My positivity thread!! (online diary)

[Blumoon]

I've decided to do this because I want to, it's about raising my self esteem, having more belief in myself and my ability, decreasing any social anxiety and building a more internal locus of control. (which means i don't blame external events for how i act and feel) i realise that i have created these anxieties that i have. It's just about accepting that, there may have been underlying things that caused this but I caused it myself with my own thinking patterns, and I remember eve doing so! At the time of getting the issues.

(I'm doing a self help book right now which emphasises these as the most important thing)

Every morning I'm going to start with -

Positive thoughts - some sort of chant that I can say in the morning that will help me get out of bed and face the day.

Make up a chart of 'good things' and place it somewhere in the room to look at and remind me of everyone who supports me in getting out of the house to college. All the things I am greatful for. Think of these things to keep positive and stop any college anxiety from happening. Praise myself if I get in to college after feeling like I would be too anxious!

Notice a positive in the day, whether it is the colour of the autumn leaves, or a misty morning good for photography, get out early with my camera down to the trees and get some shots maybe!
If it's windy or wet and raining or snowing try to still see a positive in the weather, either for photography or for in general. Like 'the rain on those paths would make an excellent effect in a photo' and I'll be able to get some atmospheric rain shots at college.

Use the college environment and don't be scared of it, its really quite chilled at college because you can just pop into the department any time if you want to do something, it's not like i should be seeing this course as a chore, and i made the first good step by wanting to do it, I know if I keep working hard I'll pass the course. Even if i cant go to college due to the anxiety at any point, not that i think this is that likely making it up at another point in the week is possible.

Keep job hunting and post the cv's around to shops and edit those ones up a bit so that I give the impression that I'm confident and social and could do a job because if I think it i'm gonna feel it, the CV may lie but it is the only thing they have wirh info about me till they meet me. If I'm sitting there scared i can't do any jobs then I'm not gonna feel able to even try. I am happy i've had this positive attitude since i used to sign on and i would try and throw myself into every opportunity the advisor gave me that i was interested in and later took her advice to do a course irl, so I did thing is, i've not jobsearched in a few days now due to my low mood so i need to get back on it, its understandable it would make me feel down because of all the rejections and how hard it is to find work but i've always felt positive that i even got that one interview for a shop job that I did, out of all the candidates they chose me and it's just that there was too many others that they couldn't consider me really.

Watch youtube vlogs/personalities who always keep me in a good mood

I will soon see that my feelings about myself can be changed and the positive can be focused on rather than the negative.

Tips for happiness

1. Join the gym/start going to a gym - keep cycling and healthy eating diet.

2. Do more photography to build my skills eve in mundane locations locally.

3. Buy and read more books (not neccesarily from library I like to own things, but from ebay/amazon etc) because reading helps you build skills and get smarter (supposedly or i'd like to think)

4. Do Coffee Day again maybe once a week. I used to do this one day a week.

5. Do more meetup groups especially the local one. Realise how positive it is that I was organiser of a meetup group for a while and really tried my best with that.

6. Realise its great that I'm in an SA meetup group I'm in. There's plenty of potential to meet new people through this and there's always potential to attend meets on here and sa scotland and meet others I already know from this forum. .

Use a calender or try, ive got a really good one right now which is big boxes and i can write clearly in. Mark when i have something social, i'm shit at calendars but this may help me organise my time better and organise the spending of my money better. If I don't end up going near shops as much I won't spend money on frivolous items.

7. Know the highly talented person I am and that I've got the skills to succeed, do well and go far. I know that if I have a random off few days it's not really affecting my progress in general, i have to just shift it and move on putting it down to just having been a bad day or bad thought (detect the bad thoughts and erase them)

8. Know I'm different and unique but that is special, there is no other blumoon out there who likes photography, cycling, sociology, philosophy, documentaries, funk music, dance music, indie music,

9. If i'm not right for someone then they were never right for me. If they were right for me then things would have worked. They obviously weren't if they didn't I'm not a shit person so its not likely to have been that i did something wrong if a friendship breaks down and if it does then I know I've got the skills to say sorry.

10. Reflect on the (great) progress i've made since joining this website. Remember where I was then and where I am now and realise there has also been bad blips in between but generally I'm better now than I've been at any other point in my progress journey.

I will list the most important ones to me below:

1. Got really more into photography, properly learning all the techniques etc, and trying to get better photos. To the point I started to study this at college. It is just a hobby but in some ways it has become more than a hobby, and at least it provides me with an alternative pathway if the stuff with Open Uni fails not that I think it will. (I know where i'm heading!)

2. Got into exploring/urbex and met some nice new people and did this with a friend from here (gcat), I one point realised that gcat was also into photography (Maybe because my first meet i attended on here was photography meet and he was there), we started doing more things with the photography hobby and it has been nice to watch him/join him with the progress he has made to overcome his own SA and I would say that he now has done.

