I'm Completely Unable to Trust Myself

[EmperorNero]

Let's just say there's been a lot of failure in my history. Both personally and professionally. Now I have an immense mistrust of my own decision-making faculties. I don't trust myself to make decisions at all, because I expect them to be bad. The thing I am has made all these bad decisions, if I let it pick a career path or commit to a hobby that would just transfer this horrible current self into the future. It's like making decisions when you're in a bad mood; you transfer that mindstate into the future. The solution is to not make decisions until you feel better. And that has worked really well for me. But I don't see this mistrust ending and at some time I need to start doing shit.

 

Got any thoughts or advice? I appreciate any input, even if it's just throwing something out of the top of your head.

[EricBaker.Linux]

Just out of the top of my head, maybe just accept that you can't always expect yourself to make good decisions 100% of the time?

 

Tell me, can you remember any decisions you made in the past that you were glad to have made?

[EmperorNero]

That's a remarkably good question. I had to think for a while, because I couldn't come up with anything. For some reason my brain doesn't seem to even register good decisions. In a way, no. I'm not particularly glad of any conscious decision I can think of. All the big core choices that really define me, like that school or this girl, made me miserable. Even when I succeeded, I think I would probably have been much better of with the alternative. There was lots of good stuff that happened to me, of course, but that always just happened without me rationally making a decision. What I decided with words in my head, I'm pretty sad about.

[darknova]

That's a remarkably good question. I had to think for a while, because I couldn't come up with anything. For some reason my brain doesn't seem to even register good decisions. In a way, no. I'm not particularly glad of any conscious decision I can think of. All the big core choices that really define me, like that school or this girl, made me miserable. Even when I succeeded, I think I would probably have been much better of with the alternative. There was lots of good stuff that happened to me, of course, but that always just happened without me rationally making a decision. What I decided with words in my head, I'm pretty sad about.

 

You made a deliberate and rational decision to join the FDR community and to get into philosophy. Would you characterize those decisions as bad?

[dsayers]

@Nero: I see a lot of ownership of what you're experiencing. As infants, we are all born with the inability to make good decisions. By conceiving us, our parents created a very large obligation to prepare us for survival by the merits of our own faculties. Yet as I said, I see no mention of them or your childhood. Just you owning something that I am relatively certain was the responsibility of other people. We can never solve a problem we are unable to identify. I hope this post will bring you closer to identifying the problem so that you can begin to heal from and work past it.

[EricBaker.Linux]

That's a remarkably good question. I had to think for a while, because I couldn't come up with anything. For some reason my brain doesn't seem to even register good decisions. In a way, no. I'm not particularly glad of any conscious decision I can think of. All the big core choices that really define me, like that school or this girl, made me miserable. Even when I succeeded, I think I would probably have been much better of with the alternative. There was lots of good stuff that happened to me, of course, but that always just happened without me rationally making a decision. What I decided with words in my head, I'm pretty sad about.

 

If you are to make it past this issue, what do you think is the first thing you need to do?

[EmperorNero]

You made a deliberate and rational decision to join the FDR community and to get into philosophy. Would you characterize those decisions as bad?

Good example. It was definitely a good thing that I joined, but I never really rationally made the decision to to so.

 

If you are to make it past this issue, what do you think is the first thing you need to do?

I suppose brainstorm good decisions I made, as I seem to not recognize them properly.

[EmperorNero]

@Nero: I see a lot of ownership of what you're experiencing. As infants, we are all born with the inability to make good decisions. By conceiving us, our parents created a very large obligation to prepare us for survival by the merits of our own faculties. Yet as I said, I see no mention of them or your childhood. Just you owning something that I am relatively certain was the responsibility of other people. We can never solve a problem we are unable to identify. I hope this post will bring you closer to identifying the problem so that you can begin to heal from and work past it.

