Killing the Zombie

Thanks for taking the time to share those thoughts and info with me. I'll check out Russ Harris. And don't apologise, I never thought you were going on and on 🙂

It reminds me of the "feel the fear and do it anyway" line. Deliberately challenging ourselves with small steps out of our comfort zone. Moving towards what makes us afraid rather than away from it and by doing that we learn that we are strong enough.

You don't have to answer, but I wondered whether the SA was triggered by anything or do you think it was /is just a part of your inherent nature and personality? My "issues" aren't do with SA and I feel like I've come a long way in identifying the parts of my childhood that they stem from, but in the last few days it's dawned on me that someone with a different personality would have coped with them differently and probably not been as affected by them for so long. Nothing really dramatic or terrible happened to me, and I see kids everywhere who have come through the same or worse and are doing ok, so maybe I was just always a bit sensitive or susceptible to hurt? My turn to waffle on!

LB x

Hi Louis,

Thank you for your post and support. I seem to go through some motions recently, more than aware that they were caused by recent slip i tried to gloss over...cannot trick the mind huh.

I like your posts. Food for thought for sure.
Keep doing what you doing - it is working! We need to stick to what works for us and that requires patience - acceptance - open mind!

Take a good care of yourself and keep claiming your life back ☺

Sandra

Warning: this is a LONG post, a post about confidence and me. It’s also brimming full of unqualified psychology, especially for Alan35. (If anyone can’t be &rsed reading the whole thing, skip to the last para.)

I’ve previously described my own feelings of social anxiety in certain situations. I’d considered whether a lack of confidence was the issue. It might’ve been that I was simply in denial, but I think the main reason was that ‘a lack of confidence’, as I understood it, didn’t seem properly fit me.

For example, I’m a decent public speaker. Recently I’d agreed to take part in a ‘round-table discussion’. Naively, I thought that this was an informal chat with other people (possibly around a large round table). Whoa! I was wrong on that. Suddenly I, a mere trainee, found myself being part of a panel speaking to an audience of 50 senior barristers and solicitors. Aside from me, the panel included three QCs and two professors of law. It went fine. I got positive feedback (and a few people said I was the only one they understood as the others were too intellectual!). I didn’t feel confident, I was sh1tting it, but apparently I looked confident (more on this below).

So there’s that, but then there’s self-conscious me who goes into his shell when he’s with a group of people he doesn’t know very well or that he fears he might come up short against. He gets self-conscious around his girlfriend’s (lovely) parents – he can’t focus on the moment as he’s too worried about the impression he’s making, too busy thinking about what he should say next- he’s so caught up in worry and self doubt that he’s not really there.

So how do I square these two apparent differences in confidence levels? The answer is I don’t. Confidence isn’t some general quality we have which permeates all aspects of our life. People are confident at different things. No one can say they have no confidence. Almost everyone can dress themselves, brush their teeth etc. And most people are particularly good at some thing, even if they don’t recognise it or think it’s important. These are all just learned skills.

As for me, I’m not unconfident per se, I just lack confidence in some situations. If I give myself too wide a label (I am socially anxious/I am unconfident) it’s not helpful (nor accurate.).

This moves onto the second question. What do we do about any lack of confidence? I think it helps to think of the two potential meanings of confidence: the ‘feeling of confidence’ and the ‘act of confidence’ -the act of confidence meaning an act of trust or reliance on yourself or others. People, like me, got stuck because I focussed on the first type. I needed to ‘feel’ confident before I would act confidently. Unfortunately this meant I was waiting rather a long time! Or, in the case of social situations, I used alcohol to get that confident feeling. My ‘relaxed self’, my humour, could come out after a few drinks. I developed this gap between who I wanted to be and what I was – a ‘confidence gap’.

I didn’t realise it is the act of confidence which has to come first. If the feelings come later, which they probably will, then that’s a bonus. But if we are acting according to our values then, although the feelings are nice, they are not the most important thing. What’s important is that we are living by our values.

All this isn’t original material - I’ve been following Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for 9 months and have found it remarkably useful. It includes mindfulness techniques to help you live by your values/achieve goals. Often my mind will tell me ‘I can’t do this’ or tell me I’m rubbish at social situations. These thoughts are natural and should not be struggled with. Problems start when I buy into these thoughts, as if they are facts. “I am socially awkward”. Actually, this isn’t a fact, this isn’t ‘me’, it’s an opinion of myself, and often a transient one at that (hence it being a thought). More importantly it’s an unhelpful thought. There are various effective ACT techniques to ‘defuse’ from these thoughts, which work. This is not to be confused wiht 'positive thinking' -which is wishful thinking b0ll0x.

