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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
 Posted - 05/17/2007 : 09:16:06
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I guess I will do some public journaling here as some recent incidents in my life have provoked some anger resident within me.
First, I taking a class in which I have paid $1,100 to take and it is utter crap. The teacher is dry and boring, and their is this annoying person in the class who just won't shut the hell up. I am paying all this money to listen to this crap!!!!
Second, my wife has invited someone over this weekend and I simply cannot stand this person. The person is an obnoxious braggart and a know-it-all, and I will have this person sitting in my face all weekend!!!!
Okkkkkkkkkk, that is the surface anger, what are the real issues involved? More later as I gotta run....
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Sarno-ize it!
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Edited by - shawnsmith on 05/17/2007 10:31:55 |
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mizlorinj
USA
490 Posts |
Posted - 05/17/2007 : 10:28:34
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Feel free to vent! It's healthy!
Sorry about your class. I hear ya about obnoxious braggarts. Realize too that they have their own issues and a braggart really feels insecure down deep. Maybe they should journal!!
There is a relative who talks constantly about what improvements he's made in their house, newest vehicle, etc. It is annoying and is usually met with "uh-huh, nice." I realize how sad it is though because he is so insecure and thinks talk like that will make him feel better about himself. Or in the eyes of others. Truly sad.
Best of luck this weekend!  |
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Shary
147 Posts |
Posted - 05/17/2007 : 10:40:16
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| Shawn, my sympathies. We've all been there. And you're right: it is just surface anger. I know you're not really looking for advice, but I find that I do better when I try to eliminate as many petty aggravations as I can. Sometimes that means an attitude adjustment; sometimes it means opting out. Your post suggests a smolder-and-bear-it attitude with no options available to you. I don't know about getting your $1,100 back, but you might want to consider the possibilities. You might not have to be a captive audience in either case. |
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Shary
147 Posts |
Posted - 05/17/2007 : 11:43:27
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This might be a good place to relate a story of my own. My SO has a long-time friend whose wife is a rude, condescending bitch. I used to dread socializing with them because, while pretending innocence, she would always find some sneaky way of putting me down. Although I can hold my own with such people, I intensely dislike confrontational situations. Also, my SO failed to stick up for me because his friend has Parkinsons and my SO doesn't want to upset the man. I said the woman needs a muzzle and choker chain, and he suggested that I should just ignore it.
Well, after the umpteenth time of being made to feel inadequate by this person, and being rightfully PO'd about it, I flat refused to have anything more to do with them. It caused a fight with my SO, but he got over it, and I'm glad that for once I didn't cave in to pressure.
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 05/17/2007 : 11:52:20
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Well, with the course, I cannot withdraw unless I incur a 50% pentalty so I am stuck, unless I want to essentially burn $550. The course is a required one for the programme I am trying to follow in an informal way. But you are correct regarding the feelings of anger and frustration in reaction to being trapped in a situation which there is no way of escape. I guess we all find ourselves in such places in our lives and it is truly enraging.
One time, Shary, I had academic aspirations but then life happened and somewhere I lost the calling and developed a heavy dose of self esteem where I believed everyone was better than me in everything and that somehow I have been ripped off. I also have failure witten allo over my forehead as well as my soul. I have very little ambition in life and hate to compete in this nasty little place called planet earth. I hate having to continually validate my self-worth based upon my personal performance in this or that activity.
The #&**^*@ tyranny of the should just keeps on hounding and pounding away. I gaze out the window of my classroom as the teacher blabs on about some dead poet and I ask myself the question "what the f-k am I doing here?"
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Sarno-ize it!
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Shary
147 Posts |
Posted - 05/17/2007 : 12:27:05
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Shawn, I think some of your statement is TMS talking. I don't know what your pain level is, but I've found it to be a real destroyer of both motivation and self worth. I can't tell you how many times I've declined social events in the past two years because I just wasn't up for it, not mentally or physically.
