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I'm not in love with myself anymore

Queen Kat

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A few weeks ago I posted another stupid thread about me and my issues. I got all kinds of problems with myself after graduating. Now things got worse. Let's be clear about it: high school was an awful time. I was permanently bored, alone and pretending I was someone completely different so things wouldn't get worse and there was no one I liked. But I was always kind of narcissistic. I had a huge ego, amazing self-esteem and I was totally in love with myself. Now I'm going to college, I have a job, I have amazing colleagues who are always nice and I'm taking driving lessons, but now I don't love myself anymore. I don't see myself as the super awesome, stunning weirdo anymore, I've become focussed on all of my bad traits. Now that everyone is nice to me and I'm becoming more normal, I lost all of my self worth. If I were my friend, I'd stop talking to me. If I were my lover, I'd dump me and throw me of a cliff. I'm still having nightmares and I usually fight people in these dreams and kill them.

Is this because my life is changing, because I'm growing up or something else? Will this eventually go away all by itself, do I have to work on it or do I have to live with this forever?
 

gromit

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I'm not sure I 100% understand self-esteem. I think a portion of it comes from what we do with our lives, proving to ourselves that we can do the things that we want to do. Being able to point to specific accomplishments or circumstances which can give us a sense of identity. But I think another portion (or maybe it's another facet) comes from another source, one that's much harder to pin down, and one that is cognitively simple, but somehow elusive to some people, including me at different points. I guess you could call it a sense of worth, just being able to accept that you are inherently valuable, as a human being, as yourself, exactly as you are, regardless of what's working or not working in your life.
 

Chloe

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A few weeks ago I posted another stupid thread about me and my issues. I got all kinds of problems with myself after graduating. Now things got worse. Let's be clear about it: high school was an awful time. I was permanently bored, alone and pretending I was someone completely different so things wouldn't get worse and there was no one I liked. But I was always kind of narcissistic. I had a huge ego, amazing self-esteem and I was totally in love with myself. Now I'm going to college, I have a job, I have amazing colleagues who are always nice and I'm taking driving lessons, but now I don't love myself anymore. I don't see myself as the super awesome, stunning weirdo anymore, I've become focussed on all of my bad traits. Now that everyone is nice to me and I'm becoming more normal, I lost all of my self worth. If I were my friend, I'd stop talking to me. If I were my lover, I'd dump me and throw me of a cliff. I'm still having nightmares and I usually fight people in these dreams and kill them.

Is this because my life is changing, because I'm growing up or something else? Will this eventually go away all by itself, do I have to work on it or do I have to live with this forever?


maybe you faced "the real world". It's easy to think you're better than everybody else if your circle is small, but when you get where there are enough brilliant, beautiful people, your ego, if it was built on belief that you're better than everybody, gets reality check and starts colapsing.

It can be good for you if you survive it. I am sure you will. :) So, yeah, I think that's growth.
 

Queen Kat

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I'm not sure I 100% understand self-esteem. I think a portion of it comes from what we do with our lives, proving to ourselves that we can do the things that we want to do. Being able to point to specific accomplishments or circumstances which can give us a sense of identity. But I think another portion (or maybe it's another facet) comes from another source, one that's much harder to pin down, and one that is cognitively simple, but somehow elusive to some people, including me at different points. I guess you could call it a sense of worth, just being able to accept that you are inherently valuable, as a human being, as yourself, exactly as you are, regardless of what's working or not working in your life.

Well, then it must be the first point. I'm doing quite the opposite with my life than I'd like to do. I always had self esteem, but now I'm turning into a grumpy old spinster.
 

Queen Kat

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maybe you faced "the real world". It's easy to think you're better than everybody else if your circle is small, but when you get where there are enough brilliant, beautiful people, your ego, if it was built on belief that you're better than everybody, gets reality check and starts colapsing.

It can be good for you if you survive it. I am sure you will. :) So, yeah, I think that's growth.

