| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| scottjmurray |
Posted - 09/15/2008 : 01:12:51
so i started working on my website again and i'm writing an article about inferiority-based psychological problems and how to address them. i thought you guys might find this interesting. also, if anyone has anything they think should be included or made more specific now is the time to let me know.
article is below:
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in this article i'm going to do my best to dump all the knowledge i have about the inferiority complex and the problems it gives rise to. i've written before in the recovery section about how perfectionist and goodist personality traits are caused by low self-esteem and how they give rise to inner anger, but i wasn't very detailed. let's get more in depth, shall we?<br><br>
<b>what is the inferiority complex?</b><br><br>
feelings of inferiority appear to be a universal characteristic of the human psyche, varying only in intensity. almost everyone i know has some part of their life effected(us?) by these feelings. you may feel like you don't stack up, that you are no good, that you are undeserving of love, that there is something wrong with you, or you become filled with shame. this is introjection of feelings of inferiority. conversely, you can have these feelings of inferiority projected onto those around you or to components of your life. you might feel like your house isn't up to par, that things are too messy all the time, or that the people you surround yourself with are not good enough.<br><br>
my theory is that all this stuff has its roots in childhood experiences. children are really sensitive to what others tell them, and some adults really do not understand that. in fact, these problems are often transmuted from their parents and adults in their lives who in turn got it from their parents and so on. when a child is told directly or indirectly that they did something wrong, or they are denied the affection they crave, or they are made fun of, they will most often believe that it is their own fault. they internalize the belief that there is something wrong with them. they develop an inferiority complex, one of the most frustrating and painful bundle of emotions.<br><br>
this shame is likely the lowest stage of consciousness that the human psyche can endure. most people who are suicidal are stuck in some feedback loop of these type of feelings. having an inferiority complex straight up sucks. the emotions are incredibly painful to express if they are high in degree, which usually involves crying ones eyes out and grasping for the love one didn't receive. alternatively, you can feel completely hollowed out, as if your soul has been sucked right out of you. i have often revisited this horrible part of the psyche after bad breakups. yuck.<br><br>
<b>the spawn of perfectionism, goodism, and tms</b><br><br>
there are three lower level reactions a person can have to these type of feelings that create and each creates instability and conflict in the psyche. these might sound familiar: fight, flight, and freeze.<br><br>
first i will discuss the freeze reaction. i don't have very much personal experience with this one, because it is particularly nasty. when someone freezes into their inferiority complex, they completely embody it. they become self-destructive, self-hating, twisted human beings. i actually dated a girl for a short time who would frequently fall into some kind this kind of hole in her psyche that was very difficult for her to climb out of. she would act out with some of the worst self-loathing i think i have ever seen. it is incredibly disturbing to watch. surely that much self-hatred must come into conflict with the primal brain, that could really care less about such matters.<br><br>
when someone chooses flight they spend their time running away from situations that trigger these feelings of inferiority. they become very reserved and shy, fearing eruptions of shame at every turn. they avoid competition, because they are so reactive to losing. they avoid any situation that might cause them to relive the horror that is an explosion of shame and sadness. they basically don't live.<br><br>
this kind of reaction too must generate emotional conflict. being constantly unable to do what one truly wants to do is incredibly enraging to the inner child, and as a result contributes to the reservoir of repressed rage and sadness that gives rise to tms.<br><br>
when a person chooses to fight back against these awful feelings of inferiority, they become an overcompensator. this is where you can really generate a large amount of the inner anger and conflict that gives rise to tms symptoms. this is where perfectionists, high achievers, and compulsively good people come from. they feel terrible about themselves and their surroundings, and so they strive to make things better. they perform to their limit in school, at work and at home like they are trying to be some kind of superhero. they strive for the best and even when they meet their goals something still feels wrong deep inside, and so their journey continues. fighting shame is not a battle that can be one by living an extravagent and amazing life. it's fought by doing what you actually want to do.<br><br>
like i said they can also become compulsively good people. they feel as though their own ideas, thoughts, and feelings are flawed and therefore they bend to the will of others very easily. they are kind, caring and helpful even when they themselves are burning up from rage and exhaustion inside. they help others while denying themselves of their own needs. they have a hard time saying no to anything.<br><br>
all the pressure of trying to be perfect, amazing and good, and continually grinding against reality generates an incredible amount of anger deep inside. the child in us (freud's id) doesn't care one way or another about what people think, or about proving itself, and it reacts with furious rage at these pressures. the reality-shattering realization that your entire life has been an attempt to prove yourself and get people to like you because you deeply hate who you are is a tough one for sure, so the brain might whip out a distraction mechanism like tms if you aren't ready.<br><br>
<b>the shoulds</b><br><br>
a lot of people with shame issues have a really hard time getting at their true feelings about things. because they have determined that they themselves are flawed, they do instead what they think they should do. this generates a great deal of conflict, because the primal part of your brain simply doesn't give a crap about what is proper. for instance, right now i feel like i should be more descriptive of this. but i really can't think of anything. more to say on the topic. hence i feel a little agitated. that's a little goodism for you.<br><br>
<b>solving the problem</b><br><br>
