I Hate Myself

[JarodRussell]

Well, dude, when he sees a woman he freezes like a deer that sees a truck racing towards it. There's nothing we can change about it. It's an unrational anxiety. At his age, it doesn't even have anything to do anymore with being afraid of women, he's only afraid of himself. He's afraid of the fear, so to speak.

And as I understand it, he is quite comfortable with his state of self-loathing and whining. He wouldn't admit it, nobody would, but to get out of this state would simply require way too much effort that he isn't ready to give.

When we asked what if he is afraid of rejection or anything, he said that was not the case, but that he would be confined to bed for a couple of days. And that's the point where he just should get the fuck up and stop whining. There is no other advice for that.

Instead he's been seeing a shrink the last 4 years, that basically just gave him some pills and told him to do this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vD4GkmpsuI

And when one shrink told him stuff he didn't want to hear, he simply went to another one. There is no actual desire to change in him. Change hurts. Have you ever seen a bodybuilder smile while he was doing extensive workout? You wouldn't. They scream in pain. But they have the desire to life through it, and afterwards they are satisfied. Have you ever seen a drug addict on rehab like it? No. It's painful and ugly. But there is the desire to life through it.

And what did they do? They quit whining and got their fucking ass up.

Oneliners like "Grow some balls" are applicable here.

So if he is afraid of speaking to women and wants to change that, then he simply needs to start doing it. Speak to women, everywhere, anywhere.

I didn't get rid of my fucking arachnophobia just by talking about it. Or by whining how dumb it is. I got rid of it by confronting spiders. It took some time. It took great effort. It was unbelievably ugly and painful to me. But I did it. I. Got. My. Sorry. Ass. Up.

 

[sidious618]

Yes, being afraid of spiders is clearly the same as what this guy is going through. Well done.

 

[JarodRussell]

Yes, being afraid of spiders is clearly the same as what this guy is going through. Well done.

You have obviously no fucking idea what you are talking about.

 

[sidious618]

Yes, being afraid of spiders is clearly the same as what this guy is going through. Well done.

You have obviously no fucking idea what you are talking about.

No, I do, as I have at least a rudimentary understanding of psychology and now that telling a very depressed and anxious person to suck it up isn't going to help. a lot of people who complain on this board do need a kick in the ass but not this guy. His problems are legitimate and this is the first time I've seen him bring them up so it doesn't appear to me he's doing it for pity.

 

[JarodRussell]

Yes, being afraid of spiders is clearly the same as what this guy is going through. Well done.

You have obviously no fucking idea what you are talking about.

No, I do, as I have at least a rudimentary understanding of psychology

So you don't.

His problems are legitimate.

Of course his problems are legitimate, I never said otherwise.

 

[sidious618]

Of course his problems are legitimate, I never said otherwise.

Well your responses sure don't show that. If anything they show a complete disregard for his situation with an offhand "Get off your ass" comment which is what I'd expect from a child.

Now I could walk through with you the problems of depression and social anxiety, show how your "solution" doesn't work but it seems to me you wouldn't care.

 

[Gryffindorian]

The message is stop whining and get your sorry ass up.

This is what I've been saying all along.

And it's shit advice. How, exactly, is he supposed to do that? Do you know anything about people sufferring from severe depression and severe social anxiety? It's pretty clear the answer is no. This guy seems to have both.

Telling him to get up off his ass is not only of no help but it's harmful.

As a matter of fact, I do. And you don't have to have a condition to know something about it. Second, I did not succintly phrase my original advice like that, although the message was similar.

 

[An Officer]

I think Jarod is giving perfectly sound advice. His opinion is just as legitimate as anyone else's. Why is it wrong to say the OP needs to take some action and responsibility for himself? Sometimes, when you are scared shitless by a mental block, there is just no hand-holding through it, you either take your balls in your hands and do it... or you go home and cry about it to your local quack, for four years, while their clock ticks, along with their cash register.

 

[cultcross]

I think Jarod is giving perfectly sound advice.

I don't. "Just get over it" is utterly unhelpful advice for someone suffering depressive illnesses and crippling phobias. They're irrational by their very nature; if you could gather your common sense and pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you'd have done it by age 30; being depressed isn't a state you subject yourself to through laziness.

 

[LitmusDragon]

This thread has taken a rather nasty turn, but one that is typical for problems of this nature I'm afraid.

If you tell the average person you have a social phobia they're just going to tell you "get over it, why don't you" because they can't picture what it's really like to have that kind of problem.

