Insecurities

I feel intensely insecure in whatever work I'm doing, even if I'm experienced or have qualifications, it cripples me. Imposter syndrome, seems to fit my symptoms in some ways, but it also seems to overarch into feeling this way about life. Like I'm not meant to be here. It plagues me, this feeling that I don't fit in within the world, like I am failing at being human or being a part of society. I feel like I am not cut out for life, although I do want to live. It crushes me. I would desperately like to be happy and belong and be proud and productive, to have a job and friends and family and live like other people do. But I am only ever surviving, never thriving. I am 33 and barely have my head above water. I can sometimes hide it quite well and can even come across as confident for short periods of time. But I can't keep it up for long and the cracks start to show after time. I feel like as I get older in life, people have been noticing that I'm different, not normal, and seeing the cracks. I am desperate for them to not see them, but I can see them putting together the jigsaw pieces in their head, adding up the sums and coming to the same conclusion as I have...there is something wrong with me and it runs deep.

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Hello! These are tough feelings to deal with. I used to feel kind of like this, and honestly I think everyone does to some degree. If you meet someone who has total confidence in everything they do they’re either lying to you or trying to sell you something lol. It’s hard to make suggestions without knowing a little more about the things you’re specifically insecure about, but I can share what I did when I felt this way. I used to feel deeply anxious about practically everything: my looks, my talents and skills, my decisions, even the things I wanted; I felt like they were somehow wrong or untrustworthy. One day I just got kind of fed up with feeling so afraid of what other people thought and all the ways things could go wrong, so I took a teeny tiny little step: I would just try a few new things out and see what I thought about them and ignore everyone else. I spent about a week to myself really thinking about who I was and who I wanted to be, and when I came out of it I decided that I would be that person no matter what anyone else said. After all, I’d already come so far and spent so much time and pain thinking about it, it would be such a waste to let myself go back to being miserable. I think a lot of the power for change can come from exhaustion with the current state of things, if that makes any sense? A therapist I knew told me that a stage called “precontemplation” is necessary when someone wants to change something, like an alcoholic examining the possibility that they’re causing their loved ones pain with their drinking. Once this person comes to the tough conclusion that they are, then they can reach the stage that all the 12-step programs tell you is step 1: admitting they have a problem. I think you’re off to a promising start here by deciding you want things to be different and looking for ways to change things! A little time spent sitting, thinking, and maybe journaling about what’s got you feeling so insecure, be it past experiences with loved ones, trauma at a formative moment, or a part of your true identity you might be burying could help you get a little clarity that you could turn into a concrete list of things you’d like to (slowly) add or remove from your life. I also wonder if maybe being honest with others about where you struggle or feel insecure would help? Instead of trying to hide it or pretend, just admitting that you feel a little unsure or could use support might actually make you feel and appear more confident. Some will tell you it’s weak to need a hand, but it takes guts to own up to needing help, and people will usually respond to that. “Fake it ‘til you make it” works to some degree, but in my own day-to-day experience it’s really more helpful when geared towards the simple honesty and openness to say I don’t know what I’m doing. Please feel free to share more if you want to!!! These kinds of thoughts really bear down on your mind and relief can be tough to come by. I hope things are going ok.

(Thanks mucho-mucho, Grig!) HelloMeAgain, For any respondents' sakes - I'm pasting in your opening post and title from your second thread as you're supposed to have only one thread running at-a-time, meaning, the other has to be frozen (sorry): _________________________________________________________________________________________ HELLOMEAGAIN, wrote: TITLE: "Are there such things as safe people?" "My life experience has been fraught with people who have hurt me to my core. I am at the moment trying to cope with my biggest hurdles - fear and trust. These are big stumbling blocks in my life. I am afraid, anxious, and insecure. I have never been more acutely aware of how much I need a savior. I don't want to need one and I would do anything to save myself. But I honestly do not know how to keep living whilst my head is barely above the water, there are cracks in the deck, the ship is sinking and I am determined to not let passing ships see. Bombs penetrated the hull, it set off a raft without a paddle, a ship without a sail and no means of navigation. Every man let on board turned mutinous and damage was done every time one forced his way on board. It is not now sea-worthy, bits of wood held together with tape." _________________________________________________________________________________________

Hello HelloMeAgain(again), it's me again, haha! Agree with Grig (fantastic response! - keep going!). Including - yes, CAN we have more details please so we can tell what triggers this 'running-out' of confidence while on the job? It might be external first, internal second - or vice-versa. What you describe will show us. Your other opening post up there though IS riddled with Scooby Clues as to its etioilogy/origin, though, don't you think? (Loved your poetic-sounding analogy btw.) Yuh! Psycho-emotionally unsafe people DO make one insecure....INCREASINGLY....for as long as they're around them (or while they're waking-up to it and joining the rest of the Empaths on that conveyorbelt of a Recovery Path, and the past lack of safety was chronic or deeply-impactfully acute - either/or). I.e. - Live ones or ghosts? Or BOTH? Spill-spill! :) ***************************** "people have been noticing that I'm different, not normal," What - like, "wrong planet" not normal, you mean?