3. Gained qualifications through open learning college and gained qualifications through OpenUniversity.

4. Made 2 friends from this website who are great people and we are good friends.

5. Thoughts influence Feelings and Actions
So by making the thoughts POSITIVE
I will be decreasing bad FEELINGS and bad ACTIONS.

[Mr. Yippeeeeeee]

A great post Bluemoon. Mr. Y. wishes you great success. Persevere. You WILL succeed and become an inspiration to others.

[Coffee]

this is my new favourite post

[Blumoon]

To add:

I think at some point i realised there was massive errors in my thinking. I kept coming across situations which I was portraying in my head completely wrong, like 'this person never responded to a message I sent, I'm a terrible person, he hates me... I hate myself' NO...Take a step back, I realised I'm not a shit person, they are probably just busy, etc. Why am I beating myself up when this is absolutely not my fault?? crazy.

All those friends who used me, and the friends who weren't really friends?? was any of that my fault, would anyone say any of that was my fault?? Of course they would not whatever the issue was, it was not my fault. Was it my fault I suffered from issues as a child and therefore people couldn't really get to now me at school? No. I am a different person now.

I've been abused as a child, was that my fault? no it was not, I know in my own head, it was the person who abused me who was to blame. I'm simply not gonna take it all on the chin when none of that stuff was my fault. Responding to myself in the way that friends or people who know me would respond if I was down is the way to see it. They are not gonna say 'yeah, you're a terrible person btw that's probably why they abused you' if they DID say that, they'd automatically not be a friend anymore... and I would NOT be all negative about it, obviously this would be their fault as what 'friend' would talk to you that way?? If anyone ever said anything as abusive as the stuff I suffered as a kid they would be nobody worth knowing. I respect myself too much.

I think I've always had a strong sense of when something has been my fault or not, which has unfortunately become confused with my issues and depression etc, but in school for e.g I always knew to ask for help and I never stopped asking, even though they weren't helping. I would never accept that the bullying I went through was my own fault. I knew I had issues, but I know I'm a likeable person despite them. I do not think anyone I have ever come across has had genuine reason to hate me. I do not think anyone has hated me, making me a good person. Not everyone can say that.

With your own thoughts you kind of have to reach some kind of conclusion, with SA issues for me, that was probably to become this social person i deep down know I could be, and to stop sitting in and wasting my time. In other ways it was that being negative will not help anyone get where they want to be and it is not a very nice personality trait or basically error of thinking to have because I have always thought that everyone has something good about them, personality and looks wise. Everyone has got it in them to be attractive to someone and be attracted to someone else, but some people clearly have intense thinking errors about themselves that stops this from happening or being possible. I think at one point where I used to be (think 2009) I used to post on this forum with very negative things and yet still thought I could get someone on here to be interested in me, well that was not the case, all I used to do was brood about my issues and the first thing i'd tell new people is that I've gone through a primary school of bullying, 5 years of bullying in high school and that I was abused as a child, fun times If you give new people this first impression that you brood about the past and do not think very much of yourself at this present time, then they're possibly gonna end up treating you the same way you treat yourself an reinforcing these thoughts you have about yourself, I think it took me a while to fully grasp how that worked, but it did work. The person I am now is much different in a good way to how I'd have appeared anyone I met on this website in 2009. Or any time up till about a few years ago when I really started to get better, i was not a positive person and that was obvious. I struggled a lot.

If the people you met with that attitude do not treat you the same way, there's a chance they're just messed up themselves because the message you are sending is not that 'I am genuine enough to be good enough as a friend/relationship' the person who will inevitably be attracted to that has low self esteem. They think they can't get any better than you!

This post is not about being any kind of inspiration to others, my progress is about being an inspiration to myself as that is all that matters, it doesn't matter if a girl from college thinks I'm fat and stupid, because I know that is not true. I am not stupid and I'm trying to eat healthily and exercise, these things seem much easier now that I've got better and got a grip on my issues you and am doing therapy.

Nobody is going to think as bad of you as what you think of yourself, you ARE a likeable person, you are you. Nobody is going to reject you. If you do something really nasty though, people will probably reject you, but having social anxiety issues is not you being nasty.

I am not going to brood over certain things because the one simply reason there is no point is enough, I think deep down the people who have hurt me must have has massive issues with themselves deep down. They know that though, I do not. People don't need to say when you can often just tell.

It is only how you think about yourself right now which is important, not what you thought about yourself last week, because the thoughts are changeable and you can get better, but you need to see the positives in yourself and everyone else and in everything. Never become obsessed with the negatives (unless you are developing them like I do)

The only thing that can possibly go wrong is in my own thoughts (and I'm that sure it won't) because I try to keep on top of my thoughts, i feel more in control of my thoughts than I ever have. I remember when I used to feel down at night because i allowed my thoughts to derail from being positive. Or I hadn't learned the strategies and coping skills that I have learned now.