# How I made the final step to feeling better - repost



## yeah_yeah_yeah (Mar 27, 2007)

I am hoping this post will act as an inspiration to people who are just starting a program of recovery, may be nearing the end or are looking for that final bit of conviction to get started. It is long but then its been a long struggle. This post, at this moment in time, makrs the end of my depression and my social anxiety - which last year was classed as severe. I became depressed and anxious at age 12-14 and had full blown SAD by 16. I have had continuous depression for this time, mixed with periods of Major Depression and self-harm. In my younger years I would have been diagnosed as a personlity disorder had they been formulated then. I am now 30.

After clearing up a ton of my problems (read life changing results) in my first year of CBT, My challenge remained how to bring my need for the approval of others down to lifesize. It wasn't my therapists fault I didnt manage this- I left before he could discharge me. Then I went straight back to using my new 'skills' and happiness to gain approval and chase women. At last, the holy grail I thought. Somehow something was still missing. I stopped doing my CBT sheets. I dropped the meds. I relapsed. I had spent so long beliieving that if only I could have the approval of the masses, perhaps via some grand achievement, or by being hilarious, or by being perfect, or handsome - then I would have a constant source of happiness. I still believed it deep down in my gut - despite knowing intellectually that it was not true. My therapist had been hinting at something to do with this, but I didnt care - I was getting laid. Nothing else mattered - until I fell again. Somehow I couldnt recapture what I had before. 

For some reason I kept waiting and waiting, sometimes getting a momentary tidbit of approval and a little 'hit' of that drug. I would do anything to get it and freqently ended up prostituting my own values, my self-respect and my pride to get it. I would let people abuse me. I would try to laugh through the most disparaging words, all the while screaming the message "I am valueless without you. I will let you do anything so long as you show you like me". At the same time I was filled with rage that bubbled just beneath the surface, waiting to blow because of the lid that, out of fear of disapproval, I kept clamped down so tight. Sometimes the pot blew and people would stand back, thinking I had flipped.

I knew from 2003 that it was 'approval addiction' as David Burns calls it. The constant need to fill the hole left in my heart from the things that mi childhood did not give me. i was trying to find, subconsciously of course, in the face of everyone in the whole world the sense of love and belonging that I felt I was not given. Seeing myself as an unlikeable person and always anticipating rejection due to the early experiences of life, I timidly and weakly approached others presuming I would be rejected. If I got a hiont of approval I would bite onto it like a pitbull terrier. I HAD to be noticed - I had to be loved. But yet the very people I wanted to love me, I was terrified of. And why wouldn;t I be? THEY held the very key to my earhtly value. Without their approval as sustenance there was nothing sweet in this world. 

Some things could fill the gap. Girlfriends (always so explosive, a relationship based on the demand for unwaivering adoration), friends. Sex (if I'm allowed to say that word). Drinking. And only a couple of times, things that were not entirely legal. It just had to be constantly new, more people, mor approval. More hits. More instant staisfaction. Nothing that took any time or required planning or effort was worth it. So I didnt bother. I didn't clean. I didn't buy myself food. I did no washing. I was isolated and alone for a full year - every weekend and evening. Suicide flashed up more and more often. My grasping for approval got worse and worse. One day I had a reaction - I shall do the OPPOSITE!! I will be angry to everyone and SHOW MY POWER!! Yeah great, except all the people I was attacking I wanted dearly to love me. 

I would work hard on trying to chill back. Not be so needy. Calm down. I would make someprogress, I would think "yay, now I feel good I can go and meet people". Convincing myself I was 'now okay', I lied to myself that I wasnt in fact still trying to gain everyones admiration and compliments. Pretty soon, the sensations of palpitations, heavy breathing and heavy tunnel vision reminded me that I was still exactly where I'd started. Then anxiety's evil twin, depression, came along and followed up the message with a smack round the head. And when I felt low, what did I need most? Thats right - a hit. Some approval. Someone to tell me I'm great. Online, in real life - anywhere, i didnt care. Work? Sod that. It takes application and what I need is to feel better NOW. My career started to slip away before my eyes and I didnt care. I just wanted to fill that hole with achievement, with admiration. The hole got bigger and bigger and bigger.

I knew I needed to not need approval. But how on earth was I going to do that? Nothing could touch that little emotional hole inside me. 

