Latest mini episode - arrogance not a problem?

[neufena]

Thanks.

I think the key of what you've said is I need to have self respect. The problem is I have no respect for myself as I don't deserve any. I don't respect anyone who has achieved so little, failed so much and is unable to do anything of any worth. Everything I do either fails or comes up short compared to everybody else. It's not like I even do anything difficult, it's things everybody else around can do easily. If I could become a worthwhile person I'd deserve to be happy but right now I have no right to happiness as I'm not worthwhile enough to deserve it.

Also just to add back story I have no no abuse or trauma in my history. It's nobody else's fault I'm worthless. I have nobody to blame but myself.

P.S. Good use of spazz, it made me smile. That word doesn't get used much over here in the UK (it's considered offensive, I know it's not in the US) but still brings out a childish 'teehee' response in me!

[roselight]

That's looking at the evidence (people think you're boing) and instead of working to change saying 'I'm too important to be boring so they must be wrong'.

Wow wow wow I had to register just to agree with you, neufena, on this point. I enjoy the Dr. Winch mini-sodes but I couldn't help feeling like so much of his (and others') self-esteem talk is just making excuses.

[GrumpyZhukov]

For me, arrogance has a very specific meaning which may diverge somewhat from its actual definition. An arrogant person not only doesn't care about others opinions, they don't ever consider them. They consider themselves simply superior - would you consider the opinions of an ant? Of course not. Confidence, however, is the belief that you are able to handle a specific task or event whilst appreciating that there are others who could also handle them equally well, even if there are many who could not. Thus, where confidence is married to humility, arrogance is linked to superiority, whether racial, gender, class, social, cultural or whatever. Being self-assured doesn't automatically lead to arrogance unless one places oneself as a 'king among men' - so I too found it difficult to relate to accepting the idea of arrogance.

But this comes with a warning! I was raised in a family in which selfishness and arrogance were considered one and the same and thus if you were genuinely upset it was considered selfish/arrogant to 'inflict' it on others leading to a huge amount of self-negating of legitimate emotions - "what right do I have to be upset?", "Oh, don't mind me, I shouldn't be angry that X missed your doctors appointment", etc. In many ways mine was a common middle-class English upbringing although I'm gradually understanding that it was a very extreme version of the repressed/stiff-upper-lip stereotype

The general view I got was that if people interpret your confidence as arrogance, perhaps consider whether this is fair, but don't let other's wrongfully held opinions sway you in carrying out what you need to do or what you want to do.

I really don't know if this has added to the conversation or derailed it (and I'm not fishing for reassurance either ) but perhaps it is a helpful contribution.

Best wishes,
GZ