Am trying to make sense of something I don't understand about me.

[Lanark2]

Hello,
I am trying to understand something about me that frankly I can't seem to get right, or get help from family or friends over, and I really would be very grateful for input from people here.

The problem is, that I don't feel appreciated, but its worse than that, it that I don't feel that anybody knows or cares who I am. Its not a weird emotional state, its just kind of true.

By that I mean that I can't remember the last time I had a conversation about things I am passionate about, out one of those end of week debriefs that reset your view of humanity, but on top of this, my e employer thinks I don't have skill in advance of my role, yet I have run projects that are bigger in scope than the department. I have had brilliant relationships, that seemed to just end, either when I was discussed too much by my partner and her friends, or that just fizzled out, and now I am often viewed as 'not boyfriend material' yet I always feel that I am in love with commitment, shared vision, would desperately love a family, and am without exception supportive of my partner, perhaps more than I am supportive of myself.
In my group of friends, I used to be viewed as the successful one, yet in the last six years have been bullied out of three jobs, sometimes aggressively, sometimes passively, and I can't put my finger on why so many things for me go the opposite to the way they go for others.

The relationship thing is the most puzzling, as my last relationship ended up with my partner being in a constant power struggle with me without my playing back, which just deflated everything.

any help or suggestions welcome.

Women don't get all pissy after dark or whatever weird sexist assumption you are trying to imply...

Pissy after dark to weird sexist assumptions was rather a leap offred. Fwiw I can get pissy after dark. I also didn't read that op was suggesting that women are lushes but made a generic reference to 'wine o'clock' - generally understood to mean the time people, men and women, tuck into wine.

Op, lots of people me have taken the trouble to post kindly, helpful posts, which you have ignored entirely. You post to answer attacks only. You have been attacked on here - a lot of it projection imo: accusing you of misogyny while piling in with man-hate (not all women are like this btw). Though not all attacks have been projection, just you are exposing your very deepest to an anonymous internet forum (ouch) which thousands will read and draw some pretty ignorant assumptions - simply bcs we are not trained.

I don't know if you were being tongue-in-cheek when you twice made the comment about women wanting financial security from a man. Women, like you, generally want meaningful, loving, respectful, equal relationships - a few want 'financial security' but they are a distinct minority. Plus women may well earn the same as or more than their male partners so 'financial security' isn't really an issue. Anyway, I do think you were getting a rise or its late o'clock and I'm being a bit fick missing subtleties.

Do please take your precious innards to a professional behind closed doors; who is trained not to project and will handle them, your precious innards, carefully, respectfully and knowledgeably. You're not getting that here bcs we don't have the training and are generally bog standard bods and it's likely you're going to get our 'stuff'. Which is hardly helpful when you are already experiencing a great deal of anguish as it is.

There's a big difference between wanting a partner to be self-sufficient financially and wanting them to bankroll you. I've known people who end up having to pay off a spouse's debts not because the spouse is unfortunate but because they have zero financial sense. It might not bother some people but it bothers me.

If you think it isn't sexist to suggest women can't offer sensible advice after 6pm because they are all drunk, they all nag about cleaning, TV and xbox and they are all only interested in a man who has money and will take on the whole financial burden of a relationship I think you are a bit strange springy.

The op's posts are full of fault finding generalisations about women. That's why it comes across to me that he doesn't particularly see them as people - rather objects to further his completion of his tick boxes, and doesn't particularly like them.

I think the OP would be better off going to "Men Going Their Own Way", he'll get as much as he wants of "women are gold diggers, we could have been soooo successful if only they werent keeping us down! (by being sexually available all the time and washing our precious toes the rest of the time while never spending any of our money) there.

Hi OP sorry you're feeling so down.

Has the advice on this thread made any kind of positive difference to you, do you think? Has there been anything said on here which has struck any kind of chord with you?

What, for instance, do you think of the idea of getting some therapy? Are you resistant to that, or do you think it could help you?

How would you feel about keeping a gratitude/appreciation journal? The idea of this is that each night you write down three things you appreciated during the day, can be anything, the song of a bird, the rain stopping, the taste of your soup, the enjoyment of some music, a smile from a passer-by, a daffodil emerging, a text or call from a friend, a wonderful painting, something on the radio which makes you laugh etc. As this becomes a habit, writing three things every night your brain is being trained to look for the good stuff during the day. You start to notice stuff and think, ah yes I'll put that in my appreciation diary tonight. Of course it's up to you how much or little you write, if it's a list: 1 friend called, 2 sun came out, 3 delicious coffee and croissant. Or whether you wax lyrical and write more. Buy yourself a decent notebook, something you really like the feel of in your hands, and use it only for gratitude or appreciation. It has got to be worth a try, surely, and you might surprise yourself by finding you have more and more to be glad about.

