I figure the open thread is as good as any for a personal advice request. It might be a rationality issue as well.
I have incredible difficulty believing that anybody likes me. Ever since I was old enough to be aware of my own awkwardness, I have the constant suspicion that all my “friends” secretly think poorly of me, and only tolerate me to be nice.
It occurred to me that this is a problem when a close friend actually said, outright, that he liked me—and I happen to know that he never tells even white lies, as a personal scruple—and I simply couldn’t believe him. I know I’ve said some weird or embarrassing things in front of him, and so I just can’t conceive of him not looking down on me.
So. Is there a way of improving my emotional response to fit the evidence better? Sometimes there is evidence that people like me (they invite me to events; they go out of their way to spend time with me; or, in the generalized professional sense, I get some forms of recognition for my work). But I find myself ignoring the good and only seeing the bad.
Update for the curious: did talk to a friend (the same one mentioned above, who, I think, is a better “shrink” than some real shrinks) and am now resolved to kick this thing, because sooner or later, excessive approval-seeking will get me in trouble.
I’m starting with what I think of as homebrew CBT: I will not gratuitously apologize or verbally belittle myself. I will try to replace “I suck, everyone hates me” thoughts with saner alternatives. I will keep doing this even when it seems stupid and self-deluding. Hopefully the concrete behavioral stuff will affect the higher-level stuff.
After all. A mathematician I really admire gave me career advice—and it was “Believe in yourself.” Yeah, in those words, and he’s a logical guy, not very soft and fuzzy.
Here’s my rationalist CBT: the things that depression tells you are way too extreme to be accurate—self-deluding is believing them, not examining them rationally.
I have exactly the same problem. I think I understand where mine comes from, from being abused by my older siblings. I have Asperger’s, so I was an easy target. I think they would sucker me in by being nice to me, then when I was more vulnerable whack me psychologically (or otherwise). It is very difficult for me to accept praise of any sort because it reflexively puts me on guard and I become hypersensitive.
You can’t get psychotherapy from a friend, it doesn’t work and can’t work because the friendship dynamic gets in the way (from both directions). A good therapist can help a great deal, but that therapist needs to be not connected to your social network.
The issue that are dealt with in psychotherapy are fundamentally non-rational issues. Rational issues are trivial to deal with (for people who are rationalists). The substrate of the issues dealt with in psychotherapy are feelings and not thoughts.
I see feelings as an analog component of the human utility function. That analog component affects the gain and feedback in the non-analog components. The feedback by which thoughts affect feelings is slow and tenuous and takes a long time and considerable neuronal remodeling. That is why psychotherapy takes a long time, the neuronal remodeling necessary to affect feelings is much slower than the neuronal remodeling that affects thoughts.
A common response to trauma is to dissociate and suppress the coupling between feelings and thoughts. The easiest and most reliable way to do this is to not have feelings because feelings that are not felt cannot be expressed and so cannot be observed and so cannot be used by opponents as a basis of attack. I think this is the basis of the constricted affect of PTSD.
Alicorn’s Living Luminously series covers some methods of systematic mental introspection and tweaking like this. The comments on alief are especially applicable.
For what it’s worth, this is often known as Imposter Syndrome, though it’s not any sort of real psychiatric diagnosis. Unfortunately, I’m not aware of any reliable strategies for defeating it; I have a friend who has had similar issues in a more academic context and she seems to have largely overcome the problem, but I’m not sure as to how.
You might want to check out Learning Methods—they’ve got techniques for tracking down the thoughts behind your emotions, and then looking at whether the thoughts make sense.
I was like this from ages 12-18, perhaps? It started because quite a few people actually were mean to me, but my brain incorrectly extrapolated and assumed everyone was. The beginning of the end was when I started to do something that I had defined as the province of the liked-people (in this case, dating), though it took about two years to purge the habit.
Perhaps there is something you are similarly defining to imply likedness, and you can do that thing.
Perhaps it would help to think about how you treat people you like vs. people you dislike and how you react to their flaws and faults. If you have a trusted friend you can talk to about this perhaps ask them about things they’ve done similar to your own self-perceived flaws (weird or embarrassing things you’ve said) - the friend you mention sounds like a good candidate. You might find that you didn’t even notice these things, don’t remember them or noticed them but didn’t change your opinion significantly.
If you can see the symmetry with genuinely liking certain other people despite their imperfections perhaps it will be easier to appreciate how others can genuinely like you.
For what it’s worth, the stigma of seeing a mental health professional has basically vanished over the last ten years. Sometimes being in therapy is even a status symbol...
A therapist isn’t necessarily better than honest conversation with a good friend, but it sounds like you have trouble having that kind of conversation with your friends. Out of the different types of therapy, most of them have little evidence as to their efficacy, but there is a fair amount of evidence that cognitive behavior therapy works.
So I’ll ask again—why not try it? Being old fashioned isn’t a very good reason.
Does your sense of being unlikeable have an impact on your self-esteem or lifestyle? To paraphrase something I heard about these things, it’s only a problem if you think that it’s a problem
Anyway, I second the recommendation of the Luminosity sequence, also this workbook; it covers a lot of the same material as talk therapy would but you can work through them independently, without the need to impose on anyone else.
yeah, that’s why I brought it up, it is a problem. Because I’ll spend time being very unhappy that nobody “really” likes me, and sometimes do stupid things to seek approval. Thanks for the link.
I figure the open thread is as good as any for a personal advice request. It might be a rationality issue as well.
I have incredible difficulty believing that anybody likes me. Ever since I was old enough to be aware of my own awkwardness, I have the constant suspicion that all my “friends” secretly think poorly of me, and only tolerate me to be nice.