Regarding the situation with my SO's friends, that might have been TMS talking to some extent too. But mainly it was pure survival instinct. The issue had gotten to be so big that I would stress out over it days in advance of getting together with those people, sometimes making myself sick in the process. I think I was afraid of really losing it over one of her comments and screaming like a lunatic. Now that I think about it, it might have been better for me if I had done that. |
Edited by - Shary on 05/17/2007 12:30:57 |
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 05/17/2007 : 13:35:55
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With regards my wife inviting over for the weekend someone who I don't like very much, there are indeed much deeper issues than my conscious feelings towards this person. The issue has a lot to do with the feelings of being judged or looked down upon by those around me, and this is very hurtful as well as demoralizing. The invited couple who will be visiting us are quite "successful" in their chosen careers which make me feel like a piece of crap. I feel I will be looked down upon because my current unemployed status. I say that I am a student to at least give myself some legitimacy in the eyes of others, but it is all bull. I know that people will never say how they feel, but I can see the condescending look in their eyes- where I am reduced to a worthless piece of trash in thier estimation because I am not even a real man. I hate these societal expectations, but there are damn real whether I like them or not. I remember someone saying on this board to me one in the course of a heated discussion to go out and get a real job and stop being the perpetual college boy, or words to that affect. Those words wounded me more than everything else that was said in the discussion- evem more hurtful then being called a Nazi, because I know that I am not like that at all.
Currently, I am living off the charity of my wife who, I feel, is becoming more and more angry over that arrangement. I have to ask permission to do eveything, and I feel like a free-loader in my own house. I was brought up - as stupid as it sounds in this day and age-that the man is supposed to provide for the woman and that those men who don't do this are not real mean, but lazy no goods. That is a powerful message and, sadly, I have internalized it over time.
That's enough for now........
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Sarno-ize it!
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 05/17/2007 : 14:15:21
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I remember years ago I fell hopelessly in love with an Indian girl while I was in University. But she did not return my feelings and I subsequently found out that she did and said many hurtful things towards me. She wanted my company because she was lonely away from her home, but she had no romantic feelings towards me at all. I followed her around like a love sick puppy and it was obvious to those around me. We ended up parting ways with a huge verbal spat. I felt so hurt. I know that I never forced myself on that girl, and I felt so sad, so utterly empty when I knew we would never see one another again.
My life is filled with a thousand of these little hurts which have accumulated over time. Over time, I feel it has turned into a white hot rage which I would not even know about if it were not for TMS and the teachings of Dr. Sarno.
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Sarno-ize it!
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Shary
147 Posts |
Posted - 05/17/2007 : 18:39:52
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In her book, The Places that Scare You, Pema Chodron writes: Difficult people are, as usual the greatest teachers. Aspiring to rejoice in their good fortune is a good opportunity to investigate our reactions and our strategies. How do we react to their good luck, good health, good news? With envy? With anger? With fear? What is our strategy for moving away from what we feel? Revenge, self-denigration? What stories do we tell ourselves? (She's a snob...I'm a failure.) These reactions, strategies and story lines are what cocoons and prison walls are made of. Then right on the spot, we can go beneath the words to the nonverbal experience of the emotion. What's happening in our hearts, our shoulders, our gut? Abiding with the physical sensation is radically different from sticking to the story line. It requires appreciation for the moment. It is a way of relaxing, a way to train in softening rather than hardening...
Shawn, I know this is cold comfort when you're faced with a rotten situation, and I have no room to talk. But maybe it will help. Best of luck. |
Edited by - Shary on 05/17/2007 18:41:21 |
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 05/17/2007 : 20:21:41
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Well, it's official, I'm an old geezer now. The daughter of a guy I graduated with from high school just graduated from university. Sigh!
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Sarno-ize it!
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ndb
209 Posts |
Posted - 05/17/2007 : 20:54:13
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Hi Shawn,
I'm an indian girl too. Sending hugs your way to make up for the other one. And just in general I hope it makes you feel better about all the other crap.
You know, I sometimes feel that we'll never be happy no matter what we end up achieving. I'm about to get a phd, and almost every minute of the day I think about what a fake I am, how unoriginal my thoughts are and how I'm not suited for research. I think people would find it strange if they knew how much I hate myslef. I am trying to learn to say f*ck it, and just doing the things which I never realized I enjoyed -- going on hikes, tkd, climbing -- and not taking the work stuff so seriously. |
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ndb
209 Posts |
Posted - 05/17/2007 : 20:57:53
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quote:
Originally posted by shawnsmith
hate to compete in this nasty little place called planet earth. I hate having to continually validate my self-worth based upon my personal performance in this or that activity.
