Inferiority Complex, the Bane of My Psyche

[psycholuigiman 132]

I'm an absolute disaster lately. I thought I was getting better, but I guess old mental habits die hard.

Basically, a while back, my girlfriend introduced me to a handful of artist friends. Everything is fine, we're all getting along, talking about our lives. Eventually, we all become good friends. Then I realized something. I'm nobody next to these people. I'm no artist. I'm not really part of any community that needs or respects or even likes me. Heck, I don't even have a job. In fact, with graduation coming up, my future is so high up in the air, I'm not sure it'll ever come back down to stable ground. I have a talent or two that might be considered exceptional, but I'm too cowardly to put them on display like these guys. I'm not brave enough to put myself out there and say "This is what I do". The feeling that I don't compare to my peers has been eating at me for months and it's only gotten worse as I've found out more and more about them. I tried to improve myself and put myself out there, but I failed to do so. That failure makes me feel even worse. Then, as if I wasn't feeling inferior enough, my girlfriend left me for one of the other guys in the group. It was a clean break up, but the message was clear to me. The message being that a loser like me doesn't even deserve to be loved.That all of my fears and concerns and thoughts about being too inferior to my peers were true. Worst part is, I can't tell any of them that this is how I feel. What kind of an a****** looks at his friends and feels nothing but jealousy and anger because of his own inferiority complex? If they didn't hate me already, they'd surely want nothing to do with me if they ever found out how petty I truly am. Surely no good person worth having as a friend ever thinks the way I do. I despise myself right now.

[RichW 174]

Every single person on the planet is going to have some bias or other, I don't think any one of us can truly measure ourselves. You say you have a talent but you're scared to put it out there, how about using a pen name? I don't know, is deviantart still going? There's always instagram and stuff like that, you could put your stuff out there without putting yourself out there, the response may be surprising.

It's hard not to compare yourself to others, I do it all the time myself too. But while we're sat there thinking we're nothing compared to others, how do we know they're not thinking the same about themselves compared to us? 

I'm sorry for what happened with your ex-girlfriend. I don't know if she did it, but one of my ex-girlfriends cheated on me and it was horrible. I found too many ways of blaming myself and justifying her actions before I thought to hell with that. "The message being that a loser like me doesn't deserve to be loved" simply isn't true. Whatever your ex's reasons, whatever my ex's reasons, that's all they are, our ex's reasons and they speak for nobody except themselves.

[Epictetus 19,073]

I'm sorry you are feeling badly, psycholuigiman!  I wish I knew what to say to help.  RichW has offered you some good insights.  Sometimes a person doesn't shine until the time and conditions are right.  I think there is greatness in you and believe that it will emerge in time. 

[zzzsheepyzzz 126]

hi,

I used to deal with a lot of what you are talking about. My best friend in Jr.High was a highly talented artist and everybody fawned over him. We were best friends, and yet when I got home I felt angry and jealous of him getting all this attention and having all this talent. I felt low for a long time about stuff like this, I was also short in high school so I felt inferior about that as well.

Anyways, what helped me when that was going on was realizing what my dreams were like. I realized I always wanted to be an actor, and in highschool when I made the leap to join drama and do the school play a lot of my insecurity issues went away with that. I was so focused on doing the stuff I really wanted to do, that really fed my dreams, that the reality took up most of my time that I might have been feeling sad and doing nothing.

I guess I could ask you what kinds of things would you like to see yourself doing? Writing, Art, music? The next step would be pursing some kind of lessons, school, or self practice in this area. The more time you can take pursuing and working on any of these things will eat up the time spent feeling low about things... or things wrong with you (which I can relate to). It might take a bit of practice and hard work, but both are miles better than feeling the effects of depression and anxiety - either that or feeling anxious about an activity is much easier in retrospect than feeling anxious about your entire life.

I've come across a lot of talented people, and it is a little ironic and maybe funny, but most of the time they are very insecure or unsure about themselves and I don't mean that in a critical way, but that it is never really anyone's achievements that cure their insecurities, but rather an inner peace.

What brings you inner peace?

Explore and enjoy

[psycholuigiman 132]

Thanks for the reply folks. My Mama and best friend said similar stuff, but I guess it's still something I needed to hear some more, cuz it just won't sink in. The one talent in question is actually gaming. Probably the one thing my talented friends still make me feel good about is my gaming ability. Before I met them, always thought I was average, but it turns out not every gamer blows through a new game in just a few days to a week after they buy it. Even did a few streams, but stopped after an embarrassing internet mishap led me to invite everyone to a stream that wouldn't start. Maybe it's time to buck up and force myself to stream again. I'm pretty desperate at this point. Anything to make this awful feeling go away.

Speaking of making this awful feeling go away. My dreams are ludicrously long term. Since I was in junior high, I've wanted to be a psychologist. There's a growing need for that kind of help and that kind of work is fulfilling to me. Aside from that though, I sing, and took up sewing not that long ago.Also enjoy writing, but my lack of creative juices keeps me from writing much these days. Between all these hobbies and school, I do okay during the day. It's just at night when I start to lose my mind. It's like as soon as it's time to wind down and rest, my brain just goes to thoughts like the ones in the OP, sometimes worse.

