Posted by Eddie Sylvano on January 9, 2003, at 10:48:50
In reply to Re: Extremely bad luck with people, posted by fuzzymind on January 8, 2003, at 19:25:49
>I am very angry that I never did anything to fight back effectively, or never told them to leave me alone.
>My anger comes from not beating him up
>Maybe I shold have punched him. Why was I such a coward?
----------------You obviously hate this guy, and who could blame you? It amazes me that someone could make it to a good college and still be such a moron as your former roommate. Clearly, it also bothers you that you never stood up for yourself. I think that's probably a good thing at heart. People should defend or remove themselves from abuse. The fact that you didn't way back then shouldn't dominate you so much today, though. It's long over, and I'm sure that guy doesn't even think about those days anymore. Actually, if he's as much of an ass as you've described, I can't imagine that he's particularly happy nowadays, box seats or no.
If your past tolerance in the face of abuse is bothering you, maybe you could try taking up a self-defense program of some kind, and rebuilding your assertive skills and image of yourself as a capable, powerful person.>I remeber in college , when I would walk down the street, sometimes homeless people would make remarks to me or a spanish guy would mutter chinko, or other students would mutter chink as I passed them by. I didn't know these people, but I was hurt by their remarks.
---------------That's so bizzare. What part of the country was this in? I've met some racist people in my day, but I've never known anyone who was genuinely upset about asians (unless they were other asians from a different asian country. go figure.). It's probably just the fact that you're different in some way, and it gave them something to focus on, like if you had a lot of freckles or were too skinny.
I also have to second what Dinah said. Associating someone's race with their personality traits isn't an accurate or useful way to predict people's behavior (and it tends to upset people). If someone's an idiot, they're just an idiot, race be damned.I am desperate need of approval . Negative remarks by people I don't like hurt me when for a normal person, they should not. Why is this?
----------------It sounds like the people in your earlier life (parents, roommate) didn't give you much approval, so it's reasonable that you'd feel that way. Ideally, you'd have Jesus (or whoever) as a roommate and endlessly loving, supportive parents. A fair amount of our ease in life seems to be luck of the draw. I had a raging freak of a father and half-assed friends in school who would turn on me in a heartbeat if it bought them a second's attention from popular kids. I could fill pages with school stories of being dumped in a trash can, having food smashed in my face, being ridiculed to tears in public, etc. In my case, I was certainly white, but was skinny and wore glasses. Anything that stands out in school gets smashed flat.
> SOunds like a good plan. Extremely difficult to try. Been trying to talk back to negative thoughts, but the negative thoughts always win out.
-------------It's very hard. You have to use a brain that is wired to think negatively, and manage to maintain a trend towards positivity. It's like trying to train an old dog from the pound to ride a skateboard. It's difficult, but it can be done.
>The bigget problem is that I don't have a medical degree or any other degree and a high paying job that goes with it. If I had a job, then I could work through this much easier.
-----------------Well, you need money to live, but beyond a certain amount, your life doesn't really get any better. It's never too late to change careers, too. I'm 30, but I'm going back to school this fall to take pre-med classes. You've already got a bachelor's. You could probably get a master's degree fairly quickly and get into a new career, if that's what you really want.
>The examples given in Dr Burns Feeeling Good book are people who are in relationships, have very high paying jobs(DR Burns seems to relish in showing everyone how much money his patients make), or successful professionally.
--------------I've never read that one. Maybe he thinks that people won't want to emulate the patients in his book if they're depicted as failures? Women in Tupperware commercials always look like models, too.
>Also, I am a 33 year old virgin, never even kissed a woman or gone out on a date.
--------------Men get the difficult role of being the ones to approach women, so nothing will likely happen unless you start asking. I got married at 19, and after I got divorced, I had no clue how to date, so I tried an Internet dating service (match.com). It was helpful, getting me to go on several dates and familiarizing me with how the process works. It made me more comfortable around women, and confident enough to start asking other women out. Once you can get to that point, things seem to be much easier.
>Women never paid attention to me. well except to yell at me when I said hi to them...lol...no kidding...that actually happened in high school.
------------Yeah. I never even bothered asking out any girls in school. None of them seemed even remotely receptive. School is a whole different world than adulthood, though. Priorities change with circumstances.
>If I were white..I am absolutely sure my thinkg would be different. But the problem is that according to a recent poll, I think around 40 percent, amaybe it was only 25 percent, but I am certain it is 40 percent of Americans don't like Asians.
--------------If that's true, I'm surprised to hear that. What's everyone's problem with Asians? I've known several over the years (Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Laosian) and they've all been intelligent, interesting people. Still, stupid people are always going to hate anyone that they can't identify with. I wouldn't dwell on it.
For that matter, I'm sure that the easy majority of people on this board are white, and it hasn't helped ameliorate their mental health problems.
> I need around the clock interaction in some kind of treatment facility.
-------------------You can get that if you need it. I think you could probably manage to improve largely on your own, or maybe with the help of a supportive friend or two. You just need to make an effort to get unstuck from the rut you're in, and you'll find that each success you achieve will pave the way for the next. Medications helped me to get a reprieve from the kind of thoughts that dominated my mind for years, and begin laying down a better self concept that I'm still working on daily. It's like taking diet pills to jump start you into a weight loss regimen. Eventually, the progress you see becomes a reward and incentive for trying harder, and a new cycle is started that is the opposite of the one you've been on.
Anyway, sorry to ramble on for so long. Hope I haven't been to preachy about things.
poster:Eddie Sylvano
thread:2175
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20021230/msgs/2191.html