for a long time i was obsessed with obliterating my inferiority complex, but as it turned out i was just feeling bad about myself for having one and so i was trying to be perfect again. oops. so that's mistake numero uno, don't freak out about having this problem. everybody's got one. if you did just freaked out after reading this, that's okay. i did too when i was coming to terms with this stuff.<br><br>
so how does one get over these feelings of inferiority? well, i can't really tell you that. that's something you need to do for yourself when you feel ready. what i can do is offer some advice on how to arrive at the point where you will be ready to actually "get over" them.<br><br>
1. cry. cry your little eyes out. stop holding your emotions back. the kid in you feels badly beaten and horrible. it's time to let it out so you can see what you're working with.<br><br>
2. get angry. scream, freak out, punch your bed. you've probably spent a lot of your life trapped inside yourself, doing crap you haven't really wanted to do because you've felt so damned horrible. doesn't that make you angry? just don't hurt anyone.<br><br>
3. stop being so mean to yourself. you don't deserve to be punished for being who you are. nobody does. if you find yourself being self-critical you are adding to the reservoir of these feelings of inferiority instead of getting over it. keep an eye on yourself.<br><br>
4. stop pushing yourself so damn hard. you don't have to prove anything to anyone. face the feelings you've been avoiding instead of trying to overcompensate. perfectionism is a living nightmare. learn to catch yourself doing it and stop.<br><br>
5. you don't have to be nice to every single person you meet. you don't have to be a saint. start being real. if the people around you don't like what they see, tell them to get used to it because you aren't going to be their little bitch anymore. you're your own person with needs, desires and wants. stand up for yourself. for more information on this, watch the movie "tank girl." <br><br>
now eventually, you'll reach a point where you have cried, you have grieved, you have gotten angry and you don't feel like doing any of those things anymore. that means you're ready to move on. so do it. moving on means feeling horrible but doing what you really want to do anyway. moving on means letting go of control. moving on means you aren't going to use that stage of consciousness to interact with your reality anymore. you've learned about it, visited it, expressed it and feel like you understand how it works. now it's time to find another way to live.
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author of tms-recovery . com
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| 8 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| scottjmurray |
Posted - 09/20/2008 : 02:45:36
eh. yeah i guess. it was more out of desperation that i learned all this though. i probably would've preferred living totally ignorant to psychology at all, but i had this wonderful crap that happened to me as a kid that i have to deal with so yeah. woo
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author of tms-recovery . com
(not sh!t, champagne)
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| moose1 |
Posted - 09/19/2008 : 20:36:18
sometimes, especially if you've been conditioned and programmed from childhood to squash your emotions, learning how to experience emotions is just that; a learning process, and often a damn hard one. you'd think feeling feelings would be second nature, but oh no, not when you grew up believing that feeling angry (or too happy for that matter) was bad and was not allowed.
great post, scottj, and thanks for your site. i wish i had your insight when i was your age, but better late than never, right?
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| scottjmurray |
Posted - 09/19/2008 : 03:23:18
rm is right. no one really ever deserves to be punished. the mistakes we make are often harmless, and the big bad ones are usually because we've been punished/hurt in some way in the past. i think that telling yourself this over and over again is just a way to start coming to a real understanding of this concept, however. it's not a means to an end in and of itself. the reality of the idea just seems to dawn upon you, as if something has been fixed inside your brain, finally.
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author of tms-recovery . com
(not sh!t, champagne)
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| RiverMark |
Posted - 09/18/2008 : 19:26:46
I would add a #6...
Stop punishing yourself. Tell yourself (over and over AND over again, if necessary) "you have done nothing wrong." You can stop punishing yourself. Regardless of what you may have been told by others when you were growing up, no matter how much you may have trusted their opinions or no matter how strongly you may have felt you were SUPPOSED to trust what they were telling you, you have done nothing wrong. And, they were wrong. You are not inferior, deficient, or inadaquate. You no longer need to be punished. You never needed to be punished.
-=RM=- |
| LuvtoSew |
Posted - 09/18/2008 : 17:57:59
Good article, enjoyed it as well as your website. |
| scottjmurray |
Posted - 09/18/2008 : 16:29:20
right on logan
yeah. i think there is a certain amount of exploration of these emotions (eg: crying and raging) that has to happen before you really understand what it can mean to "move on" from them. moving on meaning that you know that these emotional responses are no longer representative of what's really happening in your reality, nor were they ever. then you've got it.
i think today i really started to see how joyful in can be to not have to "make things better" anymore.
i think this is why a lot of people haven't recovered from tms yet here on this board actually. they're stuck trying to fix something that isn't broken in the first place. that's the problem with these schemas, they're emotional responses that aren't even true, but we think they are and so we get entangled in them.
thanks guys
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author of tms-recovery . com
(not sh!t, champagne)
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| Logan |
Posted - 09/17/2008 : 09:15:14
Thank you for putting all your knowledge together on this. It was a good read and I recognized myself, and my TMS journey through hell and back, in much of it. It is true! You have to cry and rage a lot and get sick, sick, sick of being in one or all three of those responses to the feelings of inferiority in order to move on from them.
I think I am, finally, after 4 years of being free of TMS and almost a year of therapy to get free of the inferior feelings that caused my TMS, in a place where I can be myself and feel good about that. |
| myles |
Posted - 09/17/2008 : 08:13:15
Top post my friend...
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