The only thing that seemed relavent was something I had read in a book 7 years ago. It was a technique called the Daily Activity Schedule. The theory went that when people get depressed they do not look after themsleves. They drop hobbies. They lose a sense of who they are and in my case, lost myself further in my quest for the never ending hit. It didnt exist - I knew this. An d anyway - I felt depressed. How can I contemplate doing theis damn schedule? Its idiotic to expect a depressed person to have motivation. Everyone knows depression kills motivation. Even the books claim that ACTION preceds motivation fell on deaf ears. I'd kind of seen the thruth of it before but mehhh I didn't buy. I would pursue APPROVAL mercilessly. I bought all the self-help books like How to Win Friends. Titles by Anthony Robbins. Leil Lowndes. Transactional Analysis. NLP. Hypnosis. Chakra healing. Influence books. How to get anyone to do anything. I paid £1800 and went on a dating boot camp to turn myself into a 'pick up artist'. I wrote every day in my PUA journal about my approaches to women and how I was applying the 'method'. But somehow I still remained unsatisfied. I had an amazing ability, that when something went well, I could find a reason that it wasn't valid. If I couls shoot it down I would. If I felt genuinely successful, i would become arrogant and need to tell others in order to gain their admiration and approval. Not surprisingly, I was rejected. I blamed them. They were the persecutors, the mean ones. i was a victim. I was sure of it - and it wasnt my fault.

Then I began to look at my responsibility for who I was. No I did not create who I was - my past did. But I was the only one pulling the strings now. I had the choices to make. I looked long and hard at what I had become, and didnt like what I saw. My desperate need for approval had turned me into an alternatively cloying, overly-nice person and an arrogant wanna-be womaniser. People quite rightly often - but not always - kept their distance. Some people however, kept some faith despite my external appearances. Some tried to tell me, but what did they know? I saw my arrogance mixed in with my anxiety and terrible self opinion. I saw how my depression made me selfish and claim it as my right. But I was still stuck. If approval is not the answer, then what is? What on earth else could there be that gave me a sense of happiness?

Still the issue of my undone tasks, at home and work, stayed in the background. I could do them once I was happy. I'm a victim. I don't have to. I'm entitled not to. Then i started to learn about paradox in healing. That sometimes you have to look at your problem from a totally new direction to solve it - and do the very opposite of what you were CONVINCED you need to do. If approval wasn't it, what could generate that buzz? What could give me a genuine, non-arrogant sense of love, accepting all my weaknesses an strenghts without false humility or self-aggrandizement? I realised from reading around the issue (for this is how divorced I was from the sensation) that LOVE is a verb. I couldnt just decide to love myself. I had to actively DO SOMETHING to make that feeling happen. How would I love and care for another person? I would cook for them. I would look after them. if they needed something, i would help them. i wouldnt let them live in their own filth for weeks on end - I would clean up. So self-love, it struck me, was the same thing. all thee things I had been putting off until I was 'happy' (however i was going to get there) suddenly seemed like a possible solution. I stopped poring over my journal, except to write a schedule and predict the plaseure I would get from each task. I would then fill my days with activities - yes, mostly alone. But doing these things, I realised my mind was filled with a sense of achievement. It wasn't the instant hit of approval - it was more substantial. The satisfaction of doing the job and achieivng the result. I started to feel even more motivated. I sorted out the flat. I made sure I always had enough food. I cleaned. I tidied. And when Istopped for a moment, i realised that I felt HAPPY - but I hadn;t had any approval for ages. I suddenly realised - i could be alone, devoid of approval - and feel good by looking after myself and treating myself like a VIP. I would go to a nice pub and have a lovely meal. I would go to art galleries. I would buy nice books to read. Other people were no longer my sole source of pleasure, and as I realised this so my anxiety decreased. I stopped needing others. i was able to say what I thought - and still command respect. By having love for myself its as though I had a little aura around me, a constant source of my own love that meant any that came from outside was a nice bonus - instead of life or death. The only thing that died was anxiety.

The final nail that convinced me that approval was the very opposite of what I needed was through faith. Now I know not everyone goes in for this - but what I found was yet another source of love that did not rely on other people - the love that ANY god has for his followers, despite their shortcomings and sins. Mine might be different to yours, and you may even be an atheist - but if in history men could see themsleves as 'loved equally by a supreme being, no matter their station or wealth or charisma' - then why should I buy into this modern construction that a mans true value lay in his money, looks, social ability, power, sexual exploits and magazine cover appearances? Suddnely these things seemed hollow, and they faded away instantly. 

