Karl Jung once said, "People will try their best, all kinds of absurd ways, to avoid facing their souls." ”
This kind of escape sometimes appears in the form of "social fear", because "social fear" is essentially the fear of facing the truest self from the depths of the heart.
Especially at a time when intelligence is rapidly evolving and the new crown epidemic has not disappeared for two years, "social fear" may have become a "disease" of the times for more and more modern people.
I am a member of the "social fear", but my story will start from when I was a child, and maybe you will see your own shadow in it.
1
For a patriarchal family, my arrival was not welcome from the start, because my parents always expected a boy, and my birth meant starting another long wait.
Because I was not expected, I naturally became "dispensable" and insignificant, and there was no shortage of girls in the family anyway.
So later, when my third aunt had always hoped to have a girl because the first two children were boys, my parents decided to pass me on to my third aunt's family.
Therefore, when I was just over one year old, I was sent to my third aunt's house to raise me. But after a few months at her house, my third aunt found out she was pregnant again.
It is said that at that time, she also struggled with it, thinking that if her third child was a girl, there was no need to ask me again.
After much hesitation, she finally sent me home.
Dramatically, however, my third aunt's third child was still a boy, and she never mentioned my adoption again.
In fact, for a long time, every time my third aunt saw me, she acted very cold, and even deliberately avoided me. At first, I was confused, thinking that I was not good at being rejected.
Later, when my mother and grandmother jokingly told me about my birth, I slightly understood the complicated feelings that might lie behind my aunt's dodgy eyes and indifferent expressions.
However, for me at a young age, it was too difficult to understand and digest. I just vaguely felt that I might be an unwelcome child whose life could be changed at will.
This vague perception of future uncertainty once made me feel very frightened - maybe I will be "sent away" again because of some change in the future.
So I silently swore in my heart that I must be a good child who deserves to be loved by my parents.
Ignorant, I naively thought that as long as I was obedient and hard enough, I would definitely get more attention and love from my parents.
I studied hard and my grades were always at the top. In the eyes of teachers and classmates, I am synonymous with excellence, but in my heart, I am more eager to get the approval and praise of my parents.
Every time the final exam results were released, I returned home with a variety of three-good students and first-place awards with great anticipation, hoping to see the excited and joyful expressions of my parents.
However, in my memory, they often respond to me with a tepid "Oh" and "good" and then continue what they are doing.
Their coldness made me very disappointed at one time, but my younger brother, who often ran into trouble, did not like to study, and my rebellious sister could get more attention from my parents.
And I seemed to be a transparent "well-behaved child", silently hiding in the corner and chewing on the taste of loneliness. Over time, I even began to wonder, what was the point of my desperate efforts?
I know that the family is not financially prosperous, my parents have been working hard for the family's livelihood all year round, they have paid almost all their efforts to feed and clothe us, and the little warmth and love that remains may be left to the only boy in the family, the brother they have been looking forward to.
What my parents often say to me is: "You are the most reassuring" and "You never let people worry"... But I've really had enough of them saying that to me.
I might even wonder, am I not worthy of being loved and treated gently? Am I unworthy? Is it true that only crying children have milk?
If I let myself "fall" once, wouldn't it be able to arouse their more attention and concern?
In such self-questioning again and again, my disapproval and non-acceptance of myself have become deeper and deeper, and my personality has become more and more introverted and inferior.
Maybe I'm really an unwelcome child?
2
Because of the poor economic conditions at home, I have endured a lot of pressure beyond my age since I was a child. The annual tuition fee is a major event of my first anxiety.
In elementary school, homeroom teachers used to start collecting tuition fees for the next semester in the second half of the semester.
Every morning in the morning reading class, the teacher will walk in the classroom and say to the students passing by in a joking tone: "When will I pay the tuition?" Why does your mother play mahjong every day and has no money to pay for your tuition? ”
The students who are pointed out seem to be caught doing something bad and are caught by the teacher, and often secretly make a grimace and laugh with the teacher. Although they are talking about sensitive "money", it is clear that the atmosphere between them is relaxed.
But every time the teacher walked near me, she would always go around directly, because she knew that my family could not pay the tuition in advance.
This apparent "discrimination" always made my face burn up, as if the eyes of the whole class were fixed on me.