You are right that I mostly look at myself when analyzing this. Sure, my issues were caused by my parents and forced school, but what does that matter now? I'm in my late 20's, what's the point of identifying the fault in other people? I pretty much know what went wrong there; the same that went wrong for everyone else in the late 20th century. I hate conceptualizing myself as some consequence of my early past, I did a lot of stuff since then.

[dsayers]

I did a lot of stuff since then.

 

Stuff that has brought you to a point where you feel "completely unable to trust [your]self." Wasn't that the problem that motivated you to create this thread to solicit thoughts and advice from others? How is doing "stuff" relevant if that stuff didn't lead you to a place where you feel able to trust yourself? For that matter, if you don't trust yourself, how can you be so sure that calling things by their proper names will be of no use to you?

 

Sure, my issues were caused by my parents and forced school, but what does that matter now?

 

This is what I meant when I said you cannot address a problem you don't understand. Let me reiterate what we've said, but substitute a different problem in:

 

You: I feel flawed because my appetite has not satiated.

 

Me: When was the last time you ate? If you are hungry, it's your body's signal that you are in need of additional nourishment.

 

You: Sure I haven't eaten in a while, but what does that matter? Everybody has gone a spell without eating. I've done other stuff since then.

 

The ability to call things by their proper names will enhance your capabilities in every situation. Correctly identifying your environment is essential to survival after all. You're essentially owning the "flaw" when it's not your flaw. If you don't understand that it's not your flaw, any attempt you make under the premise that it is your flaw will not address the problem.

 

A particularly strong tel tale sign is your minimizing what was done to you by saying it's done to everybody. "It's okay that I got raped because everybody else was too." Even if that were true, it's not okay! You're experiencing enough anxiety over this to reach out to others for help, which is a good thing. Doesn't it at all upset you that this helplessness was inflicted upon you by people you couldn't escape, whom you were dependent upon, who owed you their protection from such a thing? I don't think you'll be able to address this in a meaningful manner until you do.

 

If I could not tell the difference between a tiger and a domesticated cat, I wouldn't trust my decision making skills either. There's real value in being able to call things by their proper names. It's also important to not be okay with being victimized. Your last post wholly excused those responsible for the very problem you're seeking help for.

[Matthew Ed Moran]

"Let's just say there's been a lot of failure in my history. Both personally and professionally. Now I have an immense mistrust of my own decision-making faculties."

 

No, I'm sorry. The first sentence doesn't logically entail the next sentence. You could have said with equal validity that "there has been a lot of failure in my history, therefore I now know exactly how to avoid it."

 

You are leaving a lot out here. You are leaving out a life story. And by leaving out your life story, you are keeping anyone who reads your OP unaware that your life story may be important. In my opinion, I think this is intentional but not conscious, because it reinforces your thesis that your future can be explained by one simple statement about your past: "there is a lot of failure in my history." It invites us to think you are hopeless, because the only way for you not to fulfill your destiny would be to become someone else, with a different history, which is impossible.

 

And you are not assigning responsibility to anyone, including yourself. There has been failure "in your history." Who failed? What was happening in your childhood? What happened when you became an adult? You're not providing any context. You've presented it as if you have no attachment to your history. No emotion to draw from it. And therefore no understanding.

 

So instead of assigning responsibility and looking for cause and effect, you abstract.

 

"The thing I am has made all these bad decisions, if I let it pick a career path or commit to a hobby that would just transfer this horrible current self into the future."

 

The "thing" I "am" is going to ruin me. In my opinion, you're completely disconnected. You are not one cohesive unit which draws understanding from its parts. Instead, you have got this "thing" inside you (your decision-making faculties) which is trying to destroy you, or at least which is unpredictably self-destructive. I think if you want to make any progress, it's time to stop the abstractions and discover and engage with this "thing."  

 

I'd wager something about this thing. I'd wager it's not trying to destroy you. I'd wager it hates being ignored, however. Because it seems like you've had this thing for a long time, and now as an adult, and you don't understand it any better now than you did 10 years ago.