The thing about me and my ex is that she was my first. Wrap your head around this, I'm 25 years old and I just had my first break up with the first girl I ever worked up the courage to put myself out for. I was a weirdo in my teens who understood that my hormones made it hard to tell if my feelings would last, so I didn't ever go for it back then. To this day, I'm still a weirdo. This is really the only place I talk this much. In real life, I've got anger issues, I'm hyper introverted, I don't ever put myself out there cuz I have trust issues, On top of all that is all of the mental stuff we're talking about here AND on top of all that is the fact that I'm legally blind and there's still more that I'm either forgetting to mention or just not telling cuz this post is too long already.. Why am I bringing it all up? To really hammer home the point that it was a freaking miracle that a nice girl that I liked ever even agreed to go with me in the first place. I'm told it's always the worst when it's the first, but I don't know. I feel like so much is stacked against me. I Know it's not healthy to think that way, but it's hard to have any kind of hope that I'm worthy of that kind of love when just finding the first girl who could tolerate all of that for the 8 or so months we were together was such an impossibly unlikely event.

[zzzsheepyzzz 126]

I don't know if I can say much more to help you per say, but I can say I can relate and have been going through similar feelings in regards to girlfriends.

Some people on this board have been giving me some really good advice though. Some things I can forward is to have the focus on self improvement and enjoying your life, while still being positive and the best person you can be, to others and yourself.

In regards to streaming, one of my favorite streamers to watch often says to people, when they ask him advice on streaming, is to just enjoy it. If you love gaming, there are lots of others out there that share and support the hobby too.

I think that pursuing becoming a psychologist is a great idea and will likely give you great insight through the studies.

Also, keeping up with the hobbies and the things that make you feel good, and calm, is great as these things can be great 'tools' in bringing back a sense of normality.

I actually have a very similar thing happen during the nights. Its almost like because I let my guard down the dark thoughts can somehow creep out. Every day though I have been working to improve, and what seems to help is to focus on having positive thoughts and actions throughout the day, and the more good things I seem to be able to accomplish, the more it tends to stick with me during the evenings.

I don't know if you have sleep problems (I know I do) but what helps is to get up and do things if you can't sleep and find your mind is racing. This is kind of an insomnia specific thing in so far as it aims at heightening you sleep quality and help sleep problems, but I thought I would mention it anyhow.

I know it can be tough, but focusing on improvement, doing things you love, and finding positively impacting things will compile in the right direction.

I hope you start feeling better and any of this can help

Edited December 1, 2017 by zzzsheepyzzz

[GlassIsEmpty 2]

I can relate to quite a few points that you made, including feeling like you didn't belong in with that group.  But one thing to consider is that you had something about you that caused that girl to be attracted and interested in you in the first place, and it sounds like it lasted at least a few months.  Better to have love and lost as goes the old saying.  One thing that I always go back to that gives me a bit of hope is a quote I heard about Mother Teresa.  I read somewhere about one of the people that she helped thinking they were worthless, but they must have worth otherwise her act of providing kindness to them would have not have had worth.  Does that make sense?  

 

I am struggling now to find something that I enjoy doing, something to give my life meaning beyond my children.  They will grow up and have their own lives.  Depression robs us of our passions and our hopes and dreams.  It turns our own brain against us.  What a challenge!  Good luck to you, I wish I had answers for you.  

[GAJ123 1,257]

I always get that feeling of feeling inferior to everyone especially if they seem to be enjoying life & able to talk to people easily. When it comes to attractive women I usually always feel inferior to them since I know for sure I don't have what they want. I just get a huge amount of jealousy sometimes when I even just see an attractive woman in my view knowing they likely are with some other guy. It's also with other men too where it's like when I know deep down some other guy is considered more attractive than me or is smarter than me I just feel inferior to them. It's a difficult cycle to break when I feel I've had insecurities my whole life about things. But as I've gotten older it has more to do with my place in life compared to others as well as struggles with women that seem to just happen naturally for other guys while I have to put in so much effort just to even get a date due to all my struggles. 

[psycholuigiman 132]

Thanks everyone. I really do appreciate the advice. I was just at a complete loss. My depression and anxiety used to come from an obsessive concern for my physical health after certain events back in 2011. That, and always trying to predict the future. I guess my lack of experience with larger groups of friends and romance made me vulnerable to some extremely bad thoughts that I just didn't know how to deal with. Growing up, gaming and school were pretty much all I did. Never really thought that the positive accomplishments of the day might counter the negative crippling loneliness of night. That's some sound advice and I'll be sure to try and do my other hobbies a bit more. I actually just mended my old sweat pants pocket yesterday and it was one of the most relaxing things I've ever done by myself in a long time.

Also, I'll really try to not devalue that time I had with my ex. My brain is working overtime to try and tell me the only reason she went along with me in the first place was because her life was even worse than mine and she'd have taken anyone that showed her some affection, and I don't know what to say to that thought, but I know that people hate it when I dwell on the past. If my chances of being loved were already low in my mind, they'll hit rock bottom if I keep thinking like that. So, thanks again for the advice. If it all pays off, I'll try to remember to come back here and thank everyone again.