Emotions, particularly fear, can play a big part in confidence. Everyone experiences fear. There is nothing wrong with fear. If we did not experience fear we would not be human. But, it’s our relationship with fear which can cause us big problems. The struggle with difficult emotions, particularly fear, is one of the main drivers behind addiction. It’s what caused me to seek sanctuary in fruit machines and online slots for 15 years. Rather than sit with difficult feelings I opted out – to get temporary relief at the expense of long term health and development - a terrible downward spiral of negative reinforcement. The more I would ‘avoid’ and gamble, the bigger the confidence gap grew. On the occasion I did find myself in a ‘difficult’ situation, that gap seemed bigger than ever as I wasn’t used to being in ‘real life’ (social) situations any more. The pain seemed even worse than before as the gap was bigger. Although my fears were 95% in my head, in reality I’d no doubt also de-skilled, socially. I’d need the gambling fix more than ever.

Now, I can try to experience my fear more directly and non-judgementally - I try to experience it more fully and with curiosity. I can now commit to doing things that matter, rather than being led by my fears. 6 months ago I committed to getting into a band. This aligns with a value of mine – being creative. 6 months ago I remember being too shy to play my guitar in front of my sister. Through many, many small steps and goals, each one taking me a little bit out of my comfort zone, it culminated in me last week doing a turn (sober) at an open mic session, singing and playing a song on my guitar. The band isn’t yet formed, but if it never does it doesn’t really matter. It’s about the process not the end result.

The poster Glint said something like you ‘can’t wait to be confident’ before you do something’. That’s so true. It’s the actions which matter and if you’re doing something important then that’s all that really counts, usually the feelings come later but that’s a bonus.

I could not agree more, halfway through reading I was thinking im confident in some aspects of my life but not others the reason being the fear of the unknown. Which you then went on to explain perfectly.

It's all about building confidence the things I do day in day out in my comfort zone I am confident with.if we add an extra string to that daily bow so to speak I go out of tune till i work out how to deal with the change.

The hard thing is having the confidence in the first place to step out of that comfort zone, push the boundaries. I often lie in bed before i go to sleep thinking tomorrow I'm going to ......,. The majority of the time I wake up the next day and don't act on them thoughts.

Thanks for the post I'm going to push myself to do something new this weekend outside of the normal things that fill my day I'll have a think about what in bed later

KTF

Louis

Fella another outstanding contribution to the forum.

Simply thanks for sharing.

Duncs stepping forward never back.

Hi Louis,

Thanks for your thoughts ☺..no, I'm not from UK originally. I am from Lithuania...little 3 million population country, with beautiful countryside, rivers, sights to see, warm summers and too cold winters...yup..that's where my roots are.

Great post here above. You have wonderful self awareness and i guess it didn't come overnight.
Well done on working at recovery and self discovery one step at a time. The fruits of hard work is clear to see.

Stay safe, committed and keep enjoying life ☺

Take care

S x

Thanks v much Sandra! and to Oldham and Duncs : )

confidence, last thoughts:

I wrote before that confidence isn't a magic sparkly dust effecting any and every part of your life. It's just having trust and belief...in a certain part of your life. People are confident at different things.

The key thing i've learnt about confidence, is that the act of confidence comes first, the feelings will (hopefully) come second.

Thinking about it more. When I 'wish I was more confident at XY or Z', or speficially, when I wish I was more socially confident around new people, for example, I really mean I wish I had the confidence which would allow me to fully engage/to connect with others/ etc etc. I don't want the confidence for confidence sake. If that makes sense.

If we can take action, according to our values, take those steps out of our comfort zone, then we're bypassing the need for confidence ( the feelings do probably come later, they're a bonus).

Don't wait until you feel good!

Louis

Hai Louis.

Values Г— actions + confidence = Going with emotions and living life on Lifes's terms.

I've always enjoyed your diary and you've bought alot to this forum.

I'm still up to catching up for a pint one day. Would suggest an open mic session but I'd probably clear the pub.

Have a good brisk day.

Hello Louis

Thank you for your post. Honoured to have inspired such a great post.

Certainly see similarities between us. Have always followed your posts. I think your way of posting and what you post about is always uniquely interesting.

I don't see anyone else posting about Gregorian chanting.

You have obviously (well) spent a huge amount of time learning about yourself and have unquestionably done a great job at improving yourself.

The self-discovery, being disconnected from relationships and considering some good to have come from gambling are all things I completely identify with. You're much further than me with all of the above.

