Lived Experience Forum

[Captain24]

These forums are giving me the shits with stuff not working. Now it’s telling me I have no notifications. 

[Captain24]

Hi @NatureLover 

This is this morning at 5 am. 

 

[Jynx]

Afternoon @Captain24 hope your Tuesday has been treating you well. 

So just from what you said last night, it sounds like you have a good framework for understanding your values and knowing what it is that, within your value system, makes up a person's worth. I believe it was Carl Rogers who spoke about like, the idealised self and the perceived self, and that people develop mental health issues when the gap between those is too large. So by working to reduce that gap, we can move closer to living the life we imagine. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the way you've described having worth, it sounds unattainable, or sounds like something people 'just have'. But in reality it's something that you can work on, piece by piece. 

You working again tonight hun? 

[Captain24]

Hi @Jynx 

My Tuesday has been out. I’ve been asleep. Yes I’m working tonight. It’s the last one. I’m off until Monday then. 

I do feel it’s unattainable. I know I have to work at it but is it something that I can work on or is it something that it doesn’t matter how hard I work I will never find my worth. Is being worthless all I’ll ever know? 

I did have a sense of worth when I was in hospital but I lost it when I left. It’s like, while I had support people everyday they carried my worth for me. Then to came out and be alone again I lost it. Does that mean I’m a needy person? Does that say I can only be good enough while I have people around me constantly making me believe that? 

This time in 7 weeks I will be back in there. Maybe the second time around may help or it may give me clarity that I am needy. 

[Captain24]

PS @Jynx. Not one notification is coming through. 

[Jynx]

@Captain24 phew, that's a nice lil break, till Monday! Any plans? 

I truly believe it is absolutely attainable, something that can be worked on. I think it makes total sense that you did feel that sense of worth in hospital, humans are social creatures who thrive when provided external love and support (One of my fav all time quotes from 'The Good Place' - "Look, the point is people improve when they get external love and support. How can we hold that against them when they don't?"). Almost sounds like in hospital was where you were actually getting your emotional and connection needs met. The trick is to find ways to build a life where your emotional and connection needs can be met in a non-hospital context! But then that's what therapy and the next hospital stay are all about, right? Learning the skills to take with you into your life so that you can do so. 

So no, it doesn't make you needy. Or more to the point, you're a human being with unmet needs. Of course you're needy. We all are, and neediness is NOT a bad thing. Heck, I wish our society valued relying on each other waaaay more. We need to. 

[Captain24]

No plans for my days off. At this stage I don’t even have any appointments @Jynx 

The connection and support in hospital was great but I did go in with a great bunch of people. This time will be different and I understand that. 

I don’t know how to find connections. I’m not a very likeable person. I have one friend in town that I go to lunch with occasionally. I took her out for her birthday late last year. She hasn’t even bothered with mine a month ago. We only go to lunch if I organise it. That means there is something wrong with me. I’ve always known that I wasn’t in her class. Now it’s really showing.

I am really alone. Hopefully I can learn tools but out here it’s really hard to meet people. There is no groups or volunteer work for my age. What makes it harder is that I know people won’t have time for me anyway. That shows with lunch. 

[Jynx]

@Captain24 well I like you, very much so! It could be worth though reflecting on what traits or attributes you possess (or don't possess) that make it feel like you're unlikeable, and work on them? 

I will definitely agree that it is really hard to make friends nowadays! With so much of our modern life moving to the internet, there's not so many opportunities to meet people. I have had friends who used an app called 'Bumble' - its tagline is 'We're not just for dating'; I think it started out as an app purely for making friends and maybe opened up to dating later, but in any case you could always just make a profile, pop 'looking for friendships only' (unless you do wanna find romance of course!) into your bio and see what pops up? 

[Captain24]

What I think makes me unlikeable is me @Jynx 

I appreciate you saying that you like me but do you really? It’s your job. 

While I think you are awesome and reckon you would be pretty cool to know in real life I’m not sure I’d be your cup of tea.  

Im very quiet, shy, anxious, unable to hold a conversation and really suck at small talk. I don’t know what to say and when, I fear that people will realise how stupid I am. 

No confidence and very reserved make it hard for anyone to get to know me. Plus I don’t really have anything to offer to make me even remotely likeable.

[Jynx]

@Captain24 Well yeah, I'm paid to be here, doesn't mean my words are disingenuine, just a little filtered... (lol like I usually swear a lot more 😋). 

The things you've listed - anxious, quiet, no good at small talk - none of those things are 'unlikeable' traits (well, sure maybe to some people but those people are not folks we wanna invest time and energy into anyway!), it just means you have some extra barriers. Which does suck, but these traits won't matter - to the right people. 

What sorts of things do you tend to admire in others? Perhaps those are things you could work towards?