Needing validation (general thread)

@pixels thanks!

and yeah, i think processing it like that would be very useful. 'cause i think i do have problems with feels-vomit.

 

@pixels That DayOne sounds pretty cool. I'm pretty bare-bones, so I just use a private Dreamwidth account and braindump in there, but having somewhere private to write things down and process helps me a lot. And then I have a log of What Actually Happened, which is handy.

Sadly, I have the exact opposite of an addictive personality, so I keep it up for a couple months, then get distracted and drop it for a year again. I'm in the 'dropped' stage right now, probably will get back to it soon. :P

 

I have the weird addictive personality deal, where I will got obsessively stuck on something, get bored, and then drop it forever. I did that with House; i'm pretty sure I *still* haven't seen the latter half of the last season yet. I started smoking sophomore year and then dropped it like 4 months ago (with no real issues besides the oral fixation)

but, please, continue sperging on psych stuff.

 

i'm pretty sure i don't have bpd but i feel the bpd-side of what @seebs is describing here
like, having trouble with boundaries (sometimes i'm a bit stalkerish, though that never involves doing things that are meant to hurt people, and i try to get people to talk to me about the stuff i like and sending lots of messages) but respecting them once they are actually set out clearly, and then feeling hurt or neglecting and basically suffering
and it sucks
why the hell do i need so much validation?
and now i'm crying

 

@seebs the thing is, i don't think i have the other bpd symptoms or whatever. like, i think i'm pretty chill, for one. i mean, i get anxious and shit but not angry, really. and i understand shades of grey pretty well, that people aren't all good or all bad - that believing they are all bad or all good causes problems. like, even the people i practically idolize, i can look at them and think, "i don't like how you do that thing. that thing bothers me or is morally questionable. like, you're still pretty cool and i still adore you but i disagree with that shit. that shit, which nonetheless is not the sum of your entire being and doesn't stop me from liking you/loving you/having a crush on you/practically idolizing you/whatever. and it isn't magically awesome just 'cause you do it."

and the weird thing is my parents are pretty validating, though my dad does sometimes seem a bit invalidating about my weird food preferences - he doesn't try to change them though, just thinks they are silly and generally is confused about how the hell i could have them (like, he understands they are autism, just doesn't quite... get them). and i recall when mom was invalidating about me shipping slash, and about one of my friends, when i was 12, being bi or gay (not sure which) 'cause she thought that friend was basically - not in anything remotely like those words, tone-wise - an attention whore and/or drama queen. both which really upset me at the time. but mom doesn't do that normally, so...

and i recall feeling really invalidated by those autism social skills classes. (only bothered with them 'cause i cared about the accommodations. if i could've got accommodated without the ableism [?], i would've.)

that and being most attached to my small fandoms, the ones with not many people to talk to and not much of anything happening, makes me feel invalidated. which isn't deliberate on anyone's part but sure as hell hurts.

also, the general difficulties i've been having interacting with the person i've been talking about for weeks, and how they aren't comfortable yet with me talking a lot to them (like, they are comfortable with me talking to them, i just can't do it anything like All the Time) and how i'm generally succeeding at respecting their boundaries now - maybe even going overboard, i don't know, and as a result, i'm feeling hurt and neglected.)

 

FWIW I'm pretty sure all of this is why BPD was flung at me as a Thing I Probably Have by my CBT therapist.

Fucking # about me, basically. However, I think a redeeming aspect is that you're actually thinking about other people's boundaries and such, just your brain fixates on it because it knows it's had problems with that before, and then you get into an overanalyzing downward spiral. So, to paraphrase the Charlie Brown Christmas special, "the fact that you are seeking help means you are not too far gone." Seems like you want to respect others' boundaries, but you're not sure how.


I'm starting to mull over this combined with the empathy/sympathy sperging thread. Wondering whether a deficit in being able to read others' boundaries is a brainweird (perhaps related to other social skills deficits, or autism, in that it makes it difficult to read people/emotions in general) that isn't dysfunctional per se, but turns into something horrible when absolutely no effort is made to learn this skill or accommodate other human beings.

