Mal12345
Permabanned
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2011
- Messages
- 14,532
- MBTI Type
- IxTP
- Enneagram
- 5w4
- Instinctual Variant
- sx/sp
I say it's time to grow beyond MBTI/JCF parlor games that accomplish nothing in the real world. Most if not all of us want to feel better emotionally, either in general or about ourselves in particular. Feeling bad in general is called depression; feeling bad about ourselves in particular is called low self-esteem.
But feeling better can't occur in a vacuum. It's necessary to make a real-world effort. It's necessary to know what you want, and then how to obtain it. And there are often many ways to obtain a goal. Sometimes we feel stuck thinking there is no way to obtain it, or we think there is only one way but it's impossible for some reason. Brainstorming ideas can free the mind's creativity by using patterns of thought which have been unpracticed and neglected.
If you think or know you are neurotic, then you probably also think there is no way out. This leads to the imagining of a dreary lifetime full of depression, along with low self-esteem because you lack the self-confidence to find your way out of the morass. If you're too depressed to even consider finding a way out by yourself, then seek help. Afterwards, you'll be able to find your own way with at least a modicum of self-confidence.
If you're not sure if you are neurotic or not, there are certain signs. There is the emotional sign I have already mentioned, the depression (a dull, aching emptiness that has taken on metaphysical proportions) and various types of anxiety, as well as somatic or psychosomatic reactions, e.g., physical symptoms with no apparent cause.
But there are other signs, as well as strategies to overcome them:
1. Your emotional and behavioral patterns are inconsistent. For example, you love to talk about yourself, but when others talk about themselves to you, you suddenly lose interest in the conversation and drift back into thinking about yourself.
2. You don't have friends, only followers at best, if that. You find that the only way you can maintain a conversation with someone is by always relating the topic to yourself in some way.
3. You have obsessions, things you are personally wrapped up in so you believe others should find them interesting too.
4. Your emotional 'security blanket' is colorful and warm, and you think others should have the same security blanket or else something is wrong with them because why wouldn't everybody want a colorful, warm security blanket like yours? Or you compare yours to those of others, and become judgmental when you find that theirs is less colorful/warm than yours. You have yet to learn that others don't want to be/don't have to be like you, and that doesn't make them crazy.
5. You are locked in a rigid mindset. You may know on a very abstract level that everybody is unique. Nevertheless, you think they should all think/believe the way you do.
7. Your thinking is completely static. Everything you say is in black-and-white, all-or-nothing, absolutist terms. There is no intellectual middle ground for you.
8. You behave as if your emotions know right from wrong, as if they are messengers from an omniscient God.
9. You feel that you have the right to trample all over others, yet for some reason they have no right to trample all over you.
10. You are pessimistic, or perhaps you are even optimistic to a fault. The first is bad, but the second can be even worse. Pessimism means you always expect a poor outcome out of any effort, but extreme optimism makes you foolhardy and reckless.
11. You are either very thin-skinned or very thick-skinned, indicating that you have an external locus of control. This means that if you are thin-skinned then you allow control from the outside, but you may or may not like it; if you are thick-skinned then you have merely created a protective shell to maintain a rigid sense of control over your internal world.
This is the short list of what constitutes neurosis. The last in the list was a good place to stop because it is the secret to non-neurotic (i.e., long term) happiness. If you have an internal locus of control then you are free from external control. You are then free from the internal fears and anxieties that ruled over you.
There are various ways to lead a successful life. It doesn't have to be society's way. What matters is that you are happy doing it, and this happiness has to come from within or else it will be under the control of life's various circumstances. It can only come as the result of acquiring an internal locus of control. Since it doesn't have to be socially acceptable per se, then can a criminal lead a happy life? No, because a criminal is dependent upon others, and so the locus of control is external.
The first thing you have to do is regain control over your life. I'm sure you had control at one time, but you lost it. Since you had it at one time, you can have it again.
Next, learn to shout down the internal voices of fear and pessimism which lead you to think there is only one road for you in life, only one fate. It's not about fate, it's about you.
Practice influencing, in reasonable ways, the external world. You will find it to be an empowering experience when it works. When it doesn't work, then try again a different way. There's always a different way. Don't think that people are hopelessly unreasonable, you'll be surprised at how well simple reasoning can work. Look out for ways in which other people do it, and then practice it.
Ask for what you want.