 

And I think more analysis can be done on what it actually means to distrust your decision-making faculties. Since the decision-making faculties are constituted by how you chose your values, and how you chose your means; if you have self-knowledge, there can be no "mistrust" per se. You may be limited by trauma (we all are in some way), but this does not mean you can't trust yourself. It can mean the exact opposite. If your mom is a horrible bitch who abuses you, you can trust you will get very anxious or angry around her or anyone like her. Some of what trauma might cause can be what we can trust about ourselves most. So in the face of this, and in the face of your lack of context and clarity, I think you need to come back and write something more honest (of course, only in my opinion).

[kalmia]

How much did your parents trust your decision making? Did they minimize your decisions and always hold the decisions of others as superior to yours? 

[powder]

what dsayers said is excellent.  

 

By what you have written I understand that your definition of 'bad' decisions are those that made you 'miserable'.  Is that correct?  

[cherapple]

What kinds of decisions did your parents make when you were growing up? Were they trustworthy?

 

If not, there was no way for you to learn to trust yourself and make good decisions.

 

If so, then somehow they failed to teach you what they knew. I would argue it wouldn't be possible for them to be good at making decisions, and for you to be bad at it. Either way, they failed. 

 

Also, if you don't identify the fault, you will repeat it. You will later tell your own children to "get over" your mistakes, rather than listen to them, talk to them, and help them not repeat them. 

 

There's no way around it: You can't heal from the past without looking at it. 

[Matthew Ed Moran]

Do you plan on responding, EmperorNero? Was anything we said helpful or illuminating?

[EmperorNero]

Do you plan on responding, EmperorNero? Was anything we said helpful or illuminating?

Sorry, I've been avoiding it because it's hard. I'm working on a response right now. Thanks for everyones input.

[shades]

Let's just say there's been a lot of failure in my history. Both personally and professionally. Now I have an immense mistrust of my own decision-making faculties. I don't trust myself to make decisions at all, because I expect them to be bad. The thing I am has made all these bad decisions, if I let it pick a career path or commit to a hobby that would just transfer this horrible current self into the future. It's like making decisions when you're in a bad mood; you transfer that mindstate into the future. The solution is to not make decisions until you feel better. And that has worked really well for me. But I don't see this mistrust ending and at some time I need to start doing shit.

 

Got any thoughts or advice? I appreciate any input, even if it's just throwing something out of the top of your head.

 

People who have never tried anything, have never failed at anything. They also make amazing self-righteous armchair critics of those who do.

 

Treat it a bit as an entrepreneur would. In essence we all are, if we are employees, or company owners etc. Personally, it is a similar thing, with nothing ventured, nothing gained. Paralysis ensures nothing will happen, except to isolate you from work, workmates, friendships etc.

 

Don't set out to fail, but if you do, adjust your approach and try something different, and if necessary, fail over and over again at things until you succeed. That success will taste so much better, given the down-times. Failure is often linked to shame, and this is sad, as true failure implies effort. Would we look down our noses at people who stormed the Normandy beaches because they got shot, died, and "failed" to make the objective of the day?

[Libertus]

You seem to be very confident and secure in not trusting yourself. You seem to be aware of your shortcomings, critical and skeptical of yourself, which is something you can be very proud of. Being you is 100 times better than being the person who makes all these bad decisions and has no clue about it. Who thinks everybody else is at fault. Who never admits a mistake. We all know somebody like that. It's not you. Start from there.

[EmperorNero]

No, I'm sorry. The first sentence doesn't logically entail the next sentence. You could have said with equal validity that "there has been a lot of failure in my history, therefore I now know exactly how to avoid it."

True. But the mistrust doesn't just come from failure. I was being brief. In many ways I'm doing way better than most people. That I'm not in statist groupthink, for one thing. It's more that I have an inherent mistrust of human rationality, because I'm more honest about it. Other people act irrationally, they are conditioned by groupthink or happenstance, but they pretend they want it that way. I'm just more aware of my limitations. Sadly, this has in a way crippled me with distrust about my decision-making. We all need some positive illusions.

