irene wrote:
Because I have been very successful at making myself
REALLY

miserable I was hoping if I were to post a message here maybe some how I would stop this behavior.
Right now I am having trouble writing anything because I am afraid that someone will read it and ridicule what I wrote. But that's exactly why I need to do this.
I spend an awful lot of time worrying about people ridicluing me.
I remember when I was a kid and was doing something I enjoyed my mother would startle me by start yelling me asking me why was I doing that when there was so many other things I should be doing. If my brother and I were watching cartoons on a Saturday morning she would wake up and let us know that she didn't like having all that loud noise at that time of time so we should turn off the television. One of her great lines was "Who gave you the right to be happy?"
Recently I was talking to my brother about this kind of thing when he told me the story about him going to Abraham & Straus on Fulton Street in downtown Brooklyn. Before he left Mom let him know to be careful not to spend the money needed for transit fare. But he did spend the money. He walked home. I am sure that he was no older than 14 at that time. Instead of being happy that he managed to find his way home she yelled at him for at least 10 minutes. I remember thinking that I was happy that it wasn't me getting yelled at.
What I learned from all of this was that if I wasn't happy she would leave me alone. Now I do not how to change that.
If something happens that is good I immediatley am scared that something bad is going to happen so sometimes I do not allow myself to be happy.My mother died in August 2012. But I still cannot rid my freaking brain of these thoughts. There's more I want to tell you.
As a child I managed somehow for what reason I do not know to teach myself self-hypnosis. I do remember watching that woman aka Mom doing it. It seemed as though her body was there but her mind was someplace else. It used to be that if I stared at something I found that I could escape from wherever I was that was bothering me.
Now I find that I am doing it automatically without it being a conscience decision. It's very scary. It's happened twice. What happened is that I went to a store to buy food when I got home I checked my change and found that I was overcharged. I decided that I didn't want to say anything to the people working there because I had no proof. About two days ago I went there and right before I left the man at the cash register asked how I was doing. I answered him then all of a sudden I saw the expression on his face was that he was horrified about something then after that it changed to a look of being startled.
The next day I remembered that right before I saw the expressions on this guy's face that I was looking down with my eyes closed when I was thinking about the problem with the change. After that I was thinking something like "Why does he have that strange look on his face". I am positive that I actually spoke to him without me knowing that I was talking.
I would like to hear from people on all of this stuff that has been bothering me for most of my life which is a pretty long time time considering I will be 65 in April.
Don't worry there's nothing to feel ashamed about. i feel the same way, in that i'm terrified of being ridiculed by people.
do you have anyone besides your brother you can share these thoughts with?
i highlighted two sentences above, since it's exactly how i feel. i live with people who never seemed to want me to be happy either. growing up was tough for me since almost anything i did would get a negative response, from the people around me, including genuine mistakes.
about the self hypnosis, could it be that you're just daydreaming or fixating about something that's concerning you?
i have found that group therapy has helped me a bit. but the best is to find someone you can confide in and let them know how you really feel.