Not feeling as good and being immature

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I have done something really immature quite often lately. I used to lose control and have outbursts as a child. I'm not doing the same thing because I have control but the immature thing is that I have been choosing to act out.

Sometimes I bang my head as an exaggerated expression of frustration and sometimes I do more subtle things that are still very obvious. I clench my fists, force myself to tear up, squeeze my arms, and do other things that would make someone ask me what's wrong.

When I force myself to cry even though I am not at the point of tears it starts slow but eventually I manage to get myself to a point where the tears start to flow naturally. Even though I'm already upset the feelings that would normally make me want to cry come after and eventually I am genuinely crying but it's originally forced.

It's a terrible way to get people concerned. Once they're concerned I tell them I don't want them to be worried. I want them to just ignore me. Part of me wants to talk and the other part of me doesn't want attention at all so I send mixed signals.


Sometimes I'm really frustrated and I can force myself not to punch myself or bang my head against a wall and I know I should because there are people around and I'm not in the exact same mode as when I cry or tighten my muscles visibly but I choose not to. At those times it's a little less about communicating but I guess that is a part of it. At work one time I tucked myself into the store shelf so I had my back to the rest of the room. I punched myself as hard as I could and it wasn't about pain. This wasn't self harm it was frustration. I didn't want the pain as much as I wanted to punch something and I find it easier to hit myself than someone or something else just because I care about other people more than I care about myself. Sometimes it is about self-punishment and there is a need for pain but not because I enjoy it. At those times it's because if there isn't enough pain it doesn't feel like punishment. It has to be painful enough that it is unwanted in those cases.

There are many different complex motivations. Sometimes I want attention. Sometimes I feel like I need to be punished or I have some kind of self-hatred. Sometimes I just want to hit something and I don't want to break property or hit someone who doesn't have the knowledge before-hand. I realize even in the latter case punching a pillow isn't satisfying so there is obviously something else in there.

I have public outbursts and I also have private outbursts. Sometimes I want to be seen and sometimes I don't. I smashed my head into the microwave when nobody was home and I gave myself neck pain for the next three days. It lasted that long. The first thought was to bang my head into the television screen but I was afraid of breaking it, getting cut, and having my parents come home.

It's always my head which is why it seems more like an autistic thing. Even though it still sounds concerning it's not psychologically the same as when a typical person cuts. For me I also kind of want to endanger myself which is why it's always my head. That's more dangerous.

One time I made a mistake. This time it was a public outburst. I made sure a pen was clicked so that the point was inside it. I didn't want it to be sharp. I started hitting myself in the forehead with it and this one had a bit of an attention motivation but I used a pen because it would hurt more due to the smaller surface area. I realized that after a private outburst in my room with different but similar motivations. In my room there was no factor of people watching. I banged my head into a hook with a blunt end and that's when I realized what kind of objects hurt more. I kind of wanted them to notice but at the same time I could've just used my fists and I didn't because they are too big to inflict as much pain as a pen.

I thought that because the point was inside it would bruise me. I was wrong. The circular end was still pretty sharp. It was like a cookie-cutter. It didn't just bruise me. It left circular red marks all over my forehead. I didn't expect it to which is why I didn't mind targeting my forehead. I didn't realize it was doing that so I kept going. Then I touched my forehead and I felt it sting. By that time I had hit myself several times. I went to look in the mirror and realized I wasn't bruised. That frustrated me because now I had 9 bright red circles on my four-head. I didn't mean that.

My mom saw it. I couldn't hide it. I wouldn't have targeted my forehead if I had known the pen was still sharp. She asked about it and I explained to her that this was just an autistic outburst like the ones I had as a kid. I explained that I was extremely anxious about starting University. That wasn't the real reason. I've been feeling terrible for a more embarrassing and stupid reason.

I normally have no trouble talking about my feelings. If a loved one died and that was making me feel this way I'd open up about it. If I really was having anxiety about school I'd have no problem talking about that and the fact that I used it as an excuse shows that I can say that without feeling self-conscious.


What's been bothering me is my own natural, irrational, mode of thinking. My brain seems to be programmed to think in a very illogical way. It's made it impossible to get the sense of spiritual satisfaction that most people are able to get.

In order to feel satisfied I need mystical experiences and spirit contact. I know that doesn't sound like a big deal. So I'm not getting it. Nobody gets it. My family isn't complaining. It seems like the entire world is living perfectly fine without it and most of them get that sense of satisfaction from going to an institution and praying or in some cases meditating.

Some religious people wouldn't be able to live without their religions. That was more common a few hundred years ago but some people are still that dependent on spirituality. Excommunication used to be an extremely severe punishment because people had the same emotional attachment that I have but in a way that is insatiable because the things I need probably don't exist.

