How Full of Shit Are You?

I've been thinking a lot later that while I'm probably the happiest I've ever been in my life, a huge chunk of me feels so fake, like it's constructed merely for appearances just to please other people. I realize that's true of everybody to some extent due to social conditioning, but I feel like I'm so introverted sometimes that things I do for other people are really ulterior motives for something self-serving for me.

and ultimately I feel like I spend too much time constructing a personality that is more appeasing to everybody than is a real representative of me. O I for years have joked that while I'll always stand up for my beliefs, ultimately I'm largely full of shit.

So...who else feels this way? or is it just me?

The obvious answer is the old line that if you think you might be crazy, you're not. If you keep a sense of humour and a sense of the absurd, especially as applied to yourself, you're fine.

Speaking of which, a great deal of weight should be given to my opinion on this matter.

I heard the joke abt brown eyes enough to know I am totally full of shit.

idk how to even recognize my authentic self, if such a thing even exists, except by when I am doing things that clearly feel wrong. Like using cognitive dissonance as a measurement for whether being untrue to myself?

this woman i was involved with was like "oh you have such nice blue eyes, dell" and i was like "aw shucks... thanks" and then there was this pause in which i guess i was supposed to reciprocate the compliment, but before i could say anything she was like "oh yeah, i know your going to tell me what lovely shitpools i have"

dellol

don't worry san te i feel incredibly phony AND i'm miserable so... you could have it worse

like even posting that i went "oh bernard you are not THAT miserable, quit exaggerating you vaguely-person-shaped shitholder"
(but the truth is i really really i am)

i think that everyone has that feeling of just playing a role most of the time, even when we're alone and ostensibly only performing for our own thoughts and feedback. but then over time life experience burns away that stuff. the reason why it takes so long, though, and is really difficult at times is b/c it means acknowledging all of one's worst-seeming tendencies, i think? at least that is my experience. like i hate owning up to all of the gross and ignoble and shameful-seeming things that have been part of me historically. but in the end you have to surrender to reality as it were, even though it is a painful-seeing process?

I basically feeel like my entire existence is a messy and badly constructed series of masks, personas and idiocy that combined make for some kind of shoddy papier mache vessel that may well be full of shit.

xpost that was supposed to read "painful-seeming" but painful-seeing is more accurate i guess

and ultimately I feel like I spend too much time constructing a personality that is more appeasing to everybody than is a real representative of me.

i would avoid people-pleasing. becomes an unholy marriage of impulses of wanting to be liked trying to mate with wanting to see others happy. consummate recipe for being unhappy, anxious, etc. maybe better to operate on the fact that you'll never be able to make others happy or improve their life in any fashion and then just do what YOU want to do. we all end up disappointing people anyway; it's unavoidable. like i think clemenza was driving at up there, you obviously have enough self-awareness that you are not some huge asshole so trust yourself and do what you wanna do. or something. otherwise your relationship with reality gets all bargled and then the tubes of life are clogged up, bad situation for all concerned. be "selfish" and fly free

(San Te are you sincere in your affection for Orlando? I often watch Orlando & wish them well - I am glad to sort-of-know someone who goes to see them)

Good Old Neon

idk how to even recognize my authentic self, if such a thing even exists, except by when I am doing things that clearly feel wrong. Like using cognitive dissonance as a measurement for whether being untrue to myself?

it's a troublesome concept philosophically. but then, we have strongly felt notions of phoniness or hypocrisy or just visceral feelings of being more at home in one sense or another, so i guess there's something going on there. but everything is always changing, so in that respect i think it's suspect

but, personally i do feel it in i guess a freudian sense sometimes, like in that i feel i have more energy available to me when i am not so invested in repressing bare facts about my life?

yyyyyup. i had the passing idea of having a new year's resolution of being more emotionally open, which of course i never got around to telling anyone. my social interaction amounts to a weird surface-only practice in which i do everything i can to smoothly integrate into a given scenario, and, like abbott sez, it really only feels like there's a 'real me' at work when i'm uncomfortable acting in that scenario. but ey i'm a nietzschean so fuckit.

