The Feedback Loop Of Identity Crisis And Fear

[Surrealist]

I've had issues with anxiety and depression starting as early as 13, and i'm now 29. I have pursued a pretty risky path in my life in spite of my emotional turmoil, following dreams that started in early childhood when I identified as a wizard, as someone who wanted to wield magical forces, which turned into a life path of pursuing art, film, and music. Feelings of being a failure started early, when I got rejected from the colleges where I would actually get to make stuff, and went instead to a massive school primarily concerned with writing theoretical analyses, which I had no interest in at all. I got a warning letter as well from a film teacher in high school who told me not to use art or film as a way to deal with my darkness, because it wouldn't work. 

I'm going through a really agonizing crisis of self worth these days, spending basically all of my free time battling really acute fear and despair, doing self help, yoga, gathering and practicing as much as I can about eating and living for mental health, but the anxiety has peaked so high at this point that I have been giving all that up. I am sick of my life being a terrified hurricane of trying to fix myself because it's exhausting and not working. It seems like all this fear that started back then really has had terrible consequences in my life and has lead to a lot of real failure. Anxiety permeates almost all of my memories. My first girlfriend, my first (attempted and failed) sexual experiences, my decade of writing music and finishing almost nothing, my so-called friends who I have no trust for at all, my college career which I was packed up and ready to leave multiple times, my jobs which I have always wanted to quit... they are all absolutely soaked in anxiety, terror of failure, and then a lot of failure, and then a lot more terror. Against my better judgement, I find it impossible not to feel a victim of it, like it hates me, like it's punishing me, and like it really has wrecked my life so far. I have never had a period of feeling generally happy and OK.

It is clear to me that underlying it has been this very wounded sense of self, and that all the actions I have taken in my life have been somehow aimed at repairing it. But after so many years, being almost 30 now, and having gone through a ton of experimentation, study, and hard work on myself, i am so pissed off that it seems like I can just not catch a break from the sickening background fear that I'm kind of digging my heels in and saying fuck it all. I tried to write music for 10 whole years and felt like an incompetent failure the whole time (and really do have nothing to show for it), I wanted desperately to be in love and have a sex life but nobody wants to date a weak miserable scared man so I never had a girlfriend past high school, I did vipassana and came out of it feeling devastated and insane, I did 5meoDMT and came out positive that I'm going to hell and also maybe a little psychotic, I read a zillion self help books and watched all of Leo's videos and almost all of RSD, but I just seem unable to drop this damn emergency feeling unless I blast myself with alcohol, weed, coffee, and cigarettes. Then I can feel a bit comfortable in my skin. But without cheating, I am left in an ocean of anxiety that not even meditation and mysticism is helping me crack, and it all comes back to this weak ego that doesn't think it's safe to let go. 

So, since I'm clearly not at the level where high spiritual pursuits make sense, what can I do to honor the lower, more basic, more adolescent needs that I'm clearly still stuck on? How can I give this fucker an identity besides "miserable failure"? I have been in so much pain throughout the whole time I have been pursuing what I "love" that I now no longer believe I really genuinely love anything, besides blowjobs and coffee. I have quit my jobs, I have quit my art, I have quit dating, and I just stand face to face with my fear all day. Psychedelics and meditation make it worse. I need to get this inner teenager to grow up and I'm frustrated as all hell by my continued failure to do so. 

Edited August 28, 2017 by Surrealist

[Sevi]

3 hours ago, Surrealist said:

comes back to this weak ego

Well it's not. We see a lot of trials, attempts, results: a written musical parts, despite of strong opposing feelings.

You might not value what you wrote as music or didn't like or enjoy what came out, and it can surely be a disgusting music in an objective approach too; but there is this fact: you made/created it. And there is billions of people, one of them may enjoy it. Same as your college career and so on.

You still love blowjobs and coffee, so the situation is not that terrible.

Within your collection of your inner self, there is this part of yours, which needs your love and acceptance: the teenager. It is still very upset and is still there in the timeline: when it's rejected from the colleges it wanted to be part of. It is a very understandable pain. 

And then, the other thing in you which wants be loved and romanced by a girl is also very understandable and quite the norm. And it is a healthy desire. 

It is  very common in our era that after applying for a college, the self-worth gets really damaged since this whole college process has been accepted as a definer of a destiny in the society's eye.

Now, within a family, there is always at least one body that appears as a representer of that social value system, generally that's the gate where the virus enters into the young growing one's immune.

Physical body inherently know how to terminate viruses. But we are very unprotected thus vulnerable to the social/psychological ones.

A family system is actually mostly for acquiring it for the growing ones; but since generally the adults are already infected by such viruses, they become infectious instead of protecting the young ones and establishing the healthy self-worth system.

Whatever.

You are already answering nicely your question:

3 hours ago, Surrealist said:

what can I do to honor the lower, more basic, more adolescent needs

First, yes you honor them. There is this lovely teenager within you asking for your help and sending you some nice signals for it -the part of you which knows that to make you at ease and fully integrated with all of your parts together thus reaching this sensation of relief; you need to give your tender understanding to it- you keep screaming, yelling and being even more hurtful to it. If you had a two year old daughter, would have come to you and said "daddy, I'm hungry!" Would you slap her across her face harsh, because saying so? You would feed her. Probably not just feed her but also be very affectionate while doing so.

How hard it is to do so to our-selves. Well, that's the challenge, that's the start.

3 hours ago, Surrealist said:

nobody wants to date a weak miserable scared man

Ask yourself:

Who is weak?

Who is miserable?

Who is scared?

Ask those questions gently like 10 times a day. But do not try to answer anything. Just ask, like for a month.

 

Let me share with you my insight. If you want to feel, to be deeply in love, deeply be loved and accepted by that girl, she already does. You are already eligible, you have already done enough of the work necessary. You can allow yourself to accept it. And if you are -probably you are- so close to the edge of your childhood dreams, that's the drowning fear you're experiencing. Let your art/film/music be the most disgusting ones. Who cares? Who cares? You are there.

Edited August 28, 2017 by Sevi

[Surrealist]

@Sevi Fantastic reply, thanks very much. 

[Sevi]

On 8/28/2017 at 1:37 PM, Surrealist said:

@Sevi Fantastic reply, thanks very much. 

❤