It's all personal and passionate posting about what has worked for you, which I thank you for sharing.

I don't think I'll ever find not gambling as easy as you seem to. Half my problem is that I like gambling. I think I always will. It's a passion. It's all I have done. No smoking, alcohol, drugs, parties, guitars or university. Just gambling.

I consider my values more inherent than structured, but see how writing things down can help focus the mind.

In posting to me I feel the help and connection (that's two of your six values ticked in one post).

For what it's worth Louis, obviously only based on your posts - I think you'll be a great dad.

Glint

Hi Louis,

Thanks for touching the base ☺..yes, avoiding other diarists is work in progress..i will stop reading all together soon at this rate lol..kidding of course, there are way more inspiring stories on here which outweighs the "arrogant" ones.
I hear what you say about little steps in right direction. This is very true and i am trying this new adventure. Finding motivation comes difficult on some days, but the only person stopping me to move on is myself!. I think it was Dan who mentioned this before and i couldn't agree more. I find it magical when we just go for something even if felt like couldn't move from the spot originally and gradually those steps becomes easier...yes, i do walk into the wall and sometimes it feels like i am blind to things but progress nonetheless ☺
I'm sure i will find my way eventually, ..i have learned a lot in my life and those lessons are never stopping...slapping me in the face now and again but i am not complaining for once...i guess i am more accepting of things now.
Aha..so you've been sneaky reading my diary for a while lol..i guess you agree with me here, i have change a lot in time. Maybe even become overconfident but here we go...i just feel that i have to be honest to myself and others on here ..always have been..maybe wrong at the times but i am voicing myself and that's way better than going with the flow and patting every single Joe on the back if i don't think they deserve it..
Again, we are all different and i love beauty of imperfections in people..that's how we grow huh.

Hope you have a lovely day and looking ahead.

Keep working at it, you're doing brill! (Pat on ur bk here cause you deserve it 😉 )

S x

Had two weeks off from the board. Made me realise how compulsive my gc activity was. Actually required some discipline not to casually log back in, at the start.

However over past few weeks I've been able to use time more positively. When I have a spare moment rather than log on I try practice ACT or communicate with friends.

Thankfully got several of my non cg friends into ACT so able to have fairly open chat now with them. Also met paul/volcano in 3d which was great and he was every bit as sound as I knew he would be.

all that is just as well as the current meme on here remains dominantly bland and uninspiring. It feels sugary-american -like we can hold hands and BELIEVE our way through this. Lets do Positive thinking next.

Our gambling life existed in a vacuum. God i was a bit silly but I've moved on now. So as long as I just don't gamble then everything is fine. Nothing at all fundamentally damaged with us. Weren't escaping we 'just gambled' and now we're 'just not gamblimg'.

...and therefore nothing needs to change, as we whistle on down the street, heads held high as, of course, we've made it. Just the odd nervous glance back.

Feels like an unsustainable bubble. Built on hot air. If anyone dare point this out they are hounded with some venom.

Some of the intolerance here towards other members is shocking. Reading dan's diary and it's surprising how upset people are to different view points. Bizarrely intolerant and, as usual, this intolerance reveals far more about the offended person's insecurity. Perhaps what's surprising isn't the intolerance itself, but the unashamed willingness to let rip these days.

Hoping for better times on here where people share their fears and ideas about recovering.

Louis

Hi, Louis,

Echo HL. Mutual support is really important but it's not enough on it's own. At meetings, members don't hold hands, they're also told what needs to be said. Why not here? Although my plain speaking is too plain sometimes, hence the recent fireworks, but it's not ill intentioned.

Best wishes,

CW

Hi Louis, HL and CW,

This isn't a lengthy post as I'm off out to work but just want to say that it seems ok for GA members and other halfs to throw out fireworks, but as soon as they get a little boom back that's not ok, it's our addiction making us retaliate apparently. You're wrong on this one. GA works for some people (3% I believe?) however, it's not the only way and that's what I object to along with the glorification of the small amount of people who have had some seriously nasty stuff go on in their life. The likes of ODAAT and I wished (who both inspire me greatly) aren't frequent GA attenders, however I realise that it turned around the life of Duncs and you Louis among others, so I don't dismiss it completely but you all have no problem in dismissing any other approach. Anyway, no fireworks, just my opinion.

Twinklyr

ps nothing wrong with a high-five occasionally. I work in sales, even though my team are all adults, we need the occasional well done, high five or pat on the back to get the best performance out of us.

I've never been to GA (although it sounds great)