Hi Estreen
I kind of how what you mean. That's why I still attend my support groups
and have a couple of sponsors.
Sometimes I had to sit and just cry in meetings...well, becuase I was falling
apart and couldn't keep a stright face anymore. I just had to say whatever
the heck I had to say. I wasn't okay and I didn't really want people to fixed
me...I just felt ****** up inside and I had to let it out. A grown man crying
his heart out in front of people didn't take courage nor willingness...
I was just in so much freaken pains I wouldn't hold it in anymore.
Sometimes that's why my sponsor calls me..to check up on me or just chit chat,
talk about some serious issues or talk about whateve the hell was bothering him
or me. What help me was....he didn't really tell what to do nor judge me. He understood
me..becuase he has flaws, terribles days, insecure thoughts and just wanting to
crawl into a fital position sometimes....as I do.
Being able to just see my flaws and imperfection for whatever it was and to be
able to share about it or talked about it...was healing.
I no longer felt like I had to hide, put on an act, run away or check the **** out.
It's sort of like a venting, letting and self acceptence process.
It was okay for me not to be perfect.
It was oaky for me to feel whatever the hell I felt.
You know...I don't have to walk on eggshells anymore.
Maybe there's group therapy avaiable in your area.
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Some readings that helped me.....
“Emotophobia”—Fear of Negative Emotions
Cognitive therapist David Burns coined the term “emotophobia”
to refer to an excessive or irrational fear of negative
feelings. Specifically, these fears encompass anger, aggression,
or hostility and the conflict and confrontation that arouse
Who’s Pulling Your Strings?
If this is your hot button, you will go to almost any
lengths to avoid anger, conflict, and confrontation.
The manipulator’s task is relatively easy if your fear of
conflict, confrontation, and anger button is showing. A
manipulator can readily control your behavior through tactics
of intimidation—easily achieved by merely raising his or
her voice and/or hinting that anger may be on the verge of
breaking through. When this button is showing, a manipulator
needs only to make you sense that anger or conflict may
erupt. You are likely to comply with the manipulation just
to avoid even the mere possibility that anger or conflict may
emerge.
Soon you may even do the manipulator’s job for him: You
may conjure up in your mind a scenario that involves the
manipulator’s anger, and you take action to avoid it even
though no anger has yet occurred. The manipulator may not
even be around. However, your “emotophobia” is so strong
that you can play out the manipulator’s reaction in your mind
and allow yourself to be manipulated as a result.
The really dangerous aspect about fearing negative emotions
is that the longer you avoid dealing with them, the more
threatening and uncontrollable they feel. And the more you
avoid dealing with negative emotions, the less able you become
to deal with them effectively and appropriately.
Ironically, while you may not be fully aware of this connection,
the more you allow manipulators to control your
behavior, the angrier you are likely to become.
Is it possible—even desirable—to avoid all anger, conflict,
or confrontation? The fact of the matter is that negative emotions
are built into the hardwiring of human beings. What this
means is that all of us are programmed biologically to feel
anger and to respond defensively when others seek to harm
us or hurt those for whom we love or care. It is neither possible
nor desirable to be entirely rid of negative feelings.
Anger is not necessarily bad or unhealthy. Repressing or
chronically suppressing anger by going to great lengths to camouflage,
disguise, ignore, or otherwise avoid it is unhealthy.
How many times have you found yourself outwardly denying
your anger and resentment toward another person—especially
when that person is manipulating and controlling you—while
on the inside you feel anxious, panicked, and depressed?
Depression, by one psychological definition, is the result
of anger that you turn against yourself. Symptoms of anxiety,
sleeplessness, and irritability abound in relationships where
there is inadequate communication and an inability to confront
problems directly in order to reach greater understanding
and resolution.
Conflict can and should be handled constructively; when
it is, relationships benefit. Conflict avoidance is not the hallmark
of a good relationship. On the contrary, it is a symptom
of serious problems and of poor communication.
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You Are Addicted to Earning the
Approval and Acceptance of Others
When you are “hooked,” you feel that you must earn the
approval and acceptance of others—all others. Moreover, you
need to avoid criticism, rejection, and abandonment at almost
any price.
At the core of your niceness is a dread fear of rejection and
abandonment. If you are a people-pleaser, you believe that by
being nice and always doing things for others—even at your
own expense—you will avoid the feelings that you so dread.
There is nothing wrong or unhealthy about valuing the
approval of others, especially those you love and respect.
Wanting to be liked by others is a perfectly natural human
desire. However, if your desire to be liked and approved of
by others becomes mandatory—when it feels essential to your
emotional survival, and the consequences of disapproval,
rejection, or criticism seem catastrophic—you have crossed
over into dangerous psychological territory. You will find
yourself in manipulation territory and under the thumb of
manipulators’ coercive control.
When the approval of others becomes more than desirable—
when it becomes imperative—you have become a mark
for manipulation. If you are an approval addict, your behavior
is as easy to control as that of any other junkie. All a
manipulator need do is a simple two-step process: Give you
what you crave, and then threaten to take it away.
Every drug dealer in the world plays this game. And since
you are an approval addict, the social world poses an ongoing
threat of loss.
First, the manipulator will let you earn his or her approval
and acceptance. Keep in mind, however, that like any addict,
you will consume whatever approval, acceptance, and displays
of positive regard that you receive. There is no storage
or banking of approval in your psychological economy. However
much approval and liking you may gain today, it simply
will not last; you will feel the craving for approval again
tomorrow. And however much approval you have been given
today, you will face your dreaded fear of losing that approval
and acceptance tomorrow. It is a vicious cycle—and one that
manipulators play adroitly.
Therefore, step 2 is abundantly clear: Once you are
hooked on the approval and acceptance of the manipulator,
all he or she needs to do is merely threaten to withdraw them.
Actually, since you are an approval addict, the threat of withdrawal
can even remain implicit. In other words, no one needs
to verbalize or overtly threaten to reject you or to take away
his or her approval or acceptance of you. The threat exists in
the very air you breathe.
Paradoxically, the more you identify with being nice
and pleasing others to guarantee and ensure their approval and
acceptance of you, the more insecure you will become. The more
you identify with being nice, instead of being real, the more you
will find yourself plagued by nagging doubts and insecurities
and lingering fears.
If your approval addiction is deeply entrenched, the button
that will show most clearly to manipulators is your willingness
to do nearly anything to avoid disapproval, rejection, and worst
of all, abandonment.
In love relationships or romantic entanglements that
become manipulative, fear of abandonment is the ultimate lever
of control.
