Thanks straight

[Scarstruck]

Today is one of those days I wake up and realize how much I hate myself and everything about myself...
And when I start to think and analize I can take it back to straight..I didnt feel that way before.

I cant even be in a mall parking lot and have a small crowd walk past the car without thinking how they must look at me and ythink horrible things..

Why would I care what they think? I dunno but its a natural thing.
It isnt cognative...its my nature now. Its a thing I know by instinct...

But it isnt really there...is it? Groups of people scare me..I cant handle meeting more thn one or 2 new ppl at a time.
 To go to an apartment and sit with 4 new people in the room would suffocate me.

[Sophie]

I reply to your post with hesitation, as I have read posts where you have become hostile/abusive toward those you are posting to. :scared:

I do however feel compelled to empathize with you.  I too have a tremendous fear of interacting with groups of people and particularly the scenerio you presented with the "4 new people in an apartment".  That would send me out of my skin.

I wonder what part of the straight experience would cause this reaction in me. Was it being scared that people thought I was full of shit? Maybe it wasn't straight..maybe I am just self centered and thinking way too much about myself to be projecting that total strangers are thinking bad things about me.  I am over the "they think I am a piece of shit" stuff and now focus only on how I look.  I am overweight and so I project that others think I am disgusting and must be lazy and undisciplined.  It seems to be that I am just putting the thoughts I have about myself into other peoples heads.  Who  knows.  There are so many things about me that are different since my time in Straight.  I think aging and my life experiences combined with being a "straightling" are the reasons I suffer this way..not just because of straight.  Who really knows?  I try not to think about it so much anymore and just accept that I am isolative and trust very few people.  I am ok with the small group of friends I have cultivated..fuck everybody else!

[Anonymous]

My fears of people came from the constant analyzing and delving into my real reasons for every thing I said felt or thought. Which when first graduating Straight made people tell me I was weird different psychotic and just abnormal hence crawling further into my shell.

[Anonymous]

I wonder what my problem is. I have all of those feelings but never went through a straight like program (someone very dear to me has). I have low self esteem and think people are always thinking the worst of me.  I dont like big groups of people and dont really deal with friends. I like to be isolated.

[animals all of us]

I am not like you SS only in the sense that the actions, that we use as any means to forget about what was done to us and who they made us into, might maybe be different.  But those 'actions' we do are not different in the sense that they were/are inevitable.
What I mean is that I feel what you feel.
I get fucking nervous around most.  I get nervous around anyone in authority, too; everytime.
I wonder what is wrong with me sometimes.  Fortunately, now, I am able to recall that I am feeling bad and feeling non kosher or whatever anyone calls it because that is what I was trained and made to be.

[RTP2003]

I was talking to a friend of mine about this a couple of weeks ago, and she made the point that we were 'Programmed' (pun intended) to respond to life situations in the worst possible way-- whether it is endless self-criticism and self-analysis, whether it is "being open and honest" to people that we should not be that way with, trusting those who do not deserve our trust, suspicious of those that do, "confronting" others (either to show that we are 'strong' or that we 'really care').  This all happened for us during formative, child-development years.  Our socialization processes were fucked, and when you combine that with the constant drilling into our heads the lies of "you'll die without Straight" it became a self-fulfilling prophecy in all too many cases. I don't think I had any self-esteem issues before Straight, other than normal teenage-type stuff, but once they "diagnosed" me and drilled into my head that I had a "low self-opinion", I damn sure got one.

[GregFL]

You hit the nail right on the head my friend.  All that confronting people and problems with trust, at the same time opening up to complete strangers has really made for a strange life journey for me. I struggle still with these issues, except for the confronting thing. I was able to drop that about 15 years ago thankfully.

[Scarstruck]

On 2004-09-09 13:46:00, Sophie wrote:

"I reply to your post with hesitation, as I have read posts where you have become hostile/abusive toward those you are posting to. :scared:



I do however feel compelled to empathize with you.  I too have a tremendous fear of interacting with groups of people and particularly the scenerio you presented with the "4 new people in an apartment".  That would send me out of my skin.



I wonder what part of the straight experience would cause this reaction in me. Was it being scared that people thought I was full of shit? Maybe it wasn't straight..maybe I am just self centered and thinking way too much about myself to be projecting that total strangers are thinking bad things about me.  I am over the "they think I am a piece of shit" stuff and now focus only on how I look.  I am overweight and so I project that others think I am disgusting and must be lazy and undisciplined.  It seems to be that I am just putting the thoughts I have about myself into other peoples heads.  Who  knows.  There are so many things about me that are different since my time in Straight.  I think aging and my life experiences combined with being a "straightling" are the reasons I suffer this way..not just because of straight.  Who really knows?  I try not to think about it so much anymore and just accept that I am isolative and trust very few people.  I am ok with the small group of friends I have cultivated..fuck everybody else!"

 I rarely do anything without a reason. And if I speak in am hostile manner to someone its because I feel disrespected or threatened.
   I bite back.

[Anonymous]

yeah, like a child....


"I only attack and act like an ass when I have a reason"


What a joke. Grow up.

[beth1222]

I went into SAFE in 95 and commenced in 97 (after which I was "condemned" for dropping my after care because it was a big fat joke!)and I still see the "therapy" affecting me almost 10 years later.  I have been married for 3 years now and have 2 children.  My husband and I have been attending counseling and on the verge of divorce mainly because he can't handle my constant analyzing him and our issues.  I wish I could stop, but everything that happens I'm like "so what your really reading that magazine for is to avoid me" or something like that.  Damn RSC...I read into everything!  I hope counseling can reverse it, amongst all of the other mental and emotional problems that still haunt me.

[Froderik]

Sometimes I think that the only solution to this kind of thing is to marry someone else from the program. Then there might be some more understanding and common ground...

[Anonymous]

I know someone who did that, they say it was a bad idea...

[shady grove]

Did it. Still married after 7 years. I must say, though, that it is much more than straight that keeps us together.

It's nice to have someone so close that I can share this stuff with. We've both been out about fifteen years, and were not in there at the same time. To this day we still spend lots of time discussing it. She graduated overage after 13 months, while I was a hopeless 3-time cop-out with a two year program and eventual withdrawl. No kids though...I'm terrified of what we may produce!!

[Sophie]

First of all Scarstruck... I am not the anonymous one who said for you to grow up...I am still a paranoid straightling and don't want to be wrongly accused.  ::kiss:: Sophie

[animals all of us]