 

You are leaving a lot out here. You are leaving out a life story. And by leaving out your life story, you are keeping anyone who reads your OP unaware that your life story may be important. In my opinion, I think this is intentional but not conscious, because it reinforces your thesis that your future can be explained by one simple statement about your past: "there is a lot of failure in my history." It invites us to think you are hopeless, because the only way for you not to fulfill your destiny would be to become someone else, with a different history, which is impossible.

 

And you are not assigning responsibility to anyone, including yourself. There has been failure "in your history." Who failed? What was happening in your childhood? What happened when you became an adult? You're not providing any context. You've presented it as if you have no attachment to your history. No emotion to draw from it. And therefore no understanding.

I thought I was being vague for privacy reasons. But you might be right that I am hiding my story to avoid responsibility. But there actually wasn't that much bad stuff in my childhood. None of it was the kind of horrible abuse that I hear some people on FDR talk about. I just don't trust myself at all.

I personally judge that my issues have relatively recent origins. It's habits and conditioning I built in my late teens and early twenties. I just got pushed into a corner where I couldn't perform, and now I have no expectation of being capable of making anything happen. But it's not about my childhood so much.

 

It's true that I have little attachment to my history, no emotion to draw from it. I don't know why that is so.

 

So instead of assigning responsibility and looking for cause and effect, you abstract.

That sentence caught be my surprise. Because, yes, my problem is that I tend to abstract everything. I've never connected this to any cause within my history. Mental health professionals have said that I only have access to my feelings on this meta-level. I'm thinking abstractly about having the feeling, rather than having it. And in a way my life is entirely devoid of "first hand" emotions.

 

The "thing" I "am" is going to ruin me. In my opinion, you're completely disconnected. You are not one cohesive unit which draws understanding from its parts. Instead, you have got this "thing" inside you (your decision-making faculties) which is trying to destroy you, or at least which is unpredictably self-destructive. I think if you want to make any progress, it's time to stop the abstractions and discover and engage with this "thing."

Yes exactly, I'm disconnected. "The self" is this thing inside me that I have to deal with. It's not me, it's a problem, a nuisance. I keep having to deal with this self-thing that needs to be made sane, get a job and girlfriends. But I don't want to. My self is like a broken leg; a problem I want to heal with as little time and effort as possible. Something I wish I didn't have to deal with.

 

I'd wager something about this thing. I'd wager it's not trying to destroy you. I'd wager it hates being ignored, however. Because it seems like you've had this thing for a long time, and now as an adult, and you don't understand it any better now than you did 10 years ago.

Maybe you're right, it's not trying to destroy me. It sure seems like it's trying to hold me back though, keep me out of the crossfire. It's terrified. I don't know how to not ignore it, because I don't know which part it is.

[Matthew Ed Moran]

Thanks for responding, Nero. I actually went back to re-read your original post, so excuse me if I quote that first.

 

"The thing I am has made all these bad decisions, if I let it pick a career path or commit to a hobby that would just transfer this horrible current self into the future."

 

How is this true? Why would committing to doing something new sustain the old? It seems the exact opposite is the case; only through doing new things do we really change. If we do the same things over and over, then it would seem more reasonable to think we are dragging the present self into the future. If I am an alcoholic and I am think the part of me which feasts on poison is terrible, how reasonable is it to think doing something new will only proliferate this old self. Surely there are things we can do which will change us (perhaps not fundamentally, but maybe we deal with a part of us in a radically different way - similar to how drug abuse can be substituted for therapy, self-knowledge, and goal-driven activities.) And surely if we are to change we *must* do something different. And surely, to stay the same, we must keep doing what we have been doing. If this sounds basically correct, then my question for you is... are you procrastinating change based on faulty reasoning?

 

"It's like making decisions when you're in a bad mood; you transfer that mindstate into the future. The solution is to not make decisions until you feel better. And that has worked really well for me. But I don't see this mistrust ending and at some time I need to start doing shit."