I doubt if it has anything to do with these people. These people were exactly the kind of people I saw myself all these years, unintellectual, friendly, non-elitist. They're only uneducated and have bad and boring jobs and a lousy salary. I think they're great. I finally have people to talk to, who I can understand and relate to. And when I tell them something, they understand it completely and I've never had that before. But I had this feeling before I realized that these people were amazing, the feeling just starts growing now that the moment that I'm done here is coming closer (this is my last week at the factory).
 

Chloe

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I meant, you maybe didnt have a "real" self esteem, and now your narcissistic defenses are not working any more. It doesnt have to be any particular event that caused that, but changes definately will induce it. It just means you have to start loving yourself for the real you.
 

Queen Kat

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Well, I see the things that I loved myself for are slowly disappearing. I'm turning normal, that causes stress that makes me gain weigth so I'm also getting less handsome. The things that I hated about myself, but that I've learned to accept, are still there, but with the good traits disappearing and other bad traits taking their place, accepting them any longer gets pretty hard and that also causes me getting more and more new bad traits because of the stress being something I hate brings. The self esteem wasn't fake, it's just that the good me is melting away.

Maybe I'll have to like myself for the things other people seem to like about me. Too bad that I'm personally not that fond of those things.
 

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You might be having an existential crisis, but I'd make sure you aren't suffering from depression first.
 

Queen Kat

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You might be having an existential crisis, but I'd make sure you aren't suffering from depression first.

I've had a depression before, this isn't exactly like that. I'm not thinking about killing myself all the time. I'm not quite sure, am I deep enough for existential crisisses? I thought that was for intellectual people?
 

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I've had a depression before, this isn't exactly like that. I'm not thinking about killing myself all the time. I'm not quite sure, am I deep enough for existential crisisses? I thought that was for smart people?

You don't need to be suicidal, you can just feel less alive and more self-critical.
 

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Up's and down's. They are quite... bothersome.
 

Queen Kat

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You don't need to be suicidal, you can just feel less alive and more self-critical.

I feel more alive, actually, but that's probably because I have more chances and opportunities now. There's just almost nothing to like about myself anymore.
 

ThatsWhatHeSaid

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A few weeks ago I posted another stupid thread about me and my issues. I got all kinds of problems with myself after graduating. Now things got worse. Let's be clear about it: high school was an awful time. I was permanently bored, alone and pretending I was someone completely different so things wouldn't get worse and there was no one I liked. But I was always kind of narcissistic. I had a huge ego, amazing self-esteem and I was totally in love with myself. Now I'm going to college, I have a job, I have amazing colleagues who are always nice and I'm taking driving lessons, but now I don't love myself anymore. I don't see myself as the super awesome, stunning weirdo anymore, I've become focussed on all of my bad traits. Now that everyone is nice to me and I'm becoming more normal, I lost all of my self worth. If I were my friend, I'd stop talking to me. If I were my lover, I'd dump me and throw me of a cliff. I'm still having nightmares and I usually fight people in these dreams and kill them.

Is this because my life is changing, because I'm growing up or something else? Will this eventually go away all by itself, do I have to work on it or do I have to live with this forever?

This is what I'm hearing. You used to take pride in your differences, maybe because you really liked them, maybe because you HAD to like them to prevent yourself from feeling hurt by your peers' rejection. It was a defense mechanism to avoid pain.

You're now in a new environment where people are less retarded and more accepting, and you have no need to pretend you're someone weird and special because there is no looming threat of rejection. That's left you confused about who you are, or who you're supposed to be, since your last role was dependent on the rejection of others.

Not knowing who you are or who you're supposed to be, your mind has wandered into the past and finally let in the pain from high school. The thing you were trying to avoid back in the day--seeing yourself through the eyes of your peers as a worthless outcast--has finally come through, as the defenses have now been dropped. Seeing this mental content bubble up, you start thinking "oh, this content is who I am, I'm such a loser, I'm so rejectable." But the thing is, it's not you speaking. It's just a residue from your past. That's why you're not clear on why it's there. It's not your voice but the voice of those retarded kids finally hitting the surface.

If I'm right, and I think I am, there is nothing special you have to do. You don't have to make these thoughts go away because they can't hurt you. You just need to recognize that these thoughts are an echo from your high school peers. Now that you're older and wiser, you can decide how you want to approach the situation. You can correct it once and for all by saying what you need to say and knowing what you need to know.