In fact, I hate such differential treatment, maybe the teacher's heart is good and does not want to embarrass me, but her approach invisibly isolates me.
And how I wish I could be like other students, I can easily joke with the teacher, rather than fall into a "special" and "heavy" atmosphere.
As a result, early reading classes like this have become "public executions" for me.
There are many more situations like this in school life.
The 50 yuan school uniform family can't get the money to buy it for me, so every monday at the flag raising ceremony, everyone brushes and wears the uniform uniform uniformly, only I look particularly "glaring";
The school organized vaccinations, and I still couldn't afford it. The students all lined up outside the classroom to get injections, only I was lying on the seat of the classroom, holding my head very low, pretending to be studying, but in fact I was holding back tears;
Until I went to college, I had to apply for a bursary for poor students every year to continue my studies...
I am such a "special", because of money, I can always feel the "strange" eyes around me.
And how eager I am to be an "ordinary person", to be like everyone else.
Therefore, I studied hard and tried hard to get high scores, hoping to compensate for and offset my inferiority complex on "money".
At the same time, I also began to consciously stay away from the crowd and try to avoid exposing myself, because I didn't want to be the focus of attention.
It was also from my student days that I gradually put on a "mask" for myself - taciturn, not approaching people, and dealing with interpersonal relationships is also a blunt rejection and escape.
3
However, behind the mask, there is an extreme lack of security and a low sense of self-worth.
Since I rarely felt enough emotional responses from my parents since I was a child, so that I was in a state of lack of love for a long time, and the troubles caused by "poverty" have been with me throughout my student years, low self-esteem and self-denial have become part of my personality.
I would feel like an "outlier" who didn't deserve to be loved or deserve the attention of others.
And when this psychology is projected into the relationship with others, I will think that others hate me as much as I do, so I am afraid of interacting with others, afraid of opening my heart and others will not accept my true appearance.
So, under the influence of this projection, I experienced a series of painful "social fear" experiences.
Whenever relatives at home gather and watch everyone gather together, I would rather hide in my room and not eat or dare to integrate;
If I am late for class when I am studying, I will always stand outside the classroom and dare not knock on the door to enter, because I am afraid of becoming the focus of the eyes of teachers and classmates;
If you see a teacher or classmate you know from a distance on campus, you will change the route when the distance permits, and if it is too late, you will immediately look down at your mobile phone and pretend not to see it;
After work, every time the department has dinner, it will start to be anxious a few days in advance, worried that when the time comes, everyone will chat and fall alone;
The company afternoon tea, other colleagues are naturally enjoyed, but I am worried about the eyes of others, rather than eat or dare to take;
Take the elevator to work, because I am afraid of meeting colleagues in the corridor from the end of the elevator to the company, I will get out of the elevator one floor in advance, and then take the stairs into the company...
Because I was afraid, I chose to escape, and I gradually became a "loner", going it alone, deliberately avoiding connections with people.
Although this process is often accompanied by feelings of entanglement, fear, and dislike of myself, I will defend myself and protect myself by "rationalizing".
The so-called "rationalization" is a defensive mechanism proposed by Freud, that is, by reinterpreting behavior, it appears more rational and more acceptable to us. We try to justify or justify a threatening thought or behavior by persuading ourselves to have a reasonable explanation. For example, a fired person might rationalize by saying that the job wasn't good, and a fox who can't eat grapes will say that grapes are sour...
I rationalize my behavior this way: away from the relationship will not expose yourself, it is safe to hide yourself, after all, "others are hell", rather than suffering in the relationship, it is better to stay away from the crowd and enjoy the ease of a person.
But "rationalization" is not a mature defense mechanism, especially when it fails, and we are overwhelmed by a great deal of anxiety — we feel melancholy, worthless, and depressed.
Obviously, after a while, my "rationalization" mechanism did not work, because after becoming a "loner", I did not get the inner peace and self-recognition I expected.
On the contrary, due to the deliberate refusal to integrate into others, my relationship with my family has become more and more tense, colleagues in the workplace will feel that I am cold and difficult to get along with, my sense of existence is getting lower and lower, and my interpersonal relationships are getting worse and worse... The resulting self-doubt and denial are also getting worse.
In short, I lived a more screwed life – afraid of socializing and being trapped by social distancing.