 

I kinda get that. But is this just a "bad mood?" Like we seem to have been saying, this is a "part of you." Now parts of you can manifest in bad moods, but I think there is a distinction. And it's important, because what it seems you have said to me is, "I can't make decisions until this part of me is not part of my anymore." Once again, the idea of procrastination rings in my mind, because it is literally what you'd have to tell yourself to ensure you don't do anything. Because this part of you will not change until you do something to change it - which requires you to make important decisions. 

 

 

To the tone of procrastination, I think the best question you can ask yourself to begin this inquiry is: "who benefits most from my procrastination?"

 

"True. But the mistrust doesn't just come from failure. I was being brief. In many ways I'm doing way better than most people."

 

My impression is that you basically deflected here. I didn't say your mistrust comes from past failure. It was you who began your OP with that connection. And I quote:

 

"Let's just say there's been a lot of failure in my history. Both personally and professionally. Now I have an immense mistrust of my own decision-making faculties. I don't trust myself to make decisions at all, because I expect them to be bad."

 

I'm not saying anything you've said is correct or incorrect about where your mistrust comes from, but it's probably important you become aware of how your conclusions have (seemingly) changed. After that, you say you're "doing better than most people," but once again, I'm not sure how this relates to this mistrust you have in yourself. So I wonder why you decided to include that statement and all the ways in which you are "doing better" than most people. Could you be procrastinating again? (Not saying it definitely is, just comes to mind once again)

 

"The solution is to not make decisions until you feel better. And that has worked really well for me."

 

If it has worked well for you, why are you here asking us for help?

 

That was all from your first post. Now to your most recent post.

 

"I thought I was being vague for privacy reasons. But you might be right that I am hiding my story to avoid responsibility."

 

I just think it makes a lot of sense to include your history (childhood and adult history). Instead you used the phrase "lots of failure in my history," which is uninformative. It makes your problem incomprehensible, and it blocks input. I think dsayers made a great post about the lack of understanding of your problem. And what I am not concerned about is how you are not engaging the fact that this has been pointed out. You say "I just don't trust myself at all." Once again, it's like you're trying to get input on a problem by communicating it in a phrase which literally makes it impossible to communicate back. What do you think any of us can offer you when you say "my childhood wasn't that bad - it's just like this and that's the way it is." I'm not saying you did that the entire post, but you sure did with that statement. Is this procrastination?

 

 

"I personally judge that my issues have relatively recent origins. It's habits and conditioning I built in my late teens and early twenties. I just got pushed into a corner where I couldn't perform, and now I have no expectation of being capable of making anything happen. But it's not about my childhood so much."

 

I would sincerely love to hear more about this. Open up. Tell me what you're thinking about in your 20s. Tell me, when you think of this entire thread, what emotions do you feel? What memories does it provoke? Even if you don't think your childhood is relevant (spoiler: it is), give use your best shot at bringing up some experiences that have had an impact on this person you are now. Right now you're passing off your childhood as "relatively normal" compared to the treacherous childhoods which people have on this site, but relatively normal is unimportant. No childhood is good today, and all child-hoods lead lasting impressions, habits, ways of thinking, ways of transforming out motivations, and much more. Your childhood is extremely important, so I think it would do you well to share some of it with us. I would appreciate it and would be very empathetic towards it. I know the other posters here would as well, so I invite you to share. I understand it can be very difficult to do that if you don't have positive experiences related to talking about your childhood, though.

 

I empathize with the rest of your post, and I empathize with how difficult it is to feel informed by your emotions. I would say that thinking of things in a new way will likely, though maybe not instantly, bring about emotion. And I think if you engage Stef's call-in shows, resources, the chat, the forum, your understanding of yourself will increase and you will understand your emotions better, and perhaps unleash a wider variety of emotions.

