Battling the internal feelings

[Maple1714]

I feel like I'm coming to love myself and in a way that's the easier bit because it only involves the relationship with myself, but affirming to myself that I'll find someone to love me is a constant everyday struggle for me to reconcile the truth I know and how I feel. I can control how I feel about myself, but I can't control how someone feels about me. It's a significant possibility that I never meet someone who I can be with, not because I'm a terrible person or anything, but sheer bad luck, and the idea of somebody being with me often feels like a foreign concept even though I *know* I shouldn't feel this way.

I don't know whether it's a problem with me, but the idea of 'letting go' and doing something outrageous feels forced and contrived to me, but maybe that's just me. I'm open with how I feel about myself what I think and what morals I live by, and that's enough for me.

I've worked for years and years on confidence, but I wonder why it's just seemingly impossible to change my feelings with my thoughts, permanently. While I can feel fine temporarily, something will trigger off the feeling of being unloved and unacknowledged. I've had a lifelong problem of almost indulging in sadness and loneliness at times, it's what feels like the easiest and natural to tend towards, and I have to constantly pull myself away from it. However, I just don't know how I can set myself free from such thought patterns permanently. Everyone goes on about "having more confidence", "changing thought patterns" and so on, but nobody really goes into depth about actually how to get to that point, and stay there without lapsing.

I tend not to reach out to people because when I do, even though they may have the best intentions, almost everyone I know attempts to "fix" my "problem" using logic and reason, which aren't much different to the logical things I tell myself anyway. I don't want sympathy, because that just fuels negativity in the long run, but sometimes it'd be nice to have my feelings acknowledged, understood and empathised with - that's what I try to do if somebody I know feels down. I don't have that, however, so when I feel down, I'm alone and the feelings are bottled up inside.

Life will always have emotional up's and down's. Our emotional/mental state will never and should never be stagnate. We can all control how we "feel" in our own heads about our self to a point, but it also has a lot to do with brain chemistry and genetics. You could very well have a chemical imbalance. Have you ever looked into it? I have a lot of emotional mood swings and often feel that no one cares about me etc....even tho I have a BF who tells me he loves me and many friends who tel me the same. It's just my own emotions that get out of whack from time to time. I try and logically talk myself out of these thoughts, and you are right logic has no bearing when you feel this way. There are a lot of things you can do to try and quiet all those thoughts tho...like exercise, changing your diet, meditating. Life is supposed to be a transient journey and you should enjoy all the ups and down's. You also need to find a way to get out of your own head and allow other people to connect with you. Trust me, there are plenty of men out there that would love to love someone like you. I don't believe in luck...so to me there is no such thing as back luck. Whether you realize it or not, you are manifesting your own fate by projecting your feelings of loneliness and fears of being un-lovable out there into the world....so guess what? That's exactly what your getting in return from the world. You can have any type of life you want, but you have to go out there an make it happen for yourself...seriously you need to change your perspective.

If you don't mind me asking, were you abused in any way as a child?

[Desdemona]

Life will always have emotional up's and down's. Our emotional/mental state will never and should never be stagnate. We can all control how we "feel" in our own heads about our self to a point, but it also has a lot to do with brain chemistry and genetics. You could very well have a chemical imbalance. Have you ever looked into it? I have a lot of emotional mood swings and often feel that no one cares about me etc....even tho I have a BF who tells me he loves me and many friends who tel me the same. It's just my own emotions that get out of whack from time to time. I try and logically talk myself out of these thoughts, and you are right logic has no bearing when you feel this way. There are a lot of things you can do to try and quiet all those thoughts tho...like exercise, changing your diet, meditating. Life is supposed to be a transient journey and you should enjoy all the ups and down's. You also need to find a way to get out of your own head and allow other people to connect with you. Trust me, there are plenty of men out there that would love to love someone like you. I don't believe in luck...so to me there is no such thing as back luck. Whether you realize it or not, you are manifesting your own fate by projecting your feelings of loneliness and fears of being un-lovable out there into the world....so guess what? That's exactly what your getting in return from the world. You can have any type of life you want, but you have to go out there an make it happen for yourself...seriously you need to change your perspective.

If you don't mind me asking, were you abused in any way as a child?

I wasn't abused deliberately, no, but as I mentioned, I was born in the body of the wrong gender, so I had to spend childhood being raised as a boy until I could transform into who I am now. Most people won't realise it, but I feel like it's an unintentional form of abuse - if a child born physically female was raised as a boy, called "he, him, his", expected to be a husband in the future, wearing boys' clothes, expected to socialise more with boys than girls...etc. etc. there would be outrage and sympathy for the 'abused' girl. That's exactly what happens with transgendered people, except it isn't seen that way. For me, a lot of that's all in the past now, but some emotional scars, it led to me growing up thinking that feeling sad and unlovable was just the normality of life and the way things were. I know it doesn't have to be that way now, but it's harder to erase those thoughts.

You're right about projecting feelings of loneliness etc, that's why I'm desparately trying to free myself from such notions to change the course of my love life, and I'm a lot better than I used to be, but it's just so easy to slip back into that 'default setting' of being alone. Hopefully one day, it won't be the 'default' feeling anymore. It just feels like it's going to take forever for things to truly change - I don't obviously project loneliness or feeling unlovable in the things I say, it's something I try to keep at bay, so if it is something coming across, it might be more subtly in the way I am without realising it, meaning that a more monumental change within is required. I feel like I'm making some progress, but I don't know whether I can ever truly conquer it.

It wouldn't be surprising if I did have a brain chemistry issue in some way, as I do have a family history of depression, and neither of my parents exactly had easy lives, but they did their very best with me. I'm also studying for high pressure exams at work at the current moment, working ridiculously hard which doesn't exactly help my well being right now.

[HeartIsAching]

Ouch... so are you post-op? That's got to be a tough road to go down.

[Desdemona]

Ouch... so are you post-op? That's got to be a tough road to go down.

Yes, I'm post op now, so at least I don't have body issues anymore.