Feeling worthless and not good enough

[Snaedis]

Hi,

I have been struggling with loving myself and being positive about who I am. I have had people who were my best friends leave me for no reason. Then my guy best friend who had a relationship with me but then turned out he didn't kow what he was doing when I really liked him. Its been a while but I still feel like I am not good enough for him or anyone. Due to my childhood I have always had self-esteem issues. And somehow this situation escalated them. I feel unappreciated, worthless, alone and just not good enough. I don't know what to do. I can't not be friends with him because we have the same friends group and its hard not to see him but it's really sad and upsetting when I see him. He says he cares and is sorry but I don't know why I don't see or feel it in his actions. I don't feel happy about my life or anything anymore. Any help would be greatly appreciated thank you.

[Snaedis]

Hi therising,

You are absolutely correct. The amount of time I have tried to explain people the way I deal with things is by questioning and being told that i am overthinking is crazy, so I can't believe how spot on you're with it.

I think it makes sense, he doesn't want to go out of his comfort zone because according to him he doesn't like seeing me cry but then he knows I cry by myself alone. So, I guess it's like he doesn't feel guilty if he doesn't see me. He's also told me that I keep bringing it up and this relationship (friendship or whatever it is) is turning toxic and he would rather not be friends than be in a toxic friendship. Of course, this was sad and I somehow still wanted to be friends so I kept bottling it up and smiled and laughed although it hurt. So, I guess overall I just want to know if I was being unreasonable or him. Till date he keeps saying he wants to help in anyway that he can and I have told him and he doesn't want to do that so I am really frustrated like I am telling you what to do and you keep saying you don't know what to do. The examples you gave are basically all the roles I feel like appointing to him. I shouldn't rely on support (he says otherwise) and he only sees himself (like its always him and him) and he hates confrontation.

I feel I am pretty reasonable too, I don't blame him for what happened but I blame him for how things went down and I don't know if I should forgive him or just live with the feeling that I have been wronged. I usually try to explore both contexts and come up with a reasoning through questioning as you said so my decisions are not just emotional but reasonable but of course everyone looks at it differently.

❤️

[therising]

Hi Snaedis

Overthinking (aka careful analysis) is something I can definitely relate to. Wondering or questioning my way through to answers or satisfaction is how I evolve beyond who I was yesterday. Sounds like you too love being more conscious as you evolve. Personally, I believe people generally don't question enough or, if they do, it's perhaps not in the best ways. Whilst developing my joy of wondering and seeking reason (being reasonable), I pass on the benefits of such processing to my kids. Unfortunately, for my almost 18yo daughter I've somewhat triggered her to intolerance and frustration. I've led her to question the attitudes and depressing nature of the Australian Education System, when she's questioned her own performance. I've led her to wonder why adults automatically demand respect without giving it (to young people) and I could go on with a long list but she's now realising she's living in a largely insane world with a significant number of insane practices and belief systems. Now that she acknowledges it's typically not she who's broken but the systems she deals with, she's developing the ability to (respectfully and with integrity) manipulate the systems to best suit her. If she was never led to question that which is broken, she would perhaps spend a lifetime believing it is her that is broken or defective. She's an amazing person, in my opinion. Both my kids are amazing and I absolutely adore them.

Do you ever find yourself thinking 'Why does that person not question things more? Are they insane?' I hope you're smiling now. As I may have said before, questioning that which we deem questionable is a sign of natural intelligence. We began life with such natural intelligence before we were told 'Stop questioning everything!' or 'Don't question me, just do as you're told!' If you can regain your natural curiosity, you are at an advantage. If we can question our own questionable behaviour and discover the reasons as to why we tick the way we do, we stop repeating it. We gain the advantage of self awareness.

If someone has 'done me wrong', through my ability to freshly assess their nature and my ability to appoint realistic roles from that moment on, I work on moving forward through giving myself release from the nature I wish they had. I suppose, on some level, this is a form of detachment but it remains a form of detachment that serves me well. Forgiving, for me, is more about giving myself the ability or the gift of moving forward.

🙂

[Snaedis]

Hi therising,

I have thought about exactly what you said, wondering if the questions I am asking are right ones and also trying very hard not to get upset when you dont like the answers you get. I know its wrong but I cant help placing hoping that their might some little hope in there? I basically grew up believing I was broken so thats why it doesn't take much to question my self-worth and that I am not enough. Thats probably why this whole thing got me thinking just when I started to believe I was good enough for someone they kinda made me feel like an idiot for believing it, I am kinda scared to believe it now.

People around me don't question anything other than themselves, so they always think I am overthinking when I ask questions.

How do you go about being normal with someone who has done you wrong. Yesterday we were talking and he said if he was in my spot and he was feeling like this he would cut them off and not talk to them. This got me thinking if I am being too naive trying to work this out, like I don't know if he wants this friendship enough or if even makes a difference to him. Eventually, in the end I am the emotional one so I end up getting hurt while he's walking around happy.

Sorry, When you say moving forward, is that by forgiving or forgetting because I am not too sure how to go about doing either. How do you forgive someone when little things just remind you of what he did and it makes you sad and not nice feelings.