I feel like that too and reading that made me tear up a little. What if you just go and spend part of the weekend doing something else by yourself so you don't have to be around the visitor all the time? |
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gehpsh
USA
2 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2007 : 04:43:17
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| have you told your wife how you feel about this? seems most of your rage is toward her,actually. and why is she doing this if she knows how you feel? |
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2007 : 06:57:22
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quote:
Originally posted by gehpsh
have you told your wife how you feel about this? seems most of your rage is toward her,actually. and why is she doing this if she knows how you feel?
Yes, I discuss this stuff all the time with her. She knows everything I am writing here and a whole lot more.
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Sarno-ize it!
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2007 : 07:14:39
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quote:
Originally posted by ndb
Hi Shawn,
I'm about to get a phd, and almost every minute of the day I think about what a fake I am, how unoriginal my thoughts are and how I'm not suited for research.
I can now see now how much of a farce getting a PhD is. I saw my wife go through all kinds of hell to get hers and everyone around her who was also pursuing their PhD were utterly miserable and I am sure used the f word alot. I think with some cultures there is such intense pressure to get the advanced degrees and associatesd presitige it becomes overwhelming on the individual.
I know an Indian lady right now who is the worse TMS case I have ever seen and if you knew her story you would know why. You name a body part and it hurts on her. She spends literally thousands of dollars a month on meds, physical therapy etc and the doctors keep telling her she will only get worse. Fibro, irritable bowel and bone degeneration are merely three of her diagnosis, there are many more that I cannot even list here. She hobbles along on a cane and is only 32 years old. I introduced her to Sarno's work but she is not fully convinced yet as she has a stakc of MRIs and X-rays to "prove" what the doctors are telling her.
As I stated earlier I meet people with TMS everyday and it is simply amazing. A wife of a friend of mine has TMS really bad but she does not know about TMS yet. I bought her "Healing Back Pain" but have yet to get it to her. Another friend of mind who I ran into yesterday has constant foot pain and has to take cortisone shots. My own niece has back pain so bad at times she cannot even walk. She also has foot pain. She is 26 years old.
When examining the life histories, current situations and personality traits of these people I can clearly see what is taking place. A house wife with 5 children living in the shadow of a highly successsful man, a lady with a phD with no academic or other job prospects and who is constantly enraged about the current state of politics, a goodist who wants to help everyone, and a victim of emotional abuse that is simply terrifying are all part of who these people are.
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Sarno-ize it!
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Edited by - shawnsmith on 05/18/2007 07:19:57 |
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Shary
147 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2007 : 07:55:44
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| I know quite a few people with TMS who don't know they have it. I've always done a lot of alternative stuff so Sarno's approach to pain wasn't much of a reach for me. Most people, however, only take TMS seriously when absolutely nothing else works. To our own detriment, we've been conditioned to believe our incredibly complex bodies are like our vehicles. When something goes wrong, we think we can hobble off to the mechanic (the doctor), pour a few chemicals in the tank, replace or repair a few iffy parts, and we'll be good as new. No wonder homeopathy refers to such a system as flat-earth medicine! |
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tennis tom
USA
4749 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2007 : 10:27:29
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Shawn, your story and that of the Indian lady's makes a good case for the futility of much of what passes for higher education today.
If one's choice of a educational path does not lead to a viable vocation that pays the bills, it's bound to create TMS in the long run.
At the end of the day, whether one feels good about oneself, is largely based upon a feeling of acccomplishment; whether we contributed to the betterment of the univerese as a whole. If all we did was push some papers around and looked busy, it's bound to create guilt, anger, rage and TMS symptoms.
Our culture, society and government, with the propaganda help of the New York media and Hollywod fantasy machine, has turned us down a slippery slope, extolling self-esteem, based on no fundamentals and extolling the virtues of being a loser.