Sometimes we get stuck in unhelpful ways of thinking. And sometimes changing something we do can help our thinking to change too.

Best of luck.

Hi OP,

I read your post yesterday. My first reaction was, I could have written this. I decided to wait to respond - to gather my thoughts.

I totally get your frustration: how is it possible to do so much and to be so capable and yet get nothing, zilch, zero in return. Not needing much, yet not even being able to get that.

Recent things I have said to myself have included I want to work and contribute at the level of my intelligence (I'm not); I don't feel heard or understood by anyone; I feel that I have fallen out of life; why can't other people see my capabilities?; why can't I find people with whom I can connect. So you are not alone.

For me, it is a very lonely and frustrating place and has led to a breakdown - trying too hard for too long. I live on very little money and cannot afford to socialise.

It wasn't always like this - I'm sociable and in my early 20s made friends easily. I'm 50 now. Then a few bad things happened and I became 'someone with problems'. I've tried hard to fix it. A lot of the comments made to you have focussed on how it's always other people that are the problem. I think this can become your inner talk if you are endlessly trying to open doors for yourself and nothing happens for you. You're willing - but for whatever reason, they are not. So I wouldn't pay heed to any of the comments which are saying'it's all about you'.

Having a breakdown gave me the opportunity to step out of the fray, to gather myself a bit. To explore what it is about me that needs to change. Not because I might be 'at fault', but because it is the only area I can control.

I too was bullied out of a job. I am also socially isolated and am prone to 'falling out' with people - usually when they've been exceptionally rude to the point that they've overstepped a boundary. I've explored this dynamic and think that it must be a combination of my being very nice and understanding and not having a clue that there are power games/mind games going on around me all the time. I couldn't do a power game if I tried.

The second is to do with a childhood where cruel teasing put me on the defensive all the time. I grew up in one of those families where you learn the survival skills for a dysfunctional environment athat can lead to floundering in a normal one. Like you, I've been a high achiever - I thrived at school but have struggled ever since. I had always thought that progress resulted from application and merits, but it seems that it doesn't. Emotional security and a sense of feeling safe are essential. You mention safety - and the need to feel it. It's so true, but whilst many people are lucky to be given this gift by their parents, it doesn't seem that you have this. I don't either. So it becomes, I think, important to find it in yourself. This is what I am trying to do.

At the moment this means training myself to not need people or 'success'. Not trying to prove myself to my parents - I'm 50 for goodness sake!

Doing an online Myers Briggs test has helped enormously - I suspect that you are the same personality type as me. It made me feel so much better about myself as it accurately described so much of the angst that swirls around me.

PS can you find a toastmaster group (public speaking) near you, to resurrect those verbal skills and be social at the same time? Highly recommended.

Wow, thanks tormentil, I'm so glad you shared all that, it is very much how I feel, and I will read your post in depth later.

Thinking about this has also helped..because of the types of reactions I have seen here, and because school is how it is (I often knew more than the teachers) my 'public' persona and at work is initially always hides any knowledge and ability.. For example I knew health and medicine encyclopaedias inside out, whilst at the same time going to school to be told I had no abilities in biology. So I think that has a factor..as a boy the consequences from the resentful were nasty and violent, but I am stuck in a bind, show who I am and be attacked, hide who I am and be labeled false..

Felt like reading smth..and look what I found..couldn't help but share this..

One thing I have learned, and I don't mean to patronise at all, is the art of 'being managed'. It is very easy, if you are clever and knowledgeable, to get frustrated with the 'low level' stuff you are asked to do and rather than doing it, you find other stuff to do which is more meaningful and important.

I was like this a lot at school - I found it easy and was frustrated that I still had to learn about the basic stuff when it was the more advanced stuff which interested me. I remember my Science teacher refusing to enter me for higher science because I did no work and she worried I'd fail. So I did the intermediate exam, finished it half an hour early and got an A (no A* on intermediate papers). Who was right? Then, I would have said me. Now....well she had a point. In my first few jobs I got frustrated with inefficient management and their inefficient systems that I could see a hundred ways of improving. But that made me a tricky employee.

As I've matured, I've learned to recognise that management is a multilayered process and at each level of management the will be pressures from below and pressures from above. I've realised that it's only good to have these ideas if you are 100% reliable in the day to day work.

