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Recurring doubts and fear

JM028Casual Contributor06 Oct 2015, 9:33 pm AEDT

Recurring doubts and fear

Ever since early years of high school I constantly feel/felt afraid of the opinion and thoughts of others around me. It feels like a claw latfhed into he back of my mind, slowly tugging at my conciousness.
As a person that was physically smaller than others and of Asian descent throughout my childhood and in schooling, I felt belittled about who I was.

I still feel that way.
Even now as a university student, the constant expectation from parents, friends to perform at my supposed intelligence level drains me, the constant fear of letting others down.
I also felt it was good to be compassionate to others during this time, but when such things were returned to me, I do not recognise it as genuine, the small part of my mind slowlytaking over to tell me that they do not mean it, and not to trust them.

All these emotions of fear and anxiety of others makes me feel like I need to punish myself because I was not good enough. I hit myself in the head, lash out at things because I feel like pain can atone for thinking I let people down.

I don't know what to do, or why I feel like this

13 replies

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In response to: Recurring doubts and fear

CherryBombSenior Contributor08 Oct 2015, 11:21 am AEDT

Re: Recurring doubts and fear

Hi everyone,

@JM028 when I read over your posts I couldn't help but sense that there was theme of needing to live up to expectations or to perform, whether it be at uni, in relationships, how you intereact with others and so on. It seems like there is a lot of worry, distress and guilt about not getting things right. What are your thoughts about this?

I wonder if you are doing things for you? I mean truely for you. You sound like you are very compassionate towards others, but as you mentioned it's hard to receive compassion for yourself. It make me wonder how are you looking after you. I often think that when we care for others, we can forget to check in with ourselves. Sometimes getting into the core of our emotions can be helpful. By this I mean looking at what (situations, thoughts) makes them arise.

In response to: Recurring doubts and fear

JM028Casual Contributor09 Oct 2015, 11:05 am AEDT

Re: Recurring doubts and fear

I think I have started realising that I really don't do things for me, especially if it comes at even the slightest expense in another's emotions. I just find it so hard to take when I even slightly negatively affect someone's emotions because I wanted to look after myself

In response to: Re: Recurring doubts and fear

AppleblossomSenior Contributor09 Oct 2015, 12:26 pm AEDT

Re: Recurring doubts and fear

One way I am learning ... very late in life is to use humour to make a bit of space in relationships .. caring energy can be precious and is good for many situations but sometimes we also need the energy of laughter or banter ... it takes knowledge of the other person tho ... I work with my own demons..images etc ... so it strengthens my internal sense of self and if the other laughs ... we have established a good boundary that is robust and not too precious ....

Does that make some sense?

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