 

@pixels thanks! and yep, i want to but i'm not sure how.

and yeah, that seems pretty likely. :D

 

The only thing about that assessment of BPD, though, is that I'm not sure what the fuck went wrong with me as a child that made my brain warp that way. Like, my parents are kinda great, most of the time. I'm not sure you could call my parents profoundly invalidating so much as "didn't want to raise their children into entitled monsters." Like, yeah, I was brought up with constant messages of "don't brag about yourself or your accomplishments" (which makes it so hard to find a job now) but I'm not sure that it counts as profoundly invalidating to be basically taught to be super-humble. And needing to be self-sufficient (not asking for help, not talking to others about weaknesses, not showing weakness at all) was also drilled into my head. Maybe I have an inherently BPD-wired brain that took these messages as sort of black and white stark rules? Then again, I was just a kid and kids don't get nuance or exceptions to rules.

Also, is it possible to invalidate yourself? Probably, seeing as I have a really bad track record of making long-term decisions for myself, to the point where I'm kind of paralyzed about my upcoming move later this summer or of trying to find a job in a new city, because every life decision (apart from last summer) I've ever made has turned out kind of shitty and led to me being just a little psychologically damaged one way or another. Is this a symptom, or is it the cause of other symptoms? ... Aaaaaaaaaaaaand the ouroboros eats its own tail, and I obviously need to sleep before I gaze too far into my navel.

 

Hoooooly crap. I'm seeing a lot of myself in this last page.

I started typing "too much" and had the knee jerk reminder "no, that's too honest and severe a statement, people will get on your case if you say it like that, use milder words so they don't direct all their attention on what's wrong with you." Which is, in itself, not a fantastic train of thought. Alarmed assumptions about what others would think, deflecting to better hide my weaknesses, and doing nothing to positively change my thoughts---just the presentation... Yeesh. I am so glad I found this group. It's helping me put words to things that, left to myself to say it, I just wildly gesture and go mute about.

 

and with being really into small fandoms, this problem can continue into adulthood. #methings

omfg i know that feel
like i am constantly censoring myself that way, and trying to hide my weakness (less on kintsugi than elsewhere, yeah, but it's a thing) and the alarmed assumptions

yep, kintsugi is awesome for that :D

 

This makes for entertaining reading what with the way my brain decided last week to insistently inform me that the boyfriend no longer needs me now he's at uni and has readily accessible meatspace friends and is therefore inevitably going to drift away because his reality friends are more interesting and probably fall in love with one of them instead and then just turn up one day after having not been around for ages and be like 'oh btw I'm breaking up with you'.
...
This is mostly because I have approximately zero meatspace friends of the sort I actually need right now.

 

@TwoBrokenMirrors so, hugs or something? thoughts like that suck a lot.

 

Ugh yes. The number of people I can sperg to about my fandoms is minuscule. And I don't want "amused tolerance", I want OMGYOULOVETHISTHINGTOO!!! and I don't get it.

 

@Morven exactly! :D and man, it is frustrating.

 

things that suck: tolerating ableism 'cause you want special interest/small fandom validation so much #methings

(nothing to do with kintsugi or any people i've already talked about, this is new)

 

um. I don't think you need to tolerate that, tbh. Wanna rant about what happened? Because it sounds like it sucked majorly.

 

@IvyLB it wasn't even directed at me, really. just happened to be on their blog, which i decided to check out when they responded to one of my posts. like, if i don't ever bring up mental illness with them (or, less optimistically, on my blog ever), i won't become a problem for me personally. well, other than how much it sucks that, 'cause of my special interest and desire for validation (and the relation of two to each other), i can't tell them or stop talking to them or whatever.

anyway, they basically think that anyone who has their mental illness(es) (specific ones mentioned: anxiety [not in my bio but well, me], depression) in their bio is faking. particularly if they are teenagers. and like, yeah, fakers aren't impossible but they aren't everyone or most people either. the phrase "special snowflakes" was used, i recall. and yeah, their tone was just really hostile about that, kinda trolly/edgy (like, "lololol, i have controversial opinions"), and their responses to people trying to correct them made me think that, well, that sure as hell wasn't gonna happen anytime soon. like, people could try and try and they just wouldn't listen.

yeah... and i feel silly 'cause me, offended?! when the fuck does that even happen?! and do i only care 'cause i share one of my special interests with them? (i mean, i might also care 'cause i have anxiety and autism [not mentioned but they might count that too] but... i dunno. real sense of betrayal here.)