There was a basic logical paradox that I called the "fraudulence paradox" that I had discovered more or less on my own while taking a mathematical logic course in school. . . . The fraudulence paradox was that the more time and effort you put into trying to appear impressive or attractive to other people, the less impressive or attractive you felt inside–you were a fraud. And the more of a fraud you felt like, the harder you tried to convey an impressive or likable image of yourself so that other people wouldn't find out what a hollow, fraudulent person you really were. Logically, you would think that the moment a supposedly intelligent nineteen-year old became aware of this paradox, he'd stop being a fraud and just settle for being himself (whatever that was) because he'd figured out that being a fraud was a vicious infinite regress that ultimately resulted in being frightened, lonely, alienated, etc. But here was the other, higher-order paradox, which didn't eve have a form or name–I didn't, I couldn't. Discovering that first paradox at age nineteen just brought home to me in spades what an empty, fraudulent person I'd basically been ever since at least the time I was four and lied to my stepdad . . .

Good Old Neon

at least you guys aren't functionally retarded :(

bernard you are a tops A+ poster for real (not full of shit)

san te may argue with this, but i got the impression that his thread-starter was more about people-pleasing than reservations about not being "authentic" on some philosophical level a la that david foster wallace thing

Trying to even think about being "authentic" is a fucking mental trap imo.

It totally is. Like a finger trap!

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lhln29FwEl1qh8t3yo1_500.png

I think, from the shit feeling you get when ppl disapprove of you, over time you gather the impression that there is a corresponding awesome affirming feeling that comes from ppl's acceptance and approval and pleasure, and that's not really true...(I paraphrased this from somewhere; perhaps another ILX thread)

idk why but that Simpsons still is really fucking blowing my mind like on a Dali & "The Angelus" level

Also (for me anyway) the shitty feeling from ONE persons disapproval - even over something really slight! - can magnify and spread so I start to assume others think it, and more and worse. xpost

LOL Abb the evil complacentg grins on Marge and Ralfs faces!

well i tend to think that the reason why this kind of thing fucks us up so much when we try to think about it is b/c we have basic underpinnings of life, being human, etc. all wrong. like the best philosophies imo are radical ones which would overthrow most assumptions that we have about concepts of self, awareness, blah blah blah. i'm fairly convinced that happiness tends to increase to the degree that cultural conditioning along those lines is jettisoned.

I think, from the shit feeling you get when ppl disapprove of you, over time you gather the impression that there is a corresponding awesome affirming feeling that comes from ppl's acceptance and approval and pleasure, and that's not really true..

yeah, like that. i think that kind of thing is really important to look into

There's a reason why buddhism and so on say desire leads to suffering.

(San Te are you sincere in your affection for Orlando? I often watch Orlando & wish them well - I am glad to sort-of-know someone who goes to see them)

― Gravel Puzzleworth, Saturday, March 19, 2011 10:11 PM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

So....I was an OG Magic fan, in their inagural season, 9 years old. Lived em and breathed em for years, and then when I got to high school I sort of fell out of enjoying basketball around 1996-1997 (the last year the Magic had Shaq). Just didn't watch for years, and then sometime around 2004-2005 I started watching again, and got back into the Magic.

But I hesitate to call myself a Magic 'fan' as it is very casual -- I go to the games now and then because A. I like to support our local team, B. it's fun, and C. the new arena is awesome. but I find myself a lot more of a fan at the games now than I did a few years ago -- like I'm maybe one or two seasons removed from being back as a rabid fan like I was as a kid.

Appeasing or pleasing others does not always equal altruism.

yeh my biggest mistake is trying to please myself all these years. same as others, there is still a a subjct/objct disputation

(LOL now I'm all giddy bcz trayce and dell liked my post--maybe I AM full of shit)

i ain't gonna lie, on the rare occasion I get OTMed, I usually take the rest of the day off and throw an impromptu sexy party

In all seriousness tho mostly purpose of starting thread was trying to alleviate myself of guilt...deserved or not!

San Te OTM

LOL just about to do that

WOOHOO! See you guys later!

Most people don't truly "stand up for their beliefs" because of a deeply ingrained "collective" ideology that representing "personal" beliefs is selfish.

Or they don't truly have a "belief" system and what they believe is received from others, it isn't learned through real-life experience. Hence it is more "honest" to NOT stand up for a belief, since you have no authentic belief system.

My take on the OP is, just try to be a good person, however you conceive a good person to be; then realize that you're always going to struggle with that goal. All the rest is extraneous. If you have a very unclear idea of What Is Good, spend some time thinking about it until it gains a bit of clarity in your mind. A precise and systematic definition is not required, but a general direction you want to travel in is essential.