Some of my favorite excerpts from " THE DIVIDED MIND " :
http://www.tmshelp.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2605
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Edited by - tennis tom on 05/18/2007 10:28:23 |
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Woodchuck
USA
111 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2007 : 11:27:59
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quote:
Originally posted by shawnsmith
The invited couple who will be visiting us are quite "successful" in their chosen careers which make me feel like a piece of crap.
Probably not something you can easily turn off, but it looks like you may "care" too much what other people think. I went through this early on in AA. I had about 18 months sober, had become quite active and known in the local area attending meetings evey night, etc. Then, I broke my sobriety and it took a couple more years of in-and-out of AA until I finally got sober (now a little over 21 years). I think part of what made it so difficult to come back to AA was my concern of what people thought of me. I felt like a real loser and well-intentioned people were not helping by trying to "correct my program" or questioning me in why I was not raising my hand during my 1st "30-days of sobriety." I just wanted to crawl in a hole. The one person who was helping me was an old-timer who would shake my hand and say he was glad to see me and did not PREACH! That's all I needed at that point. Not preachers, but EXAMPLES! Anyway, one day it finally dawned on me that what these people thought was ridiculously unimportant and that I'm going to meetings for ME, not to appease THEM! So, after that, when someone approached me in what I read as a pious "my program is working as yours is not" attitude, I would thank them for their suggestion and go on my merry way. Some of the more aggressive people I even told thanks but mind your own business. Anyway, this opened up a new realm for me and I now really don't give a rat's behind what anyone thinks of me. And, these "successful" people you mention? "Successful" by monetary standards? The old keeping up with the Jones' joke? That's a shallow benchmark. Are they happy? Maybe. But I doubt it is because they are filthy rich ;) Getting comfortable with myself has been a big key for me and realizing that other people's opinions are like ***holes and we all have one ;)
IMHO
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art
1903 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2007 : 11:51:45
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Self-esteem in my experience has very little to do with external accomplishments...If you have somehow internalized a sense of self that is characterized by shame and inferiority, nothing in the way of college degrees or wealth or a beautiful (or handsome as the case may be) mate is going to change that...
Like many of us who hang around this pleasant little oasis we call a forum, I was raised by critical parents. My mother's favorite name for us kids was "creature." As in "they're not children of mine. They're not even children. I don't know what they are. They're creatures, that's what they are."
Somewhere along the line, I began to understand that this terrible sense of inferiority I carried around with me was only that, a sense, an image. It had nothing to do with objective reality. When I got to AA, for my higher power I chose my own fundamental "ok'ness." It was a good choice and helped me tremendously. In the decades that followed, I began to have some external success, but it was only because I'd begun to feel better about myself already that that was something I could build on.
Today the image I have of myself is very far removed from what it was when I was 20. On the whole, I like who I am. BUt that doesnb't mean I'm not susceptible to those old feelings. That table of shame and self loathing is always set...My job is to refuse to take a seat.
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2007 : 13:28:25
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Well, right now I am on a longgggggggggg media fast, and I don't intend to break it anytime soon. I find that the news, and I am not just talking politics here, is way too depressing and has a negative impact on my recovery. The media keeps sinking to new lows and I don't have to watch this stuff if I don't want to. In fact, at this moment in time I don't even have a TV. I have do not have a clue about what is taking place in the world- except Britney Spears recently appearing topless on some online chat room she has as one cannot escape news about her or Paris Hilton- and I feel at peace with that decision.
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Sarno-ize it!
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tennis tom
USA
4749 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2007 : 21:15:56
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quote:
Originally posted by shawnsmith
Well, right now I am on a longgggggggggg media fast, and I don't intend to break it anytime soon. I find that the news, and I am not just talking politics here, is way too depressing and has a negative impact on my recovery. The media keeps sinking to new lows and I don't have to watch this stuff if I don't want to. In fact, at this moment in time I don't even have a TV. I have do not have a clue about what is taking place in the world- except Britney Spears recently appearing topless on some online chat room she has as one cannot escape news about her or Paris Hilton- and I feel at peace with that decision.
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Sarno-ize it!
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Dumping the media is a good move Shawn, if anything important happens, you'll hear about it from somebody.
Some of my favorite excerpts from " THE DIVIDED MIND " :
http://www.tmshelp.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2605
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Ranting
