Insecurity is when someone perceives that they are not secure—i.e. they are in danger of being harmed by others or deprived of an essential resource be it money, social standing, a relationship, or self-esteem. It more refers to abstract and long term things that cause anxiety rather than fear—so any problem significantly more abstract and long-term than say, a bear, can cause insecurity.
I think that what insecurity is, is inhibition of feelings of disappointment/loss because of an implicitly learned belief that to express these feelings will have negative consequences (ie – it will only make things worse).
I think that what you have described are the compensation mechanisms that some people use in response to a specific type of insecurity.
When one’s insecurity centers around self-esteem / self-image, the defense mechanism is to try to avoid admitting certain things about yourself to yourself which might contradict a proud self-image. It’s a form of self-deception, similar to belief in belief.
One might also have similar behavior because they are afraid of people hurting them, and so avoid relationships with people and avoid exposing vulnerability to others. Since its hard for many people to fake social cues one might to some extent hide one’s vulnerability from oneself as well.
There’s plenty of other insecurities, with different ways of dealing. People feeling insecure about money will have stronger emotional reactions to losing it. People with insecurity about losing a relationship might get clingy, while people who are afraid that they will be harmed by others will avoid forming attachments. Not all of these insecurities involve deception to self/others about negative emotions.
When one’s insecurity centers around self-esteem / self-image, the defense mechanism is to try to avoid admitting certain things about yourself to yourself which might contradict a proud self-image. It’s a form of self-deception, similar to belief in belief
This may be correct. However my supposition is that it keeps one from resolving the problem. It keeps one from potentially unlearning the emotional response. It may be, and I’m hypothesizing here, that it takes a fully uninhibited experience of the fear to unlearn it. That is what I’m suggesting. It may not be so, however.
The idea behind these therapies is that we do indeed do something very similar to what you’ve described (hide our insecurity from ourself), maybe exactly what you’ve described and eventually it becomes habitual and automatic but to effectively unlearn the emotional response we have to somehow not react to it that way and then have a disconfirming experience.
The types of insecurities that don’t involve self-deception are probably well-founded. I don’t think it would be desirable to be without the well-founded and reasonable insecurities. But they are probably not the ones that sap the joy from life as much.
Also, another possibility for why we form a habitual reaction to a feeling that is different than a straightforward expression of it is that a straightforward expression of the feeling may have had a very painful result. It may be self-deception or it may be self-protection. The motive may have been to avoid the kind of reaction from others that was so painful rather than an effort to avoid signalling an undesirable trait.
The types of insecurities that don’t involve self-deception are probably well-founded.
All the insecurities encourage behavior which is adaptive when the threat is real and maladaptive when it isn’t. Universally, they all sap joy from life. Joyful behaviors were probably maladaptive in stress-inducing situations, once upon a time. It’s always superior to identify and delete unjustified insecurities, and be consciously aware of and improve real-world causes that justify the justified ones.
You in particular may have once experienced maladaptive self-deceiving insecurity, so you think that one is particularly maladaptive while the others make sense in context. But self-deceiving insecurity makes sense in context as well.
Just imagine that you actually were in a social situation where admitting weakness would have undesirable consequences. Suppose you were in a schoolyard, and larger children decided to bully those who show signs of weakness and get sadistic pleasure out of observing shame and crying. You would do well to suppress negative feelings in this scenario to avoid becoming a target. You would also do well to avoid interacting with unknown people who might hurt you—something that avoidant-type social anxiety neatly accomplishes.
Conversely, the other insecurities can be just as life sapping.
Imagine you’ve had loved ones cut you off for no apparent reason. You don’t want it to happen again, so you cling to people who extend tidbits of affection and get anxious when they aren’t by your side. Your needy behavior puts people off, perpetuating the cycle of failed relationships.
Imagine you grew up during a time of economic scarcity, so you save every penny due to ingrained financial insecurity. You skimp on healthcare. You stay in crappy housing. You refuse to trade money for labor, instead spending hours doing dangerous and difficult tasks yourself, often botching them due to lack of skill. You end up losing money in medical and repair bills, and have a lower quality of life,
And so on. Insecurity is a sign that something is wrong—either your mind is mis-calibrated for the situation, or you are in real-world trouble. If you can remove the emotional baggage of insecurity and just calmly carry out the necessary adaptive behaviors, you probably should.
I agree. I am ‘mis-calibrated’ to put it one way. I’m sure these reactions were, at one time, adaptive.
Considering your examples the interesting phenomenon is that they can persist long after they have ceased to be adaptive. But it seems that a particular type of experience can eradicate them. A logical argument that they are no longer adaptive, convincing as it may be doesn’t seem sufficient to accomplish the feat. I agree that the learned emotional reactions that are sapping the joy from life were most likely adaptive at one point. But they don’t just go away on their own once they cease to be adaptive and they don’t even go away once you start to believe that they are maladaptive. But, the theory I’m operating under right now is that a particular type of experience, not an argument (although an argument can be a part of it) can unlearn them. Obviously I have not accomplished this yet. So, yes, I agree I am mis-calibrated. I need to re-calibate. I have to figure out how to do it.