Here's a very easy exercise you can do. Pretend you, Saint Kat 2010, were walking around your high school and saw Saint Kat High School getting picked on or neglected or isolated, and feeling the same thing you're feeling right now--worthless, disposable, alone, and hurt. If you had a chance to intervene on your younger-self's behalf, what would you do? What would you say? Would you say something to yourself? Say something to the shithead bullies and social conformists? Give yourself advice? What? Whatever the answer is, that's how you have to address these fugitive thoughts and feelings, as often as needed.

Cheers.
 

Gloriana

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Kat, something that strikes me in reading your posts is that your thinking seems to be very black & white. Meaning, you say when you had the most self esteem you were surrounded by people you thought were beneath you. Now that you're around people you think are amazing, it seems you're starting to think of yourself as automatically lower.

It sounds like you might have put yourself up on a pedestal before, and now you're putting everyone else up on one. When you were up on the pedestal you built for yourself, you felt high and good. Now that you're putting everyone else up there, you feel low and bad. It sounds almost as if you can't feel you are an amazing person in the presence of other people you find amazing. Like the two can't co-exist or something.

If you truly had narcissistic traits before, this might just be a see-saw sort of transition period for you. One extreme to the other. This happens with a lot of people with all manner of problems (like substance abusers who wind up becoming health nuts but almost kill themselves working out).

This is just my opinion, but maybe do some work on finding the middle ground? Rather than things being in black and white terms, maybe start thinking about relative terms and subjectivity. Meaning, can you accept that you can be in a room full of people you find attractive, healthy, successful, and amazing whilst still feeling you are all those things too or does it always have to be one or the other?

These are just thoughts. Hopefully this is just a phase where everything is just going to the other side of the pole and if you keep working on it you will find ways to find middle ground.

Don't hate on yourself too much, okay?
 

Queen Kat

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This is what I'm hearing. You used to take pride in your differences, maybe because you really liked them, maybe because you HAD to like them to prevent yourself from feeling hurt by your peers' rejection. It was a defense mechanism to avoid pain.

You're now in a new environment where people are less retarded and more accepting, and you have no need to pretend you're someone weird and special because there is no looming threat of rejection. That's left you confused about who you are, or who you're supposed to be, since your last role was dependent on the rejection of others.

Not knowing who you are or who you're supposed to be, your mind has wandered into the past and finally let in the pain from high school. The thing you were trying to avoid back in the day--seeing yourself through the eyes of your peers as a worthless outcast--has finally come through, as the defenses have now been dropped. Seeing this mental content bubble up, you start thinking "oh, this content is who I am, I'm such a loser, I'm so rejectable." But the thing is, it's not you speaking. It's just a residue from your past. That's why you're not clear on why it's there. It's not your voice but the voice of those retarded kids finally hitting the surface.

If I'm right, and I think I am, there is nothing special you have to do. You don't have to make these thoughts go away because they can't hurt you. You just need to recognize that these thoughts are an echo from your high school peers. Now that you're older and wiser, you can decide how you want to approach the situation. You can correct it once and for all by saying what you need to say and knowing what you need to know.

Here's a very easy exercise you can do. Pretend you, Saint Kat 2010, were walking around your high school and saw Saint Kat High School getting picked on or neglected or isolated, and feeling the same thing you're feeling right now--worthless, disposable, alone, and hurt. If you had a chance to intervene on your younger-self's behalf, what would you do? What would you say? Would you say something to yourself? Say something to the shithead bullies and social conformists? Give yourself advice? What? Whatever the answer is, that's how you have to address these fugitive thoughts and feelings, as often as needed.

Cheers.

I've always liked my weirdness and when I was much younger, people liked me for them and so I let these quirks grow and I tried to be crazier and crazier. I came to this school as a weirdo and indeed, I didn't fit in, but that had another reason: everyone was ambitious and only wanted to learn and I was lazy, had ADD and only wanted to have fun all the time. The weirdness didn't really change that much, it was actually ignored here because everyone was focussing on my laziness, my ADD and my drive to have fun. Instead of whining about why I am so crazy, they started whining about why I didn't finish my homework like the rest of them. In the end, my peers were probably even stranger than me, or at least, that's the way I saw them and when my father came teaching in our school, he confirmed that these teenagers were the strangest he ever met. So it isn't a high school problem either. I was strange, the others were strange in another way and therefore they didn't notice what was so weird about me.
 

