[yossarian]

Originally Posted by Spiritual

I can't be bothered by how others think of me and how I choose to act. I might ask people for feedback from time to time, but then I can chose whether or not I can work with that feedback.

I don't change my personality because of what people think of me, I change it because of how they treat me.

This is what I mean by the pain causing me the problem. I feel a lot of pain when people treat me badly. It's hard for me to just brush off the pain.

Stop taking **** from others when you are your true self. If others have problems with who you are, **** 'em and move on to better people!

This is what I often do currently. It's not exactly ideal.

Originally Posted by Rose

I don't understand why you change your way of being to please others. That's doing violence to yourself! Why do you inflict such a pain to yourself, if you're a pacifist and sensitive to emotional violence? You're inflicting pain and violating someone's personality. (your own, but that counts!)

I'm not looking to please them at all, I'm just looking to avoid being abused. It's like hiding from people that are gonna beat you up. No one looks forward to a beating. For me they are emotional beatings rather than physical beatings.

You're right though and I appreciate the good advice.

Originally Posted by Dalang

Although I don't watch The Simpsons that regularly, I see a difference between the traits you describe for yourself and Ned Flanders. In my perception, people don't hate him because he's a pacifist or has a strong moral code or enjoys life, but because he seems obsessed with religion and his ideas about how things have to be and expects everyone to agree with him. He practically forces people around him to conform to his ideas and perspective of the world which makes being with him awkward for everyone. I wouldn't want to be around that guy! He is simply not acknowledging other people for who they are.

I don't think Ned really imposes himself on others. He is happy to be generous and friendly to Homer, for instance, and has never really told Homer how to live. Ned puts up with Homer's abuse and has been doing it nonstop for 17 seasons. Ned is obsessed with religion though and seems to take the dogma a little too far in his own life. But at the same time his moral preoccupation makes him a very loving person I think.

Yet I doubt anyone has a problem with you because of the things you described. On the contrary, I believe most people will admire you for that (I do). There are probably other reasons for your perceptions. I get the feeling that you are over generalizing. There are people who attack at the first sign of weakness, and they are, in a sense, very 'loud', thus able to take up much of ones reality if one lets that happen (which humans have a tendency to do).

You're right.. the loud ones definitely drown out the others. These are the kinds of things I just need to realize.

I sort of know what I have to continue doing which is just make myself vulnerable and put myself out there and keep doing it time and again and not giving up. For me, this is like the biggest hurdle in the world though, haha. I've been making very slow progress for years. You should have seen me in middle school