Fear of Success

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I think I am afraid of succeeding. It is weird, I think, but I've been doing a lot of introspection lately--mostly because I am probably going to fail all of my classes this semester...again--and that's what I've decided. I think I have gotten so used to failure that even though I have a lot of answers and new ways of succeeding, I still sort of sabotage myself. WTF is up with that? I mean, my previous failures, while partly my fault, were because I didn't really understand what was DIFFERENT about me, and then I found out and made changes--and started this semester out all excited for success, and then BANG!--failure all across the board.

But do you think that people are so afraid to succeed that they prefer the misery of failure over the unknown expectations after a success? That they subconsciously sabotage themselves to prevent the unknown from occurring? Because that is what I think I am doing to myself. I have a 10 page research paper due next Tuesday that I have been trying to write for the past three months--and every time I sit down to write, I get the worst case of writer's block I've ever experienced. And it doesn't matter WHAT I do, I just. can't. write. And it is so unbelievably frustrating because I NEED and WANT to succeed, I just think that maybe I am subconsciously afraid of what will happen if I do. Isn't that foolish? I've tried writing in the public library, in my room, in the campus library, on the bus. I've tried walking, running, punching my sparring bag, push-ups, situps, reading a different book, writing something completely random just to get the ideas flowing--and still, I get nothing, just a complete blank.

I don't know what to do. I just want to quit, really, and just go back to working for just above minimum wage, where I can be by myself, reading what I want to read without having to write a stupid paper or take a stupid test. It's just, I'm too smart to do that, though. Seriously, after three months, all I have is about 65 sources and a paragraph and half of my introduction completed. I am so thoroughly screwed, aren't I. If I were living on my own, I'd just say "F*** it," cut my losses, and go one class at a time. But I am living at home because I can't afford to do school any other way, and if I fail this semester, that's it. I have to leave. I just don't know what to do.

I've been trying harder and harder to stay above everything, but I still just get stuck. It's like I'm on a treadmill, and I need to get across the room. No matter how FAST I run, I still get nowhere. So I have to try smarter, I guess. I have to get off of the treadmill and walk across the room, but there's the rub, see, because I don't know how to do it.

I questioned this about myself when the concept became trendy a few years back(20 years?)I think it's a lot of NT mumbo jumbo...yes,people maybe afraid of succeeding because it may mean that others will always expect more from them and they are afraid they wont be able to continue the success....or they maybe afraid that if they succeed at a particular thing(say being a CEO in charge type person)that they maybe exposed to working conditions that they would find painful(especially for an AS person projecting themselves in a corporate setting,having to sacrifice their special interests,socialize,wear a tie,be faced with constand decissions and stress).This may take plac on an unconcouse level?heres how I would imagine the internal unconcouse dialogue.......


MY drive to succeed......"I need to do this(whatever thing),so that I can get a job as a manager...."

MY AS..."Why,so you can work 80 hour days to buy stuff to impress other people?"

My drive to succeed..."I need to focus on this really boring task"

My As...."look,a really cool rock"

MDTS....."I need to stop procrastinating to do this task "

MAS..."If I become a manager< I will have to do these boring tasks for 80 hours a week,wear stockings and makeup and jewelry,lie on a daily bases to present the company image,avoid having meltdowns and sacrifice my personal beliefs or learn how to hide them better."

MDTS..."I am an intelligent person and that should be enough to accomplish this task,I am just being lazy and selfish and ......etc"

MAS..."Go F$^& yourself,I am tired and miss doing my interests and hate wearing suits and dont want to lie to people and think people dont like me and am tired of being judged and punished for being/thinking/sensing differently then the majority of the people who are in charge.And I dont give a s689t about that expensive car and a house 10X bigger then I will ever need just so some brainless twit with grovel at my feet.I wonder whats on the History channel tonight...Hi kitty,come give me a cuddle"


ETCETCETC........

I'm guilty of self-sabotage too.

Do you want to move out?

That's how I feel too. Some big win of money so I wouldn't have to deal with working would be wonderful. But I don't gamble or buy lottery tickets so I guess I will sit at my desk at work and do what krex does because my mind wanders exactly like that.

All over the map today. Barely focused on anything but thoughts I wanted to think instead of doing my work. /sigh... I'll be behind again tomorrow.

When I succeed at something, everybodies reaction to it is over the top. It is out of proportion to that of anybody else accomplishing the same thing. Because, you know, I'm an aspie and therefore less likely to succeed... Or at least that is what I think some people think. Thus I like to keep my success private

I'm not sure, but I think this may fit into this subject somewhere...

I have been successful. I consistently get excellent performance reviews at work, for instance. Yet I frequently have the feeling that this is all an illusion that's about to collapse, that I'll be "found out" and exposed for having faked it so well, that my success has all been smoke and mirrors. Maybe it's because I went through so much of my life not succeeding?

Hmph.

Thoughts?

So how did you "fake it?" How did you succeed? Because the only things I've "succeeded" at doing are thigs that do not translate into a "happy, productive, adult life."

Everyone should succeed at something. I think you need to find what you succeed at.

Just because something may not seem easy on the surface DOESN'T mean it is something you can't succeed at!

That said, what field is it that you are in that requires the following?

The thing of it is that I am really interested in what I am writing about, so interested, in fact, that I have spent three months researching the topic (Eminent Domain abuse and how it highlights a structural shift in the government)--and now I have so much information that I have no idea how to sort it into a meaningful essay/paper in seven days. (Of course, I had more than seven days to write it, but that, too, is part of the problem.)

I know that I can succeed, I just don't know how. It just seems that I am stuck in the same pattern of behavior even though I tried to hard not to be.

I've probably got enough information to write a book, or at least part of a graduate thesis, but for the life of me I have no idea how to go about writing this paper in this amount of time, and my panic at failing once again is, I'm sure, feeding into this "writer's block," and not helping, and neither are my parents ("Just do it! It's easy!")