If you don't know where to turn to clarify what a good person is like, I suggest you read up a bit on buddhism. It tends to be much clearer and simpler on this subject than, for example, christianity, which often mixes in a lot of horseshit.

tbh I don't struggle as much with the concept of being a 'good person' as I used to. I'm more self-aware of the fact that I am and can be a selfish individual and that I'm often motivated by what benefits me. I try not to step on other people's toes along the way, and do my best to provide goodwill, but with that being said, I know I 'accept' things about myself now that I wouldn't have years ago.

I think that's called "getting older and growing up," San.

well yea. def.

think when you're younger lots of people like to think they're 'crazy' because it would then absolve them of all of their sins if they were.

i'm too analytical and rational to be crazy...just ask my bosses.

I thought I was sane in my twenties even though I was quite mentally ill by any viewpoint. (Not a reflection on you, I think you're normal) I'm also quite precise and analytical, probably a little too much for normal life.

well I do act like a hypochondriac at times.

That's common, actually.

I am the kind of person who would starve to death whilst giving out cakes to everyone else. It stems from a childhood where I felt that I had to make everyone happy and fix all the problems (shitty childhood)
I have only just realised that trying to please everyone all the time is draining on me, and,at times I have felt fake and that people will catch me out. Imposter syndrome is what I call it. It got to the point that I let this "friend" live with me rent free for 8 months ( I live in a tiny boat, there was no room for him really) He was a total douche, messy, disrespectful and undermining. It took 8 months of mind torture for me to realise that I don't have to please everyone and that essentially I am a good person. My point is, we all have an act or roles that we play in society, but it's important to go easy on yourself San Te, just take it easy and learn about yourself. We are always changing and it's important to take the time to be self aware. Hope that helps, I wish I was more eloquent :)

It actually is called Imposter Syndrome, actually, but people-pleasing isn't really a major part of it. My people-pleasing problem was a little different from the problem most people have on this thread, because mine was just another symptom of the draining, crawling self-hatred brought on by my bipolar depression. I know this because it vanished almost completely when I finally got it properly treated.

I wish I had something more helpful to say to everyone on this thread, but I do express my sympathy for all of you.

There's an ilxor who i strongly suspect is taking a lot of us a fucking ride.

you shouldn't doubt brodie like that, he has emotions too!

Very curious post RVW.

ENBB actually hates pugs

dr morbs loves obama

hoos is crazily pessimistic but fakes otherwise

Geir loves John Cage

i want jol in

disappointed this wasn't a poll

that aerosmith dude is really tico torres

i'm the 21st Earl of Norfolk

kbp is mexican

forks dispenses terrible interview advice, and his submitted drawings were all done by his aunt

michael white ne parle point le francais

Guys I don't hate pugs obv but I have a confession to make.

I'm sort of tired of them.

They're still great but it's like I LIKE OTHER THINGS/DOGS!! You know? I realize this is partly my own doing but I just had to get that out there.

Sorry B.

local garda- genuinely neither tbh

omg i feel terrible now, i made e drop the pugbomb

deems is actually a relevant poster tho you wouldn't have guessed it from his contributions itt

ouch

pfft

Nakh charms everyone irl

l0u1s jagg3r is not getting married, is not in New Zealand or wherever, but is in England, posting on this message board as brodie

i believe that

<3

I sort of have an idea of who/what RVW might be thinking of tho.

me too

fairly unhelpful tbh, as was the revive in the first place.

i felt where i was going was much more positive

Yeah, you're right. It was.

Sorry guys I was just so into this song I thought it would be a good idea to take its advice on an ILX level

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEEzbFxEbB8

let the sound take you away!

Such a good song.

Shld have realized y'all might not want to tell your dreams to me.

Well, I'm "in the loop" on this forum, to answer the original question.

forks dispenses terrible interview advice, and his submitted drawings were all done by his aunt

lol at this btw – I think Catfish would have been much better with this plot

to answer original query /it's fairly bursting out of my earholes at this point. sometimes people stuff wadded-up pieces of tp in their ears at concerts if they don't have earplugs, but i use it to staunch the outflooding of my own crap. and that's the truth, no bs! word

like if y'all remember that film in which mr. dicaprio plays an accomplished conman, well i'm basically a mix of him and the character the cat in the hat from the cat in the hat books

despite feeling more emotions than ever in the last year, when trying to offer support to friends, my emotions turn off and that makes it so much harder to provide support to a friend when my feelings of empathy dampen.

going to guess it's COVID overload? idk....