It occurred to me that this is a problem when a close friend actually said, outright, that he liked me—and I happen to know that he never tells even white lies, as a personal scruple—and I simply couldn’t believe him. I know I’ve said some weird or embarrassing things in front of him, and so I just can’t conceive of him not looking down on me.
So. Is there a way of improving my emotional response to fit the evidence better? Sometimes there is evidence that people like me (they invite me to events; they go out of their way to spend time with me; or, in the generalized professional sense, I get some forms of recognition for my work). But I find myself ignoring the good and only seeing the bad.
Update for the curious: did talk to a friend (the same one mentioned above, who, I think, is a better “shrink” than some real shrinks) and am now resolved to kick this thing, because sooner or later, excessive approval-seeking will get me in trouble.
I’m starting with what I think of as homebrew CBT: I will not gratuitously apologize or verbally belittle myself. I will try to replace “I suck, everyone hates me” thoughts with saner alternatives. I will keep doing this even when it seems stupid and self-deluding. Hopefully the concrete behavioral stuff will affect the higher-level stuff.
After all. A mathematician I really admire gave me career advice—and it was “Believe in yourself.” Yeah, in those words, and he’s a logical guy, not very soft and fuzzy.
Here’s my rationalist CBT: the things that depression tells you are way too extreme to be accurate—self-deluding is believing them, not examining them rationally.
sounds good.
I have exactly the same problem. I think I understand where mine comes from, from being abused by my older siblings. I have Asperger’s, so I was an easy target. I think they would sucker me in by being nice to me, then when I was more vulnerable whack me psychologically (or otherwise). It is very difficult for me to accept praise of any sort because it reflexively puts me on guard and I become hypersensitive.
You can’t get psychotherapy from a friend, it doesn’t work and can’t work because the friendship dynamic gets in the way (from both directions). A good therapist can help a great deal, but that therapist needs to be not connected to your social network.
The issue that are dealt with in psychotherapy are fundamentally non-rational issues. Rational issues are trivial to deal with (for people who are rationalists). The substrate of the issues dealt with in psychotherapy are feelings and not thoughts.
I see feelings as an analog component of the human utility function. That analog component affects the gain and feedback in the non-analog components. The feedback by which thoughts affect feelings is slow and tenuous and takes a long time and considerable neuronal remodeling. That is why psychotherapy takes a long time, the neuronal remodeling necessary to affect feelings is much slower than the neuronal remodeling that affects thoughts.
A common response to trauma is to dissociate and suppress the coupling between feelings and thoughts. The easiest and most reliable way to do this is to not have feelings because feelings that are not felt cannot be expressed and so cannot be observed and so cannot be used by opponents as a basis of attack. I think this is the basis of the constricted affect of PTSD.
Alicorn’s Living Luminously series covers some methods of systematic mental introspection and tweaking like this. The comments on alief are especially applicable.
For what it’s worth, this is often known as Imposter Syndrome, though it’s not any sort of real psychiatric diagnosis. Unfortunately, I’m not aware of any reliable strategies for defeating it; I have a friend who has had similar issues in a more academic context and she seems to have largely overcome the problem, but I’m not sure as to how.
You might want to check out Learning Methods—they’ve got techniques for tracking down the thoughts behind your emotions, and then looking at whether the thoughts make sense.
I was like this from ages 12-18, perhaps? It started because quite a few people actually were mean to me, but my brain incorrectly extrapolated and assumed everyone was. The beginning of the end was when I started to do something that I had defined as the province of the liked-people (in this case, dating), though it took about two years to purge the habit.
Perhaps there is something you are similarly defining to imply likedness, and you can do that thing.
Perhaps it would help to think about how you treat people you like vs. people you dislike and how you react to their flaws and faults. If you have a trusted friend you can talk to about this perhaps ask them about things they’ve done similar to your own self-perceived flaws (weird or embarrassing things you’ve said) - the friend you mention sounds like a good candidate. You might find that you didn’t even notice these things, don’t remember them or noticed them but didn’t change your opinion significantly.
If you can see the symmetry with genuinely liking certain other people despite their imperfections perhaps it will be easier to appreciate how others can genuinely like you.
If you don’t mind my asking, have you tried any kind of “talking therapy”?
Oh god no. I’m very old-fashioned; still think of that as a recourse for the genuinely troubled or ill, not fortunate people like me.
Who made that rule? What potential bad consequence of someone you wouldn’t call “genuinely troubled or ill” trying a talking therapy do you foresee?
This article by Yvain on the difficulties with that distinction may interest you.
For what it’s worth, the stigma of seeing a mental health professional has basically vanished over the last ten years. Sometimes being in therapy is even a status symbol...
A therapist isn’t necessarily better than honest conversation with a good friend, but it sounds like you have trouble having that kind of conversation with your friends. Out of the different types of therapy, most of them have little evidence as to their efficacy, but there is a fair amount of evidence that cognitive behavior therapy works.
So I’ll ask again—why not try it? Being old fashioned isn’t a very good reason.
Does your sense of being unlikeable have an impact on your self-esteem or lifestyle? To paraphrase something I heard about these things, it’s only a problem if you think that it’s a problem
Anyway, I second the recommendation of the Luminosity sequence, also this workbook; it covers a lot of the same material as talk therapy would but you can work through them independently, without the need to impose on anyone else.
yeah, that’s why I brought it up, it is a problem. Because I’ll spend time being very unhappy that nobody “really” likes me, and sometimes do stupid things to seek approval. Thanks for the link.