 

""The self" is this thing inside me that I have to deal with. It's not me, it's a problem, a nuisance. I keep having to deal with this self-thing that needs to be made sane, get a job and girlfriends. But I don't want to. My self is like a broken leg; a problem I want to heal with as little time and effort as possible. Something I wish I didn't have to deal with."

 

Right.. maybe it's an uninvited part of you? Something you want to get rid of? Can you tell me more about this part of you? Can you tell me, when this part of you is present in your conscious, who does it most sound like? Who might be saying it? Why might they be saying it? What are they telling you? Internal dialogues reveal a lot about what people in our lives expect from us, and what we expect from ourselves. I've criticized myself for smoking weed. I got anxious and frustrated with myself for being unreasonably critical. I would not negotiate with myself, nor would I try to understand why I was upset at myself for smoking weed - those questions were crippled by anxiety and thus could not "swim to the surface." Then I thought, this sounds a lot like my mom (she actually explicitly criticizes me for smoking weed, calls me names; so has my dad, so has an ex-gf). The anxiety, I think, was because thinking of my mom as being my internal criticizer threatened her. Throughout my life, when my mom felt threatened, she would dump her anxiety on me. So this anxiety was very necessary for me as a child to best maintain the security of the relationship with my mom - as children, we basically have no choice but to internalize these voices. But when we are older and more cognizant of them, we should begin to question them unrelentingly (though of course it is easier said than done).

 

Let me know what you think about that. Let me know if anything is unclear or can be expanded on. I am just offering my opinions. Also, I think learning more about your childhood is key, and developing a sort of continuum from the you as a child to the you as an adult, to the you now. See if you can find the cause and effect and look for the unconscious motives or patterns.

[EmperorNero]

First of all, thank you so much for making this long reply. I greatly appreciate it. It does does feel good that someone seems to care enough to write this much. And making me think about this is valuable, even if you just offer an opinion. I will try to respond to the other posters, but writing is moving slow on this.
 

"The thing I am has made all these bad decisions, if I let it pick a career path or commit to a hobby that would just transfer this horrible current self into the future."

How is this true? Why would committing to doing something new sustain the old? It seems the exact opposite is the case; only through doing new things do we really change. If we do the same things over and over, then it would seem more reasonable to think we are dragging the present self into the future.

Yes, through doing new things we change. But trying to change my self is what I've always done. The decision would come from a place of "I need to change myself because I'm not enough", and then that bad "energy" gets transferred into the future. But it's mostly that I would later know that the decision came from such a mood, and then I would not trust the activity and could not commit to it properly. I would always fear that I'm clinging to a bad decision just because we're creatures of habit and repeat what we did yesterday.
So trying to change myself would be doing the same thing over and over. Not trying to change my self would be the new thing.
 

If I am an alcoholic and I am think the part of me which feasts on poison is terrible, how reasonable is it to think doing something new will only proliferate this old self. Surely there are things we can do which will change us (perhaps not fundamentally, but maybe we deal with a part of us in a radically different way - similar to how drug abuse can be substituted for therapy, self-knowledge, and goal-driven activities.) And surely if we are to change we *must* do something different. And surely, to stay the same, we must keep doing what we have been doing.

Most alcoholics want to quit. The urge to change is part of the habit that maintains their use. E.g. it causes guilt for repeatedly breaking ones intention. Say he could stop trying to quit, the habit might implode, because a big part of what keeps it going is removed.
 

If this sounds basically correct, then my question for you is... are you procrastinating change based on faulty reasoning?

I always think that. But as I mentioned, not listening to my thoughts has been thing. Let's say that is the case, what do I do about it?
 

"It's like making decisions when you're in a bad mood; you transfer that mindstate into the future. The solution is to not make decisions until you feel better. And that has worked really well for me. But I don't see this mistrust ending and at some time I need to start doing shit."

I kinda get that. But is this just a "bad mood?" Like we seem to have been saying, this is a "part of you." Now parts of you can manifest in bad moods, but I think there is a distinction. And it's important, because what it seems you have said to me is, "I can't make decisions until this part of me is not part of my anymore."