4
As the social phobia deepened, I began to read books on personality psychology, hoping to find answers from them.
It wasn't until I read the book Neglected Child that I learned about a psychological concept called "emotional neglect."
People who have had emotional neglect will be extremely disapproving of themselves in their hearts, will constantly question themselves in silence, and think that they have unforgivable shortcomings and mistakes.
In the book, the author lists twenty-two questions that describe some of the behavior of people who have suffered from "emotional neglect" in adulthood:
Sometimes it feels out of place with family and friends
Pride in not being dependent on others, especially independent
I don't like to turn to others for help, and I have things to carry on my own
Friends or family members will complain that you are cold and distant
I often want to be alone
Secretly, I think I might be a liar
Feel uncomfortable in social situations
Be more strict with yourself than you are with others
Compare yourself to others and feel inferior to others
Sometimes it feels like a bystander
Believe that you are the kind of person who can easily live the life of a hermit
I vaguely felt that there was something wrong with me
……
If most of the answers to these questions are "yes," there's a good chance you've experienced emotional neglect.
Looking at this question, almost half of my answers are "yes", and I feel that most of the descriptions accurately capture my true feelings as a "social terror" at the moment.
The authors suggest that a large part of the reason for emotional neglect comes from the way I got along with my parents as a child and my upbringing.
If a child experiences empathy failure as a child (including two types of acute empathy failure: experiencing a major stressful event, but no one empathizes and relieves stress; chronic empathy failure: a chronic lack of empathy and emotional response from parents to their children), it is very likely that symptoms of emotional neglect will occur in adulthood, including "social phobia".
After I learned about this concept, when I look back on my own upbringing, it is clear that I was a "neglected child" who had encountered more or less emotional neglect from my parents and around me. This also directly or indirectly led me to suffer from "social terrorism" later.
However, the past has passed and can no longer be changed, how can we jump out of the trap of "neglect" and achieve self-help?
5
In The Neglected Child, the author proposes that if you find yourself having experienced emotional neglect, don't feel guilty first, because it's not your fault, and guilt doesn't help.
Second, don't blame your parents or hate your own upbringing, because complaining is not the solution to the problem. After all, their parents have done their best at their age and living environment, and they are not easy.
And to really get out of the shadow of emotional neglect, you need to try to make changes from two aspects:
1) Make a cognitive change
We are all imperfect, we must accept our imperfections, we must believe that we are worthy of being loved, and we must know how to care for ourselves.
In the final analysis, "social fear" is essentially the fear of facing the real self in the relationship, which is the disapproval of the self. Accepting one's own imperfections is the first step out of social fear.
2) Make changes in consciousness and behavior: don't deliberately avoid "relationships"
In the book "Maybe You Should Talk to Someone", it is mentioned that "people grow in relationships", and blindly avoiding will only make themselves stagnate and keep in the shadows.
So, in life and work, you can try to consciously "train" yourself to cut your fear of socializing and building relationships.
Encourage yourself by asking yourself questions
For example, along the logical lines of the following, ask questions layer by layer, delving into the nature of fear:
What am I afraid, worried about, anxious about?
If these fears happen as envisaged, what about the worst outcome?
Is it really something I can't afford?
You will gradually find that the thing you were afraid of has naturally dissolved.
b. Remind yourself to be mindful
If you're anxious about an upcoming social event, remind yourself to stay mindful, not to presuppose what's possible (because it's likely to be a negative imagination), and to tell yourself to play on the spot and go with the flow.
c. Seek help from others
Many times, expressing your inner fears, in fact, you are not so afraid. Therefore, you can seek help from others and chat, talk, and share with close friends.
After experimenting and changing from cognition to behavior, I now feel a little stronger inside, and the positive feedback I get from the relationship also motivates me to have more courage to integrate into the new relationship.
The poet Hermann Hesse once said: "The most dangerous period and the greatest harm to the soul is to meditate on one's character and situation all day long, and to bear one's own dissatisfaction and weakness alone." ”
So, learn to accept yourself, try to benefit from relationship interactions, and stop being alone with yourself.
I hope that on this road of self-healing, I can open myself step by step, gradually get rid of the shadow of emotional neglect, realize self-acceptance, and get out of the cage of "social fear".
Author: Broken Dream, only to save the contracted author.