Semantic quibbles:
Insecurity is when someone perceives that they are not secure—i.e. they are in danger of being harmed by others or deprived of an essential resource be it money, social standing, a relationship, or self-esteem. It more refers to abstract and long term things that cause anxiety rather than fear—so any problem significantly more abstract and long-term than say, a bear, can cause insecurity.
I think that what you have described are the compensation mechanisms that some people use in response to a specific type of insecurity.
When one’s insecurity centers around self-esteem / self-image, the defense mechanism is to try to avoid admitting certain things about yourself to yourself which might contradict a proud self-image. It’s a form of self-deception, similar to belief in belief.
One might also have similar behavior because they are afraid of people hurting them, and so avoid relationships with people and avoid exposing vulnerability to others. Since its hard for many people to fake social cues one might to some extent hide one’s vulnerability from oneself as well.
There’s plenty of other insecurities, with different ways of dealing. People feeling insecure about money will have stronger emotional reactions to losing it. People with insecurity about losing a relationship might get clingy, while people who are afraid that they will be harmed by others will avoid forming attachments. Not all of these insecurities involve deception to self/others about negative emotions.
This may be correct. However my supposition is that it keeps one from resolving the problem. It keeps one from potentially unlearning the emotional response. It may be, and I’m hypothesizing here, that it takes a fully uninhibited experience of the fear to unlearn it. That is what I’m suggesting. It may not be so, however.
The idea behind these therapies is that we do indeed do something very similar to what you’ve described (hide our insecurity from ourself), maybe exactly what you’ve described and eventually it becomes habitual and automatic but to effectively unlearn the emotional response we have to somehow not react to it that way and then have a disconfirming experience.
The types of insecurities that don’t involve self-deception are probably well-founded. I don’t think it would be desirable to be without the well-founded and reasonable insecurities. But they are probably not the ones that sap the joy from life as much.
Also, another possibility for why we form a habitual reaction to a feeling that is different than a straightforward expression of it is that a straightforward expression of the feeling may have had a very painful result. It may be self-deception or it may be self-protection. The motive may have been to avoid the kind of reaction from others that was so painful rather than an effort to avoid signalling an undesirable trait.
All the insecurities encourage behavior which is adaptive when the threat is real and maladaptive when it isn’t. Universally, they all sap joy from life. Joyful behaviors were probably maladaptive in stress-inducing situations, once upon a time. It’s always superior to identify and delete unjustified insecurities, and be consciously aware of and improve real-world causes that justify the justified ones.
You in particular may have once experienced maladaptive self-deceiving insecurity, so you think that one is particularly maladaptive while the others make sense in context. But self-deceiving insecurity makes sense in context as well.
Just imagine that you actually were in a social situation where admitting weakness would have undesirable consequences. Suppose you were in a schoolyard, and larger children decided to bully those who show signs of weakness and get sadistic pleasure out of observing shame and crying. You would do well to suppress negative feelings in this scenario to avoid becoming a target. You would also do well to avoid interacting with unknown people who might hurt you—something that avoidant-type social anxiety neatly accomplishes.
Conversely, the other insecurities can be just as life sapping.
Imagine you’ve had loved ones cut you off for no apparent reason. You don’t want it to happen again, so you cling to people who extend tidbits of affection and get anxious when they aren’t by your side. Your needy behavior puts people off, perpetuating the cycle of failed relationships.
Imagine you grew up during a time of economic scarcity, so you save every penny due to ingrained financial insecurity. You skimp on healthcare. You stay in crappy housing. You refuse to trade money for labor, instead spending hours doing dangerous and difficult tasks yourself, often botching them due to lack of skill. You end up losing money in medical and repair bills, and have a lower quality of life,
And so on. Insecurity is a sign that something is wrong—either your mind is mis-calibrated for the situation, or you are in real-world trouble. If you can remove the emotional baggage of insecurity and just calmly carry out the necessary adaptive behaviors, you probably should.
I agree. I am ‘mis-calibrated’ to put it one way. I’m sure these reactions were, at one time, adaptive. Considering your examples the interesting phenomenon is that they can persist long after they have ceased to be adaptive. But it seems that a particular type of experience can eradicate them. A logical argument that they are no longer adaptive, convincing as it may be doesn’t seem sufficient to accomplish the feat. I agree that the learned emotional reactions that are sapping the joy from life were most likely adaptive at one point. But they don’t just go away on their own once they cease to be adaptive and they don’t even go away once you start to believe that they are maladaptive. But, the theory I’m operating under right now is that a particular type of experience, not an argument (although an argument can be a part of it) can unlearn them. Obviously I have not accomplished this yet. So, yes, I agree I am mis-calibrated. I need to re-calibate. I have to figure out how to do it.