I really really appreciate your messages. It's always been hard as my parents are little hard to talk about with this stuff, so thank you so much. ☺️

[therising]

Hi Snaedis

I don't believe we're meant to forget. I believe we're designed to remember painful experiences for a couple of key reasons

1. So we can be conscious of our behaviour which led to our pain so we don't repeat it, and
2. So we can acknowledge progress. Personally, I've come a long way from the selfish young depressed alcohol dependent gal I once was. While not being able to forget my past can be a little painful at times, the comparison between now and then is exactly what tells me how far I've come. It also tells me how capable I am when it comes to evolving, which includes evolving even further

Of course, this applies to others; we learn to care for our self better through remembering and learning from another's destructive behaviour towards us and we can see how much a person's evolved through significant changes. We can acknowledge their reformation

Forgiveness is definitely less straight forward in its processing. While memory is simply a way of computing or processing past experience, forgiveness can involve great complexity and emotion. From my own experience, I have found the process of forgiveness to involve denial, anger, bargaining, deep sadness and acceptance, which are actually regarded as the 5 stages of grief strangely enough. For some, forgiveness is a kind of grieving process. The acceptance stage indicates we've finally let go of something, released it. The question becomes 'What are we be challenged to let go of?'

Letting go of the anger or the intolerance regarding someone's intolerable and careless behaviour offers us the chance to focus on how thoughtful we actually are when it comes to the emotions and care of our self and others. Here, we acknowledge our own ability. Letting go of a future we imagined with a particular person offers us the gift of finding a future with someone who knows how to care deeply and thoughtfully. With such a person in our life, we learn we are easily lovable, easy to care about and, without a doubt, deeply valuable. We cannot come to know our self in this way without the right person or people to show us. In fact, we may never have been shown, in the ways that leave us without a doubt. Without the ability to let go, we deny our self the chance to see our self as someone incredible.

If your are left questioning your value, would you consider it is because you have chosen the wrong person to show it to you. In searching for 'Mr Right', your memory (of 'Mr Wrong') is what leads you to recognise him.

🙂

[Snaedis]

Hi therising,

I don't know if I am at forgetting or forgiving stage or maybe i am back where I started I don't know. To be honest, I was very depressed when I stopped talking to him so I started talking to him again and somehow I feel better (of course there will be occasional sadness due to me still liking and him not) because I don't feel lonely or alone anymore. So, I really want to believe that this a step forward and not backwards.

After thinking about what you said I think I just need to remind myself of the reasons now and then why it all happened and how I felt to keep myself in check. Even though those memories just make me sad and dislike him.

He's the first guy that I ever liked in my 23 years of life so I not too strong on the hope that there's someone out there for me. I think killing that hope that theres no future is the hardest thing for me, I am still holding on that glimmer of hope that he realises he likes me back. This letting go process is very back and forth to me. I think i am fine but then suddenly i am not just at the thought of not being able to message or call him.

I don't see him as Mr.Wrong, he has everything I want in a guy and now he treats me well too so I am confused about my decision. But maybe we aren't meant to be and I cant comprehend that.

Thank you

[White_Rose]

Dear Snaedis (and a wave to therising)

Hello and a belated welcome to the forum. I have read the whole of this thread and I am intrigued by the determined way you have gone about working out your feelings. It takes a lot to do this and I find often people are content to be hard done by, constantly complain yet never or rarely make an attempt to resolve the problem. Therising's posts have been very informative and challenging which has helped you to question what is going on in your life with this guy.

Forgiveness is a very odd situation. I think many people believe that forgiveness means saying they have not been harmed in any way and often leads on to agreeing with the hurtful behaviour. Forgiveness, in my opinion, means accepting what has happened. After all you cannot change the past. Doesn't mean you agree with it. It most certainly does not mean you will forget. Sadly these events tend to live on in our memories and surface now and then prompting us to go through the grieving process again. Therising is quite correct in saying the acceptance process is a form of grieving.

There are about five stages though sometimes others can expand these categories. It doesn't matter and the outcome and process are still the same. What does happen is one of the stages we believe we have worked through suddenly pops up and we need to do the work again. This is the usual process and does not reappear because you have done something wrong. If/when this happens you will find the hurt is not so raw and intense and the time to recovery is shorter. Unfortunately this is the process but it does have its own reward as we realise we are becoming less and less affected by the event.

By acceptance I mean you stop going back over the event wishing it had never happened. Or scratching through the parts and telling yourself you should have done this or said that. This is different to the therising's comments about learning from the situation. When we can look at it and ask what we have learned it is a positive step. Reminding ourselves of the hurt, getting angry and self pitying or trying to make the situation different in retrospect, which of course is impossible is getting stuck.

Acceptance = knowing the situation and not trying to change it. Learning = understanding what happened, finding a way forward and what lessons we have incorporated into our lives.

I hope this is useful to you.

Mary

[Snaedis]

Hi Mary,

Thank you very much for your reply. I am sorry for my late reply. I had been really caught up with my studies and was doing well emotionally until a few days ago. As you said suddenly things just hit you and you feel like you are back where you started. I keep thinking about him while he doesn't even think about me that much I feel like an idiot. I don't know if i am getting better or not but I am getting through. It's not a good way to live life by just getting through but I don't have any goals or vision in sight to keep me going or put effort in anyone or anything. I get angry and frustrated and jealous and I do not want to feel this emotions, I try to control them but sometimes they get best of me and i feel like a bad person. I am scared of leaving this situation because I might regret it in the future. But i am getting through the day but not in a great way. I have been trying to incorporate whatever you and therising have said but its really to sometimes when it hurts really bad and i can think rationally but I am going to try harder no matter how many relapse i have and how small the progress is ❤️

Thank you so much!!