Queen Kat

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Kat, something that strikes me in reading your posts is that your thinking seems to be very black & white. Meaning, you say when you had the most self esteem you were surrounded by people you thought were beneath you. Now that you're around people you think are amazing, it seems you're starting to think of yourself as automatically lower.

It sounds like you might have put yourself up on a pedestal before, and now you're putting everyone else up on one. When you were up on the pedestal you built for yourself, you felt high and good. Now that you're putting everyone else up there, you feel low and bad. It sounds almost as if you can't feel you are an amazing person in the presence of other people you find amazing. Like the two can't co-exist or something.

If you truly had narcissistic traits before, this might just be a see-saw sort of transition period for you. One extreme to the other. This happens with a lot of people with all manner of problems (like substance abusers who wind up becoming health nuts but almost kill themselves working out).

This is just my opinion, but maybe do some work on finding the middle ground? Rather than things being in black and white terms, maybe start thinking about relative terms and subjectivity. Meaning, can you accept that you can be in a room full of people you find attractive, healthy, successful, and amazing whilst still feeling you are all those things too or does it always have to be one or the other?

These are just thoughts. Hopefully this is just a phase where everything is just going to the other side of the pole and if you keep working on it you will find ways to find middle ground.

Don't hate on yourself too much, okay?

I said this in another post: I already had this feeling before I met my colleagues, but now that I almost have to go away, these feelings are getting stronger. When I'm surrounded by my colleagues and interacting with them I feel normal, but when not interacting with them I start feeling low. They probably have nothing to do with it.
 

ThatsWhatHeSaid

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I've always liked my weirdness and when I was much younger, people liked me for them and so I let these quirks grow and I tried to be crazier and crazier. I came to this school as a weirdo and indeed, I didn't fit in, but that had another reason: everyone was ambitious and only wanted to learn and I was lazy, had ADD and only wanted to have fun all the time. The weirdness didn't really change that much, it was actually ignored here because everyone was focussing on my laziness, my ADD and my drive to have fun. Instead of whining about why I am so crazy, they started whining about why I didn't finish my homework like the rest of them. In the end, my peers were probably even stranger than me, or at least, that's the way I saw them and when my father came teaching in our school, he confirmed that these teenagers were the strangest he ever met. So it isn't a high school problem either. I was strange, the others were strange in another way and therefore they didn't notice what was so weird about me.

A couple things.

1. That might be the way you see things now, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's the way you say things back then. You said it took your father's confirmation to prove that these kids were weird, meaning that up until then, you thought they were normal and that you were weird. That would still be consistent with what I wrote, but more importantly, consistent with what you wrote above, "Let's be clear about it: high school was an awful time. I was permanently bored, alone and pretending I was someone completely different so things wouldn't get worse and there was no one I liked." Maybe you didn't like anyone because they didn't like you.

2. Maybe you're just lonely because you don't know how to connect to people without being a caricature of yourself. Your whole life you get the message that "be weird and they'll like you." That runs a risk of living very inauthentically, in order to please others. When your gimmick is neutralized, i.e., when people stop attending to your false self, perhaps you feel unsure about how to make connection to others. Hence the "identity vacuum," hence the thoughts of loneliness and rejection. I have a feeling you're going to reject my interpretation, so I'll wait for feedback before I elaborate further.
 

UnderTheShade

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Self- Esteem issues arise from the decisions you make in your life
1. You can do things that make you feel good
2. You can do things that make you look good
3. You can do things that are actually good and right
We have to strive to make decision number 3, even though if it is a hard one. The first two decisions ,alone, chip away from our self-esteem. We need to have great self-esteem to be able to love ourselves. We need to make decisions that are going to respect ourselves. All this change in your life may have just clouded your true self. Take some time to do somethings you know you really like and make you feel good about yourself :)
 

Queen Kat

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A couple things.