Yeah it's something on top of the real me, that shouldn't be there. That's why I feel I have to get rid of this influence before I make big decisions that project themselves several years into the future. Making choices because I have to do something was precisely the problem in my past.
 

Once again, the idea of procrastination rings in my mind, because it is literally what you'd have to tell yourself to ensure you don't do anything. Because this part of you will not change until you do something to change it - which requires you to make important decisions.

Exactly. It would be the prefect reason to ensure I don't do anything. Ultimately, I think all my mind-chatter is just backwards rationalizing the habits I happen to have. That's how our minds really work; our subconscious does stuff and then we invent reasons why we did it. Stef said this. In my case, I have the habit of being remarkably avoidant, and mistrust of my decisions is how my brain rationalizes it.

I do notice that I have trouble making decisions. It's like crossing the Rubicon of deciding is too hard. It's like moving a giant rock in my brain. My brain doesn't have the energy sometimes.
 

To the tone of procrastination, I think the best question you can ask yourself to begin this inquiry is: "who benefits most from my procrastination?"

Good question. I don't know. Possibly my parents. I do know for a fact that my dad likes me to not be too confident. He likes to pretend being something he's not and as long as I was in a bad state, he could manipulate me into confirming his lie.
 

"True. But the mistrust doesn't just come from failure. I was being brief. In many ways I'm doing way better than most people."

My impression is that you basically deflected here. I didn't say your mistrust comes from past failure. It was you who began your OP with that connection. And I quote:

"Let's just say there's been a lot of failure in my history. Both personally and professionally. Now I have an immense mistrust of my own decision-making faculties. I don't trust myself to make decisions at all, because I expect them to be bad."

I'm not saying anything you've said is correct or incorrect about where your mistrust comes from, but it's probably important you become aware of how your conclusions have (seemingly) changed. After that, you say you're "doing better than most people," but once again, I'm not sure how this relates to this mistrust you have in yourself. So I wonder why you decided to include that statement and all the ways in which you are "doing better" than most people. Could you be procrastinating again? (Not saying it definitely is, just comes to mind once again)

I am doing better than most people in that I'm aware there is a problem. Other people seem to just push through the misery because they "have to". They keep themselves busy to distract themselves from their feelings. That might have been necessary up to the 20th century, but I refuse to just be miserable. I actually think that is what we have in common here on FDR, we are not more messed up than the general population, we are the vanguard because they are aware of there being a problem and dealing with it.
 

"The solution is to not make decisions until you feel better. And that has worked really well for me."

If it has worked well for you, why are you here asking us for help?

Well, because I'm not sure I'm doing the right thing. I am making is progress, but it's slow. At this pace I'll be old before I get a life. I'm exaggerating. The last time I came here for advice, about a year ago, it made a huge difference.

[EmperorNero]

By what you have written I understand that your definition of 'bad' decisions are those that made you 'miserable'.  Is that correct?

 

Yes, that is correct.

 

What kinds of decisions did your parents make when you were growing up? Were they trustworthy?

No, I wouldn't say they made good decisions or were trustworthy. More like predictably irrational.

[cherapple]

No, I wouldn't say they made good decisions or were trustworthy. More like predictably irrational.

 

It makes perfect sense that you wouldn't know how to trust yourself, since your parents blew up any chance of you experiencing trust. You have already done way more than they probably ever have done by admitting it and talking about how you feel. Can you trust yourself to continue to make that small step? 

 

For me, it's been one small step at a time, feeling for solid ground with cautious toes, until I realized that I could trust that the ground wasn't going to be shaken out from under me anymore. I began to trust myself to feel the ground, stand on it, and walk with some confidence.

 

After a while, you start to tell in whose company you feel steady and in whose you feel unsteady. You learn to say fuck the people who seek to gain false confidence by breaking your sense of self-trust. You will know who they are, and you will know who you are.