It's a little like a rich elitist telling a poor person that his laziness and lack of initiative are the reasons he is poor. There might be a kernal of truth in that but it hardly tells the whole story.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Getting over a learned response like arachnophobia is nothing like dealing with anxiety or depression. You can't wish away a neurotransmitter imbalance any more than you can wish away diabetes.

 

[JarodRussell]

Getting over a learned response like arachnophobia is nothing like dealing with anxiety or depression. You can't wish away a neurotransmitter imbalance any more than you can wish away diabetes.

You didn't even read what I wrote, did you? At what point did I even imply that you could wish something away?

And saying he just has a neurotransmitter imbalance is funny. Just take a pill and you'll feel fine.
He clearly describes that he is depressed and hating himself because of the state of his life. The circumstances make him depressed, and that is nothing you can treat with drugs. And we also know that he ran through virtually all of them without any success, so there. The anxiety is irrational, but he also said it came out of nowhere in the 6th grade. That's a learned response, too, similar to arachnophobia.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Based on his description, including the fact that it came out of nowhere in 6th grade, it's almost a certainty that this is biologically based.

 

[JarodRussell]

Based on his description, including the fact that it came out of nowhere in 6th grade, it's almost a certainty that this is biologically based.

Sorry, my tele-diagnostic abilities only go so far. This was in the 6th grade, he's now 31 years old. Of course it could have been biologically based back then, but that could as well be over now, replaced entirely by learned behavior.

 

[RJDiogenes]

It's unlikely to have resolved spontaneously, however you are right that all of his learned responses have been determined by the imbalance all these years. But learning new behaviors is not going to be helpful, or even entirely possible, without treating the base cause.

 

[Gryffindorian]

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

 

[JarodRussell]

It's unlikely to have resolved spontaneously, however you are right that all of his learned responses have been determined by the imbalance all these years. But learning new behaviors is not going to be helpful, or even entirely possible, without treating the base cause.

IF there is a medical base cause. It could very well be something he didn't tell us, or something he suppressed.

Which is one reason why I think seeking advice on the net is partially laughable, especially when you're already seeing a psychiatrist or psychologist. You'd think that after 4 years his shrink knows all of it much better than we do. And yet it doesn't seem to help. Why? I say because he simply isn't ready yet to make the important step (yes, the "get your ass up" step).

 

[An Officer]

A biological problem that manifests itself only in the vicinity of beautiful women?

All human experience has a biological base, so you are right there... I do think we can all agree that it sounds as though his issues are psychosomatic. And that kind of thing really does need to be solved by the sufferer pulling themselves up by their own psychological bootstraps - facing their issues nose to nose, so to speak. The greatest psychologist is inside our own selves, as they say. The OP must somehow talk himself into facing exactly the thing he fears most. No one can do this for him, no matter how much support they give. So it seems perfectly fair to me in this case to tell him to get started on that mental work! There are no short cuts here. And molly-coddling and "there, there" will do nothing about the original problem. Just like years of therapy and medication has done nothing. What is being said here to this poster is an example of tough love, not meanness for its own sake. And yes, sometimes "sucking it up" is the solution. It's not popular to say it, but it's exactly what needed to be said in this case.

 

[sidious618]

You are 100% wrong, there's no two ways about it. Every depression organization specifically tells people NOT to tell others to suck it up. You can keep saying I'm wrong but it doesn't change the facts.

Edit: The number one bullet on WebMD puts this argument to rest: http://www.webmd.com/depression/supporting-someone-who-has-depression

I can get more if you like.

 

[JarodRussell]

There's a difference between depression coming out of nowhere and depression caused by specific circumstances.

Your family dies and you are so sad that you want to kill yourself. What kind of depression do you think is that? You hate yourself because you are still a virgin and have always been rejected by women. You lost all your money in the financial crisis and see no way out and decide to kill your wife, your two kids and yourself. That's nothing you can treat with drugs. And at one point you have to get over it.

Hiding in your bed because a woman rejected you is not the result of a chemical imbalance. It's a blow into your guts that you can't cope with, simple as that. And fear of being rejected again, of again feeling that blow into your guts freezes one. There is nobody in this world that doesn't feel that. Everybody understands that. And it's perfectly natural that some can shrug it off and some can't. And those who can't need to learn to get over it and move on. There's no drug treatment for that, because there simply is no chemical imbalance. It's a question of how thick your skin is.