1. That might be the way you see things now, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's the way you say things back then. You said it took your father's confirmation to prove that these kids were weird, meaning that up until then, you thought they were normal and that you were weird. That would still be consistent with what I wrote, but more importantly, consistent with what you wrote above, "Let's be clear about it: high school was an awful time. I was permanently bored, alone and pretending I was someone completely different so things wouldn't get worse and there was no one I liked." Maybe you didn't like anyone because they didn't like you.
I thought these people were weird in the first place, but I wasn't sure until my dad confirmed it because everyone was that nerdy. In the beginning it was me who didn't accept them for who they were, because I thought teenagers were supposed to act different, have fun, refuse doing homework, disrespect authority, etc. Anyways, me and my peers had a lot of fights, most because they thought I was "lazy" and "unfair" and I thought they were "nerdy" and "hated fun". In the end the conflicts became so harsh (even teachers and doctors got involved) someone had to compromise and as I rebelled against the teachers and I was on my own, I was the one who had to compromise. When I read it like this, I'd almost think I was the only normal person around there.

2. Maybe you're just lonely because you don't know how to connect to people without being a caricature of yourself. Your whole life you get the message that "be weird and they'll like you." That runs a risk of living very inauthentically, in order to please others. When your gimmick is neutralized, i.e., when people stop attending to your false self, perhaps you feel unsure about how to make connection to others. Hence the "identity vacuum," hence the thoughts of loneliness and rejection. I have a feeling you're going to reject my interpretation, so I'll wait for feedback before I elaborate further.
I never experienced the weirdness as inauthentic. When I watch videos of myself when I was little, I see that I've always been different. As a child I was more cheerful than other children, I was always hopping and dancing instead of walking, I made silly faces all the time, etc. I even found myself a bit awkward when I saw the videos, but other people liked me for it. Now that I'm working and I'm almost going to college, I notice that the little weird things are disappearing all by themselves. I'm dressing normally because it's practical and I only wear platform shoes and dresses in my spare time, I come up with less weird things to say and do, I'm even getting tidy. Now THAT feels inauthentic.
 

Gloriana

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I never experienced the weirdness as inauthentic. When I watch videos of myself when I was little, I see that I've always been different. As a child I was more cheerful than other children, I was always hopping and dancing instead of walking, I made silly faces all the time, etc. I even found myself a bit awkward when I saw the videos, but other people liked me for it. Now that I'm working and I'm almost going to college, I notice that the little weird things are disappearing all by themselves. I'm dressing normally because it's practical and I only wear platform shoes and dresses in my spare time, I come up with less weird things to say and do, I'm even getting tidy. Now THAT feels inauthentic.

Kat, when you say "I come up with less weird things to say and do", that IS deliberate, and hence can be inauthentic. You're not a traveling performer putting on a show portraying whatever persona you'd prefer to be. The trick here is becoming who YOU ARE and LIKING IT.

This might just be a case of maturing and growing up. Just changing. You're supposed to say whatever you feel like saying or what you really think, it sounds like you depend on the reactions and opinions of others to act as a guide to what you SHOULD be or what traits, characteristics work out best. It sounds like you might actually be changing into who you are but it feels 'off' because it's not so deliberate.

You keep using the words 'weird' and 'normal' and it almost sounds like you're using them to mean 'interesting' and 'uninteresting'. You keep bringing up these examples like you're trying so hard to make a case for yourself, like you want us all to understand you were interesting, and different, and valid. It doesn't seem like you understand that most people consider other people intrinsically and innately valid and valuable just by being human. Maybe I've got that all wrong, but that's what I'm getting from your posts.

It sounds more and more like you're terrified of becoming 'nothing special' or something. Like the heart of your fear is being every day, commonplace, or (as you put it) 'normal'. Just the other day I saw you post on one of the random threads asking people to criticize you or whatever and I thought it was a joke so I responded as such but now I'm wondering if there's more there. If you become someone who isn't getting a ton of attention for some reason (being weird, being happy, being funny, being pretty), does that mean you don't like yourself or you're invalid?

I'm not trying to come down on you here, I'm really trying very hard to understand your logic.
 
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