I didn't always know that and I was happier when I thought visualizing was the same as seeing. It prevented me from realizing that I wasn't seeing energy or spirits. I remember specifically wanting to perceive some kind of energy when I was four. Mom didn't know that a lot of my cute quirks were attempts to satisfy my desire. She thought it was cute when I sang "power to the pumpkin" over and over again obsessively while wearing my plastic jack o lantern ring. When I was singing those lines I was literally trying to fill the pumpkin with power. Hence the repeated line "power to the pumpkin".

At the time I actually thought I was doing something and that visualizing the energy was just as good as seeing it but I grew up. I had the same desires. I still wanted to tinker with the energy that the irrational half of my self still believed in. I had a rational half too it's not like I was full blown delusional but even my irrational parts were frustrated on their own. In that mode of thinking I came to the conclusion that even though that section onf me still believed in these things I agreed that I had no way of experiencing it like I wanted to.

The same desires that I tried to fulfill with quirky things like my pumpkin song continued to nag at me. I had an unrelenting need for witchcraft.


Now I have logical thoughts too but at the same time. That's how I am aware enough to know that my urges are equivalent to an irresistable desire to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I'll never be able to act on my urges and my irrational thoughts will keep intruding into my mind. I've tried thought suppression and it doesn't work. I've tried to unify myself by destroying that irrational part of me that keeps screaming. Then I somehow manage to turn anything into a metaphor for the occult or something like that. I end of thinking of energy bending when I see something being bent and then I slap myself because I know that kind of thinking needs to go away due to the way it's hurting me. It also makes me, as someone who knows better, feel like someone frome the 1700s and I never talk about this because I know how I might sound. I'm embarrassed mentioning it here but at least I have the anonynity of the internet.

My two different modes of thought are in constant conflict and it kills me inside. My own superstitious thinking won't leave my mind. No matter how hard I try these thoughts that I know are stupid persist. I'm not delusional because I know they are wrong but I still can't stop thinking them. Anything can cause me to come up with some kind of supernatural idea.

I can be very superstitious but not in the traditional sense. Even with my illogical thinking I don't believe in any of the famous superstitions. I'm not even sure if my own thinking is actually superstitious but it's similar. I once suspected that a contestant on the show survivor had a dead relative helping her. I couldn't shake that suspicion no matter how hard I tried even though I knew it wasn't true. It clearly wasn't because she lost. That's the kind of superstitious thinking I'm talking. Any unusual luck which is bound to happen every now and then by the law of large numbers triggers my mind to start thinking of occult explanations when I know it's irrational but the thoughts continue anyway.

That's a bit off topic. A psychological need is not being met and has been growing more painful for years. It's a similar need to the one most people fill with religion. The only difference is this need can not possibly be met. It's depressing. It's a hole in my life. I know it may be a little difficult to understand how it's depressing when everyone here is happy in the same boat. Nobody else seems to feel a similar psychological need so even though neither of us are having mystical experiences I'm the only one who's depressed about it.

I'm not sure if it makes sense why this upsets me so much but I can't live without it and I'll never have it.

At the end of my life I know I will not be happy or satisfied one bit because I will never have had the experiences I need to not feel like I have wasted my life. If I have the perfect life in every way I will still feel like it was a waste. If I can never be satisfied than my life is futile. All the time I dream that somehow I will wake up one morning or be walking on the street when I will suddenly see what I need to see to feel satisfied. I often try to hold onto that irrational hope for a miracle. Then during other times I just despair. Deep down I know that will never happen. Sometimes I feel like there is no solution. I've tried to just give up on it but I can't.


This whole complicated issue is the real reason for my outbursts. I am so afraid of seeing people's reactions when I tell them what craziness really goes on in my head that I can't figure out how to talk about it. If it were anything else I'd have no problem. I could talk about a lot of things but this makes me sound like an uneducated idiot so I stay silent. That's why I've been acting out.

Thanks for sharing.

life is what you make it. spirituality can be described as being devoted to something bigger than yourself. join the environmental movement. volunteer teaching english to new immigrants. give foster care to stray animals. the list is endless. i'm sure there's something that suits your talents and interests. it may not be as exciting as having a powerful pumpkin, but it's a lot more doable, and the benefits are long-lasting.

In a way, I do understand how you feel. I have also acted out/hurt myself for attention and have experienced occult thoughts that I have trouble shaking, but those two things are not related to each other and are not to the intense degree that you have experienced them.

Spirituality is a very important topic to literally everyone in the world no matter what their beliefs (or lack of beliefs) are, and there is no one better to discuss this topic with than the people who are closest to you/know you best. You can also try researching different religions and visiting different religious groups/institutions and talking to the faith leaders; see if anything connects with you. My dad spent many years trying out all sorts of different things until he finally discovered that Catholicism was best for him and our family.

Good luck on your journey. You will find something that will fulfill you; just give it time.