As my sense of unconditonal love increased, I began to remember all the things my mother truly had done for me as a child. I could forgive my father for causing our family's break up because at last I could understand him and see that he had been weak - and taken the only path he was strong enough to take. I could forgive the many bullies I have had in my life, from age 10 til 27. Children and adults. How on earth could I forgive those ba******? They HURT YOU. Well, I had to try it before I saw the power of it. I knew that the more I held on to it, the deeper the poison seeped. So i tried it. It took time but I managed it. The more I forgave (and this was not a purely christian effort - I really wanted to understand how I could do this) the better I felt. I felt JOY. i could hardly believe that understanding the mind of someone who wronged me, and forgiving once I saw their emotional weakness and motivation for hurting me, could bring such pleasure. In no way did I condine what they did - but I could at last see that they were decisions made out of fear and of ignorance. i could see that the things that happened in childhood still felt as big today as they did then. I was a 30 year old man living the mental life of a wounded 14 year old boy. Did those beliefs from that time really hold true today, in this adult world? I decided that the view of a 30 year old was probably more accurate than a 14 year old. I used compassion techniques to put these 'lessons' I learned as a child in their rightful place. As my emotions opened up I realised I had been cut off from them for the last 15 years of my life. And when they came flooding back it almost made me want to cry - it felt so good. I decided to become completely honest with my emotions, because I realised that to leave them to fester for any length of time produced only pain for me.

I had been chasing a mirage for the whole of my life - that 'hit' of approval, that golden nectar that was vital to my soul. The paradox - when I forgot about seeking and clinging to others and their views of me, and instead chose to show love for myself, so my true happiness increased. and oddly, people are starting to give me more interest. But its a gift I will take with a pinch of salt.

Not everyone's core maintaining problem will be as difficult to get at as this seemed. But I hope you can take heart from the fact that it was basically staring me in the face the whole time - if I had had the humility to listen to others and to look.

Ross


----------



## tomcoldaba (Jul 1, 2007)

Thank you for sharing.


----------



## gozinsky (Mar 11, 2008)

I have that problem with approval as well. I've seen how taking care of myself can allay it, but have trouble sticking to it. I get scared from this. I hope I can reconnect with my emotions too. Being cut off from myself really sucks. Thanks for sharing that. It's inspiring to hear about someone else who's gone through this and found a way out.


----------



## ~AJ~ (Jan 23, 2008)

you sound like me! I did all the self help stuff and therapy and PUA things as well, and am still addicted to approval. self-love you say?? I can do that! it shall be done!


----------



## yeah_yeah_yeah (Mar 27, 2007)

Beat the approval with the biggest stick you can find! When you really see why you are hankering after it, and you see what the hole its trying to make up for truly is, then suddenly it doesnt seem so important  It might be there a little bit (after all approval is nice every now and then) but it wont be the very meaning of life itself 

Its not the same as unconditional love and the feeling of compassion and safeness - if that means anything!

Ross


----------



## Keikei (Mar 16, 2004)

Wow. Very nice. The approval... yeah, like all the meds after med I keep wanting to be the answer. Just some chemical blanket - keeps me a kid like you were saying. Lol, I've so gotten morbidly depressed just because a person didn't call me back or something... What you said articulates everything so well. I've already decided the meds are killing me. But I hadn't really been able to see the need for approval as what it is. Having more of an understanding helps. And I'm glad for you that you made such an achievement in your life. Thanks for posting.


----------



## sad-de (Apr 11, 2008)

Thank you for posting that. It really gave me a different perspective on my SAD. It made me realize that my constant need for attention, my grandiose plans on how to get the admiration of others and my highly competitive nature is all part of my SAD.


----------



## ardrum (May 13, 2007)

Yeah, it's very helpful for me to see my situation from this perspective, and it has a lot of explanatory value to use this "approval addiction" concept. The more I remain conscious of this tendency, the more ways in which I'm seeing how it manifests.


----------



## AndyLT (Oct 8, 2007)

Very nice.


----------



## bigfoot0915 (Apr 1, 2008)

Wow, extremely insightful. Thank you for posting this.


----------

