Fear of Failure

Fear of Failure
J

John Oarc

Registrant
I feel uncomfortable when I am put into a competitive position. Find it hard to stand up for my rights when people challenge my rights.

I know I hate the thought of failure but I think it has more to do with the fact that I hate standing up for myself.

I know this has something to do with the SA, but I stood up, I went to the police.

The wierd thing and my question to you guys deals with; I don't do this in every situation.

I stand up very hard when it deals with a rule or a law. I can fight for something or someone else but not my rights.

Anyone else feel this way?
 
Do you feel you are important and worthy of attention? Do you feel that everything that is important to you should be important to others too?

Do you feel important only when other make you feel so? And if they dont, do you feel rejected or do you feel you deserved it rather you were worthy of it?

When others dont respect your needs do you feel they hold no value?

Or do you feel they are disrespecting them?

Do you feel the need to respect your rights and feelings and express them willingly. If so, then you'd also give importance to everything that is you.
 
John,

I wonder if that attitude springs, as Morning Star suggests, from a feeling that your needs and sensitivities are not worth defending, or if they are, will not be defended successfully.

A lot of survivors would rather concede the point than have it, as they fear, rubbed in their face. I know that when I was a kid I no longer tried to prevent the abuse or resist it in any way. I just felt I wasn't worth the effort and it took me a long time to get past that obstacle.

Much love,
Larry
 
I have felt little in the past, but everything you guys are saying is right on the money when I think about it.

Everything has felt out of control for the last month and I finally found the problem. My throat has been erroding and closing down, this is leaving me weak and anxious, I had no clue until I wound up in the ER Friday morning at around 2 a.m. or so.

My energy has been drained thus my mental energy has taken a toll and thus the fear and frustration. I thought it was my hormones but that was not it.

I have elevated the head of my bed and I am slowly coming back into the living. I am almost ashamed of letting it go to that point but man it should be a testimony to the fact that our health (physical) can take us down mentally.
 
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I wonder if that attitude springs, as Morning Star suggests, from a feeling that your needs and sensitivities are not worth defending, or if they are, will not be defended successfully.
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I see this a lot within myself. I worry it will not be successful so why try. When someone else is in a similar position I will help them fight through it with everything I have. The funny thing is I work in a competitive environment and I am very successful and #1 all the time. It is interesting though I find it hard to stand up for myself in other situations.
 
Yes that is true, I sometimes feel just like you described. It will not work for me so why try, I feel like this sometimes and other times I fight hard. It is like a cylinder is misfiring every once in a while.

I really think it stems from the health issue, when my health is bad I don't have much strength, mental or physical.
 
John and others,

I think I did the opposite of what I see described here in some instances. As I kid, I wouldn't really stand up for my rights. For one thing I was taught it was wrong (huh?). I also felt like others have suggested, in that I was worthless anyhow so why bother?

I think that all changed for me beginning in the 4th grade. I would put up with being picked on only for so long and then I'd get agressive, dangerous even. The other kids quickly learned that if they didn't want to get a sharpened lead pencil, or the business end of a geometry compass stabbed into their gut with all the force I could muster, they'd better leave me the hell alone. I think a couple of them even had to go to the Dr.

It's not something I'm proud of by any means. The problem still afflicts me to this day in that when I feel my rights have been infringed upon by, say a banking error or some such, I immediatly go from zero to being beligerant and mean to the little gal on the phone who is simply trying to do her job. It's something my T and I have been working on.

I sort of hate that part of me because it is not what I want to be. I want to be able to resolve issues without making a gazillion enemies along the way. I have to say that it's getting better as I work out these issues.

Sorry to divert your thread, John. It just got me to thinking about this.

Lots of love,

John
 
John it has me thinking also, I am having trouble at work and I too fire off and make enemies.

I think that what we are all tryng to do is find our balance, it was disturbed so many years ago and we have been trying to get it back and it seems that once I have it, I fall down again, the key is we get back up and start trying again.

Balance in this life is hard, especially when your load is heavy to one side and I think that is what CSA represents, it weighs us down on one side and we are trying to even things out every day with therapy and talking to each other here. Thanks John, writing this out helps me see yet another analogy that makes me feel alright.
 
I was about to write about how I overreact to things when I saw (walkingsouth)John's post. This is a big one for me.

It is as if I cannot defend myself without becoming angry, and if someone challenges me, I become angry, then guilty.

I have worked hard at saying what I want, from the beginning, and telling people when I am getting frustrated, but perhaps the most important thing has been to allow the negative thing -whatever it may be, bad service, a meaningless charge on my bill or some thing truly bad like a difficult assignment at work- to happen and see that the consequences are not as bad as I had expected. Somehow, giving up on the fight sets me free.

Peace,
James
 
John,

I am totally with you on that score.
Guess childhood to me was like one long fight, and I was always on the wrong side of the fight.

If you beat the puppy long enough, it wont trust people.

I am a bit of an expert on disability benefits, and would fight like hell for others in Court, but when I am affected, I just dont care.

Guess it is just a facet of self abuse, :(

ste
 
John,

Prior to 17 I would not stand up for myself. I hated myself ... I thought I was the source of everything being wrong. At 16 I tried several times to kill myself. Then at 17 I turned the hate externally ... everyone thing and everyone else was the source (still had/have self hate issues). People comment on how they like how I stand up for myself and correct situations. That part is good, but I experience a sort of anger/resentment that is tied to the abuse. Trying to angrily control what is wrong in the world ... wrong with people's behavior towards me and others. I'm working hard to remove the negative emotions tied to the abuse when I stand up for myself. I'm much better than when I was an angry 19 year old raging with hormones. But I don't intend to stop standing up for myself. I just have to sort out and try to seperate the negative emotions it stirs up.

Courage-Spirituality-Wisdom
 
"If you beat the puppy long enough, it wont trust people."

I think this is what I am feeling, not standing up for myself is what I have been doing in a unconcious way i.e. I have let myself be the victim in many situations thinking that I was being good to people, thinking that if I let them run over me they would like me for letting them get their way, I guess I was scared they would not like me if I stood up for myself and that scared me more than anything. People pleasing is a bad thing and it usually winds up with me being mad in the end which leads to me quiting the job or the relationship. I am finding that I am standing up for myself now and it is hard to fight the need to please, it is like it is just in me and want come out. Writing this out is helping and I see my problem. I was run over during my abuse, I was controled, the fear of hurting his family by telling on him was too overwhelming for my 9 year old mind and from that point forward I just tried to make sure I was not hurting others. Hell it does not even feel right to stand up for my needs, it is like they do not exist. I know this stuff, why is it still haunting me?
 
Jacob, you are so right.

Right now I feel like selling everything I own so I can start new, no bills except for the normal things.

I feel like if I did that I would not have to fear standing up for myself at work, i.e. I would not have to worry about losing my job. That is what is used against me when I stand up for myself, if someone is waiting in the wings that will deal with being run over daily then they will put them in my place. As long as I stay and try to fight I am viewed as the trouble maker.

Get rid of everything and live modestly, it may provide me with the freedom from the worry of losing everything from bankruptcy. It seems like the only way to feel peace from the fear of being fired for wanting respect.

It is what I should have done a long time ago, but my low self esteem brought me into the world of trying to buy things that make me feel important and worthy, it has given me a poor debt to income ratio, lol.
 
The thing that I find crazy about all of this is I know better, rationaly I know what I feel is wrong, hell I wrote about all this stuff and it still hangs with me like it waits in the wings and comes out during high stress times.
 
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