Serenidad

Just curious. I have 3 children. 2 of them fit in at school, all social situations, have lots of friends and lots of confidence. 1 of them doesn't. He's a great kid but he doesn't have many friends and zero confidence. It makes me sad. Some kids are mean too.

I was talking to him about this tonite and it brought back some of my own feelings of never really fitting in when I was a kid. I finally felt like I fit in when I started drinking my junior and senior year in high school thru college. Even today, now that I'm not drinking, social situations cause lots of anxiety and I don't feel comfortable in my own skin.

Do others feel this way or have you ever felt this way?

To be honest, the only people I have EVER felt like I fit in with are people at AA meetings and here on SR. (Or drunk people in bars) :-/

Thoughts?

graywh1teblue

I have definitely felt this way. I always felt more interesting and more confident when i was high...much easier to feel accepted...❤

Tang

Yes. Ditto.

Dee74

I think it's common to a lot of us.

The key for me was accepting me as I am. That's took a while but I'm ok with it now.

Your son is lucky he has a mum who can help him avoid some of the pitfalls we both fell into

D

DayTrader

One of the typical manifestations of alcoholism is a maladjustment to life. The alcohol "helped" with that inadequacy in that it helped lower my (overly listened to) inhibitions, my (overly developed) sensitivities, and my (abnormal amounts of) fear.

Not every drinker will identify with you but every real alcoholic who's awake to and honest about their reality sure will.

Debbie329

Yes I have felt that and still do to a certain extent but less than in the beginning.....which is ones of the reasons I'm able to stay sober for stretches.....I suppose as I get more comfortable w me those stretches will increase.

Serenidad

Thank you Dee. That means a lot!!!

Serenidad

Thx! And the way to fix this is...? The 12 steps of AA?

iam2antsy

yep, my whole life

MIRecovery

The only place I feel truly safe and at home is an AA meeting. You know what? I'm just fine with that. AAers are the finest people I have ever met and I count myself luckily for having them in my life.

I don't try very hard to fit into places I don't fit in

gish

The answer is spend some time with YOU, warts and all and merge with THAT. AA, no AA makes no diff. You will be comfy with you when you begin to accept you. If you feel less stressed there then it's a usable tool but good sponsors are sparse. This is an inside job. Teach yourself to meditate and results will come sooner than later IMO.

2ndhandrose

Hi Serenidad, I have felt this way for as long as I can remember.

I have very low self esteem and have to really brace myself to be in a group setting. I have recently acknowledged that I have huge social anxiety. I am okay in one on one situations but as soon as I am in a group I fall back to feeling completely unworthy and like I don't belong.

Drinking absolutely made all of this disappear.

I am hopeful that I will be able to get to the root of this self loathing now that I am no longer self medicating. Part of growing up at 56 years old, I guess.

I really feel for your son and for all of us who are struggling to believe we belong.

PurpleKnight

When I first got Sober I really needed to learn to like myself, because I didn't and drinking helped me escape from that, when I hit my mid 20s, I had finished education, I had a couple of breakups in relationships and I was going through what I saw as the mundane routine of work that I didn't really enjoy, that's when alcohol came into the picture in the evenings.

Slowly I am relearning who I am and being happy about the things I can contribute, my strengths, the things I am good at etc, because in the past I only focused on the negatives, some of which were my lack of height when it came to women, or my friends seemed to all be getting married and having kids, or others seemed to be progressing in their careers much quicker than I was.

We all at some point have to realise our own worth, regardless of what anyone else thinks or makes us feel to the contrary.

Telling the world to go stuff itself as I'll be over here if it wants me, Sober and proud of who I am regardless of what the world thinks was quite a stepping stone in my recovery!!

DayTrader

That's your call.

Sure, it's what I did and like everyone I know who's honestly worked the steps and practices the program in their daily life, it's allowed me to get sober, stay sober, not relapse and do so happily. I can navigate the thousands of pitfalls in my life and even fall into some of them but in spite of what happens, I experience a lightness.....a lack of weight and pressure that I felt was just a normal part of my life.

You are the master of your own destiny. Choose carefully. I remember something my great-grand sponsor used to say to me before he died, "Ya know Mike, it doesn't matter to me what you do.....but it better matter to you."

Remember, getting sober can be a heck of a tough job......but it doesn't mean much if I don't stay sober. I've got more experience than I'd like to admit at being a failure and I sure didn't want "recovery" to be just another body of failure stacked up in the corner of my life. I also came to understand that the not-drinking part wasn't the end of the line. I could do "not drinking" but I didn't know how to do it and enjoy life very much at the same time. When we can find a manner of living that suits us in every way, that's when living becomes fun again. Imagine my surprise when I found out that being manipulative, protective of myself, a liar, socially shy, dominated by fears I didn't even know I had, anxious / always on the lookout for "something," and so on were really my alcoholism. When those issues, along with all the others that I won't go into here, are in effect........I'm pretty-much screwed. I'm going to drink, sooner or later - or worse yet, I'll just not-drink and continue to live like that. It's been fascinating to discover that the real me doesn't need to drink, doesn't need to be a liar, isn't shy at all, isn't anxious.......etc etc etc. The false me that I created and pretended was me......those things were it's identity.

SweetBaby

Sometimes I feel like I don't even fit in at home! I have all boys that like to fight, fart, and play video games. Every vacation is centered around what boys want to do fish and hunt. URRGGHHHH

Wholesome

I can identify with this. As a newly sober person I'm finding fears coming up that I wasn't acknowledging while drinking..... or didn't even know that I had. Many of them are completely irrational. I think that just by having a look at them and letting myself really think about them and experiment with testing whether they are valid they are evaporating.

FarToGo

Oh my yes yes yes, I think loneliness is why I have spent most of my life drinking, used to take the edge away. I'm also sensitive so have dismissed a lot of people from my life too........... screwed up childhood leading to lots of crazy choices........ drink and more drink........... leading to more crazy choices, and all the time lonely. So lets see what sobriety brings.
I'm sure it's very painful seeing your child suffer though. Dee is right, you'll be there and that's a big protective factor.
xx

Notmyrealname

I don't know if I have social anxiety -- I've been avoiding social situations for years so it's hard to tell.

Little humor there..

I don't know if it's anxiety, probably some of it is, but I think a big part is that when God was handing out empathy, instead of waiting in line with the others I was reading comics on a bean-bag chair. I can converse with people -- I know that people like when you ask them about their lives, and compliment them, and smile and nod in the right places -- and it's even sort of entertaining, but a lot of it is just an academic exercise done to fit in.

Robinson

Great post Day Trader.