I have found that while I am still trying to help my cousin who is being abused and my friend who has been really struggling w/her mental health, and I will still make time to talk to them whenever they want, I no longer have a strong emotional reaction to hearing what is going on with them. I can have these conversations where I hear all sorts of objectively scary shit, and I try really hard to help, but then I go hang out with my housemates and play board games or whatever and it's like all the stuff I've just heard doesn't touch me. Sometimes it makes me feel guilty, like I must be some kind of robot sociopath, but I think it's just a coping mechanism. I think I've just been dealing with this stuff for long enough that my brain has started compartmentalizing it in self-defense. Maybe the same thing is happening to you?

oh i'm fairly certain it is. when my mental health started to deteriorate in 2013, I definitely started to file more and more things away as 'process later', and then I'd go on like normal, but it'd come out later in some other form.

hopefully my new therapist can address!

When you say it's hard to help when your feelings of empathy dampen, do you mean it's hard to motivate yourself to help? Or that it's hard to know how to help them when you're not feeling what they're feeling?

I just think there's a lot of unhelpful shit talked about empathy vs sympathy, like empathy is where it's at and sympathy is just hypocrisy. I think that's wrong. If you always feel everything everyone around you feels, you'll overload and you won't be any good to anyone. You shouldn't have to rip out your heart to feed the people you love like a proverbial mama pelican. It should be enough to listen, ask questions, think about how you would feel if you were that person (which you are not), and offer sympathy and/or advice accordingly. If that's where you're at right now, I wouldn't feel bad about it. And I would consider the possibility that this is your brain's way of making sure you put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others.

That paragraph came out weirdly forceful and like I think I know what you're dealing with, which of course I don't. Just some thoughts that may or may not be relevant - feel free to ignore if not.

I wish I had some friends who wanted to unload on me, but none of them do. I think I could compartmentalize my own feelings and empathize with them. I want an emotional connection like that

Or that it's hard to know how to help them when you're not feeling what they're feeling?

this. i still do it but I feel more rudderless.

btw your next post WAS helpful so no worries at all. thanks!

How is your cousin, LD? If you're not seeing anything obviously change, I can imagine that'd chip away at the emotional force you initially felt? (I'm not trying to say that there should be some measurable 'progress' or it's not worth supporting, or anything - plus you never know what it is that will strike a chord/stay in their mind).

Thank you for asking, Kinder! The boyfriend "broke up" with her because he was so angry about the bitcoin thing, but broke up in a way where he still calls and texts to tell her what a terrible person she is and comes by to harass her and she's scared to stay in her house alone. So it's a slight improvement for the time being, in that gets some time away from him without having to be the one who breaks up with him, but of course she's constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. Right now I'm just encouraging her to listen to her instincts and spend as much time with friends and family as she can if she doesn't feel safe at her house.

Part of the problem is that the boyfriend (now technically ex, I guess) is living in a cabin she owns a few minutes away from her house; I don't even know whether she would be able to evict him if she tried, but of course she's not going to try.

I talked about this on the burnout thread, at some point, but what happened to me was that two and a half years ago I moved to a new city to take on a very demanding job that I wasn't fully qualified for. At pretty much exactly the same time, my cousin started dating the abuser and my best friend had a series of psychotic breaks. So at a time when I needed a support system and didn't have one, I was constantly on the phone trying to help my friends, and it felt like I was trying to hold two people up while treading water myself and sooner or later I was going to drown. I don't want anyone else to feel like they have to ask that much of themselves, which is why I got weirdly forceful upthread.

Now I have more of a support system where I am, and I'm still in frequent touch with my cousin and my friend, and I try to help. But my emotions about what they are going through stay on the surface of me instead of getting through to my core, and I'm fine with that.

I don't think this is being full of shit, LD and Neanderthal.

Neither of you are being cruel or mean-spirited, you're acting in ways that are completely understandable in order to maintain some semblance of distance from these problems, and while this seems "fake" or "full of shit," your reaction allows for reflection and perspective, too.

I mean, there's so much horrible shit (both in and outside of our personal relationships) that happens on a daily basis, and being aware of it is part of learning how to cope with it— it isn't ignoring a situation if you take a step back, or engage in other activities that aren't focused on remedying that situation.

Table speaks truth. Compassion fatigue is a thing. Burnout is a thing.

Triage, prioritizing, compartmentalizing so that you can simultaneously function and be a good friend/ally? Those are also things.

Striking the right balance among competing priorities is between you and... you.

(Sidenote: it's possible to err too much in the other direction as well - ask me some time about vicarious traumatization in the activist community)

thanks all. I somehow turned into a compulsive guilt-feeling machine 5 years ago so it helps to hear this.

table otm

table and YMP otm. YMP can we hear some activist community stories?