In essence, I think both you and tormentil need to see the bigger picture. It's not all about you and your potential. It's about contributing to a team.

Ah, interesting, but good team behaviour is supporting and encouraging and allows use of, not suppression of skills. I have worked in good teams and then, low level work is less of a frustration because people are seen as whole not 'the bit we want and everything else is useless and problematic'. I think you are projecting a little here, as I have always been a very strong team player.. The difficulty is when people who don't see a team, the see a pecking order..I become a threat to that view because I am so team oriented.

I think it might be time to accept, OP, that you might not be right in your self-estimation.

It's a horrible thought for any of us. I've felt physically sick for example when realising that what I think of as cheerful teasing can come across to someone else as really hurtful (and seen the same reaction on others when I've had to explain that they've hurt me).

You think you're a good team player, that you are highly intelligent, that you are kind and would be a supportive friend if just given the chance etc. But from what you've posted it seems no-one else thinks that. I'm not saying they're all correct and you're totally deluded, but things just can't be as one-sided as you imagine, can they? Don't you see the logic in that? I may think I've got straight hair but if enough people comment on my curly hair, clearly it's not as poker straight as I imagine, is it? The explanation cannot be "everyone I encounter all the time is a tosser".

What I want to ask is, what kind and nice and supportive things do you do for others? These are obviously qualities you value highly, so how do you demonstrate them in your interactions with those around you?

What you've shown on this thread are not the qualities of a strong team player but an impression of someone who has very rigid expectations and who has contempt for anyone who doesn't treat them the exact way they expect to be treated, reacts with disdain and intractability and harbours secret revenge fantasies when people don't comply with their expectations. Someone who is utterly convinced that the only way to do things is the way they expect things to do and anyone else who doesn't do things that way is responsible for holding their life back. Someone who feels they are entirely dependent on other people complying with their rigid rules and who consistently apportions blame (and therefore control) to everybody but themselves.

And many things are not consistent in your responses;

Women don't like you because they are money grabbing and you haven't ticked 'financial security' boxes but you own property.

You live hand to mouth and need to borrow money to make ends meet but you were out in a restaurant yesterday.

You are emotionally available and ready to share with a partner but are committed to past relationships.

Etc

www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test

The personality test that I found both useful and enlightening.

In essence, I think both you and tormentil need to see the bigger picture. It's not all about you and your potential. It's about contributing to a team

Sorry,lougle, that is patronising. I didn't ask for advice.

No offered, I don't go on my knees for bullies, that's all, and you find that frustrating. That resilience is good for teams. Sorry it frustrates you.
You have also catastropised exaggerated and made up the points I make so that others who read them join in with you, and so you can increase your anger. These aren't my issues.

Earlier you said useful things, now you are bullying.

"good team behaviour is supporting and encouraging and allows use of, not suppression of skills"

Actually, good team behaviour is everyone doing what benefits the team the most.
Not everyone can do the glamorous parts of a job, if boring paperwork or documentation is what the team needs people to do then thats what a good team player does. Do you regard being asked to do the boring work as a suppression of your skills, maybe?

I'm not angry.

I think you might be projecting there.

I'm basing my comments on what you have said.

As you have said more and more my perspective has changed from wondering if you were unconfident, lacking an ability to be assertive and with poor boundaries which allow you to be taken advantage of to thinking the problems you are concerned about are most likely a result of you being an extremely difficult and frustrating person to deal with on any level.

I've got no reason to have changed my view other than based on what you have written on this thread.

It's particularly unreasonable to regard any criticism at all as bullying for example.

At least try plausible denial.

And what is this thread for if the gentle cajoling people are ignored by you, the more forthright people are attacked by you, all ideas are rejected and you still maintain your life is beyond your control because it is other people who are responsible for all of your unhappiness and you can't do anything to change it?

Did you just come looking for sympathy or actual advice/outside perspective?

Unless you stop with the assumption that people who don't agree with you/say/do what you want are wrong/bullying you/responsible for your unhappiness your life will never change IMO.

No matter what side of the advice giving coin people have fallen on - confrontational/blowing smoke up your arse, everyone has advised you that you can change your life for the better and that therapy would help you.

You have your answer but you've met that answer by ignoring or dismissing it, preferring instead to focus on how wronged you feel by the world.

It's not a healthy way to live your life.

The exaggeration is charming..but that's not what's happening. I am just choosing to listen to the adult advice as the priority and the accusing lying stuff later. That's all

As I say, you are yelling that I've ignored it. I have taken it on board. Do you see?