SafetyDance

I'm amazed no one has linked this yet. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-somerset-28639196

Yeah you're right I did contradict yourself. It's just hard to think straight with this kind of people around you. I just noticed I tried to put the blame from them to some other factor beyond their reach. This conversation made me thinking and I think I know what might be the problem. I'm not open with other people, this would explain bad communication skills and difficulty establishing deeper relations.

No I dont think she ever did. During one conversation this came out as a side track and she basically said that I was never spanked, cause I never made any trouble. This is true for late childhood, however I remember being spanked in my earlier years. She lied, forgot or I just overreact? So to cut it short, no she did not admit fault. I did not go out of my way and bring up the conversation by myself; why? I dont exactly know, probably because I'm avoidant personality type, plus having experience with solving disptes with her (religious-based), I dont think talking about the spanking would bring me anywhere, although I'm afraid I'll have to confront her sooner than later (when feeling of obligation towards personal consistency overgrows my avoidancy ). Where's my father in all of that? Well, he's a workaholic, so 90% of my waking time (that's not an overexagerration) he was absent. At this point I feel like I'm, bitching cause I bet many people had it worse, and overall my parents did pretty good job, but damn, this invisible wall separating me from other people is killing me.

@Carl Green You're right. And that's why I slowly gravitate away from my circle of friends. The flipside of that is the fact that (for now) I have a hard time finding quality people. On the other hand, I'm not really trying all that hard. I'm kinda shut-in person and that does not work for me verry well. @dsayers Ad editorialization Yeah it makes sense. I might have adopted this trait from my parents who are control freaks. You are right I didnt express this problem to anyone. Far-fetched assumption on my side. Another thing that I was not aware of. My bad, I mentioned it as sarcasm, and forgot to add the quotation symbols. I actually dont feel it was a favor at all. As for the aggression, if I was doing something too slow for her, she would grab the supposed thing that I was manipulating/doing out of my hands, doing it herself, and calling me names (worthless, stupid etc.) throughout all the time. From time-to-time I would get a thwack in the back of the head in the mean time. No I dont think the aggression was the only way. If I was left alone, unpressurized, stuff would be done anyways; punishments are ineffective, positive encouragement is the only viable option. Years later she said that she was doing all this stuff so that I would be more quick/witty/cunning/less guilible (my guess: as if she would try to protect me from her own past and perpetrators, if that makes sense). I agree with your last question, and I think that their behavior was counter-productive. Dont want to justify my parents but they are simple people from rural areas, so their methods are the way they are. I live in one of the post-communist countries and all those years of communism/social realism (or whatever they wish to call this BS) demoralized people (not only in the childrearing department). I dont beat myself over that. Its just something that happened and I had to take lesson from. Now that I'm different person, my jimmies remain unrustled. Nowadays I would hand matters differently and I simply dissaprove my past attitude. first of all my parents. One thing that I should clarify, that I just remembered, is that I talked really slow, and my mother would react in a way that you already know (talk faster, you idiot!). Secondly, I remember there used to be a kid who had some serious issues, he took offence from even harmless stuff, long story short, one time when I was calling my buddy by his nickname, the said idiot-kid was nearby and "in the line of fire", he thought I'm looking at, and making fun of him and attacked me. But this was just a single episode and I'm not convinced it affected me all that much (I'm not sure if this was even worth mentioning). Yeah, it's just something I have to work on, and there is no workaround. The good thing though, is that expressing my problem, and this conversation itself, forced me to re-thing things more deeply. I think this might have re-connected several neuron pathways. I cant deny that this has been the most fruitful conversation I had for quite some time, and at this point I'm really grateful for the invention of the internet. What a good time to live in. PS. I'm sorry to hear that you had to go through a break-up of your family. Hope you dealt with the collateral.

I indeed do I wrote the original post down in a txt file, edited it, copied to browser, edited it again. I'll try to contain myself. I legitimately did not know that. Thanks a lot dude. I made my assumption in the statement that you quoted because most people I meet have no such problem like mine, and I thought this would be especially true for FDR community. I mean c'mon, a grown up dude who does not know how to speak/communicate. Ridiculous. This explains why there is no quality people, and why I am where I am in my life. Up until now I thought that I have a lot, you showed me that I need to study more. A cold bucket of reality is always welcome. Two things pop to my mind: 1. I vaguely remember being belittled in my early childhood (being called stupid, worthless etc.) I do things rather slow and my mother thought I was retarded mentally challenged (George Carlin FTW), and she would do me a favor by hastening me in an aggressive manner. 2. My high school was a little like those asian or south american prisons from those documentaries about drug smugglers that got caught (i.e. filled with effed up people with no future). I had no group of my own so I had to stick with group of rejects/punks, belittle myself and act like a jackass to avoid bullying. Not proud of how I dealt with things back then. Yes I would definetly say that I lack confidence especially when communicating, but also in social situations when surrounded by people I don't (or barely) know. What am I concerned with? It might sound weird but first thing that popped to my mind, when I asked myself this question, is that my interlocutors would physically attack me if I offend them. After giving it some though, I think it would be more accurate to say that I'm afraid of being ridiculed if I say something stupid. The funny thing though is that I end up saying stupid s**t because I'm incapacitated by fear and can't think straight.

Hello FDR community, first time poster here. I have a problem that (as I presume) will sound trivial to you, but is a real drag to me. I'm rather a smart guy (according to some), but there is one thing that stands between me and my proffessional and personal success. It's the ability to communicate with other people efficiently. To be more precise transferring thoughts into understandable sentences is a real struggle, and I generally dont sound strong/convincing (for a lack of better word). This has influence over my ability to 'sell' myself and has reflection in the amount of money I make (even though I'm an engineer I dont make as much as my more talkative friends from university). Even writing this post took me a truck-load of time. I'm not a native english speaker, and taking into account that I've read a lot of good english books (shout out to Stef!), I have a lot to share with the people around me. But there is a little use of knowledge if you dont know how to share it (and it's frustrating too!). I asked my most charismatic friend how to deal with it and I did'nt get satisfactory answer, I did'nt want to google it out to avoid this coaching bullcrap, if theres anyone i'd turn to, is you guys. Do you have any tips? books? Any Wonder Cure besides going out to people and talking more? PS. the problem seems to be a little more prevalent in my native language. So this might have something to do with the people I listen to during the day. regs, SafetyDance