hidden. So all I can present myself to other people is this false mask of grandiosity/success, not who I really am? I feel like no one would like my true self, since it's full of sadness, pain, anger and insecurity? Which is why I have a hard time to fully trust people.

I kind of exaggerated when I said narcissists and psychopaths, because that's how I feel most people I seek friendships with are, quite emotionally unavailable. But in the past I was friends with very narcissistic people, but I always felt unsatisfied in those sorts of relationships, and gradually just drifted apart from them. I think I do this because I view them as easy relationships where I don't have to be emotionally present. But then I regret the emptiness of the relationship and wish I have more deeper and more connected relationships. At the moment I am seeking out people who are more aware emotionally, but I feel I can only do this when I seek emotional awareness within myself, the moment I stop doing that, I go back to my "easy", empty relationships out of convenience and perhaps fear. "Instead of being with an emotionally present person or alone to reflect you are choosing to be with anti-emotional people and say you are working on being emotionally available?" I think I fear being alone with my painful feelings, and so I just seek company from my emotionally unavailable friends to avoid feeling alone/lonely? But it never feels like a solution, as it's just avoidance? But yeah I understand what you're saying, I shouldn't keep myself empty for the sake of not feeling alone., and I shouldn't settle for empty relationships to avoid feeling loneliness.

But dsayers, I kind of feel rejected by emotionally available people, because they can see that I'm emotionally blind and don't have much to offer emotionally?

Con...free movement within the EU being lost?

I think I agree, when I choose to spend time with my more emotionally blind friends, I kind of do it because I am avoiding a relationship where I would be challenged to be emotionally conscious

What if your friends are basically narcissists and psychopaths, but you choose to hang out with them because you don't feel like you could sustain a relationship with emotionally available people even though you are working on being emotionally conscious yourself?

Wasn't that Nathaniel Branden and Ayn Rand?

Hi Kevin, Well they both acknowledge that an abusive and cruel childhood sets children up to repress their emotions, which then causes all sorts of neurosis. And they both acknowledge that doing the opposite of repression, becoming aware of your emotions, no matter how painful, is the key to healing. It's just that they differ in what their focus is.

Thanks, Starsky, it's good to know that there are more writers/psychologists like this out there.

Oh my god, you nailed it with this post!

Hi guys, Just like the title says, I am wondering whether these two psychologists have ever met? As their work seems so similar in terms of writing about how emotional repression wrecks lives. But for me the difference between them is that Alice Miller focuses on the child abuse aspect (the root cause?) and Nathaniel Branden focuses on the self esteem aspect (the result?) It would be awesome if they have known each other, but I doubt it, I have not managed to find anything from my search efforts that indicate they ever met? Also, do you guys recommend any other writers who write about the topic of child abuse and it's effects on a person's self esteem or emotional life? Thank you very much, Wings...

I agree, I remember Alice Miller saying that she "owes" her emotional awakening to "spontaneous" painting. She used painting to connect to her emotions, so I think it can go both ways as you say. It seems like art can either be used to pursue your emotions and your truth, or to repress them further and try to vicariously heal through it "intellectually" without the emotional experience that brings understanding.

mm, I think that the artist's attempt is to finally extinguish their painful emotions by expressing them through music, but sadly this doesn't work as they aren't integrating and understanding their pain. It almost feels like the artists are crying for understanding from their audience

Mood swings are just a reaction to a new event in life imo, like all emtoions you are FAR better off understanding them, rather than ignoring them. Trust me.

My opinion is that blacks struggle with emotional blindness as the childhood of the average black person is bound to be affected by spanking or some other sort of childhood violence or subjugation. People act out in different ways, and in stereotypical hood black hood culture, you ether subjugate others or be subjugated yourself, because this is what a lot of them have learned from childhood. The more they continue to repress their emotions, the more they have to act out, crime is one of the ways they don't have to feel their feelings of powerless from childhood. So the average "hood" black guy is constantly chasing feelings of power in order to repress their feelings of powerlessness. Just look at rap, everything is about humiliating and stepping on other's through status, money, disrespect or violence. It is this way of dealing with (or rather controlling, restricting and suppressing) feelings that perpetuates dysfunction in black society. I have rarely met a black person who disapproves of the beatings (or "whoopings") that they're parents gave them in childhood, they either joke about it or dismiss it as something that made them the "strong" person they are today. All of this can apply to other races of course. I know this doesn't answer your question, but I had this thought for a while and felt like posting it in a related post.

Wow dude... You know I signed into my account just to tell you how amazing and insightful these two comments are? Very well said, I don't even know what to add to it. Sadly, there are a lot of people out there with pent up humiliations and injuries, and like a ticking time bomb all this pressure does is either hurt the person carrying this pent up hatred (self harm, self loathing, depression, anxiety etc.) or hurt others (crime, terrorism, bullying, abuse etc.) It's a terrible state of affairs humans are in, just scares me every time I think about it...

Hi dsayers, thank you very much for your helpful response, sigh, where do I begin... The problem is that I could not choose my house mates as I couldn't meet them before coming to my accommodation. I will definitely use this as a lesson for the future though. You are right about conflict resolution because every time I bring up an uncomfortable topic, or if there is an argument about something, people either leave the room, change the topic or just become angry without expressing why or discussing any further (being silent/avoidant) so we can resolve problems without making them catastrophes. This is what disappoints me the most as I think that they avoid conflict resolution because they either think it will escalate into me flying into a rage or that they just cannot bring themselves to share or discuss difficult emotions like this? Yeah I've confronted them now, they are trying to be nice to me to stop me from being angry because they think that I will be violent to them, but I won't do anything like that and I just can't help how angry and betrayed I feel by them? I definitely agree with you that I should just move out with some other friends next year and not make myself dependent on them. On an unrelated note: dude, I have always been intrigued by your profile pic, could you tell me what the story is behind it? Looks like a family photo of someone rapping in a bunny suit?

Sorry for the late reply Dave, I bought Nathaniel Branden's book and it's absolutely amazing, I'm kinda sad I hadn't discovered it earlier as I just stuck to FDR and Alice Miller for so long. It's very hard staying true to my inner emotions as I get distracted by people around me playing the "get validation" game, which makes me feel pressured to look outward for validation again, rather than from my self? But seriously thank you so much for the recommendation, I'm still rereading the book after I finished it. My favourite chapters are the one about the struggle for individuation and where he talks about people being raised from childhood to suppress their internal signals for external approval, pretty much the story of my life.

Yeah maybe labelling them narcissistic went a bit too far... I think I am just reacting out of anger now. I think I just need to accept that they don't like me and let them be. But this is honestly what I observe from them.