constant need for reassurance help :(

[Purplerain1985]

Good evening to everyone on this form. I would like to know if anyone else can relate to the constant need for reassurance. I experienced bullying in middle school, which then led to me being diagnosed with anxiety and depression my freshman year in high school. Although I've been on meds and therapy for some years now (I'm 25) seeking reassurance has been a major coping strategy for me. It's been especially difficult the last year as my close friend of two years cut me off without warning while dealing with depression. As you can imagine this made my need for reassurance even worse. I sit hear today really struggling with the need for reassurance and wether I'll ever be free from it. Can anyone else relate to struggling with this or did in the past ? If successful how did you overcome it ? right now it feels so hopeless

[Purplerain1985]

the thoughts are constant it's so hard

[deValentin]

The need for excessive reassurance is a sign of low self-confidence. It seems that your past experiences shook your self-confidence. If positive experiences boost your self-confidence, temptations to seek excessive reassurance about your self-worth won’t disappear, but you’ll be able to resist them. I experienced similar problems earlier in my life: I needed to be loved by everybody in order to feel good about myself. That excessive dependence on others’ approval made me very vulnerable to manipulation, unfair comments or rejection, and low self-esteem because I was trying to please others at the expense of my own needs and interests.

The solution, in my opinion is to open yourself to the possibility that excessive reassurance-seeking won’t get you the happiness you’re hoping it will get you. Seeking excessive reassurance could be wanting to be 100% sure people love you, nothing bad will ever happen to you by your fault or not, you never made a mistake, etc. Intellectually, you probably realize that excessive reassurance-seeking never delivered on the promises it gave you, and it will probably never do it in the future. However, emotionally, you may still feel a strong desire to engage in it because of past conditioning. In that case, practice exposure and response prevention, that is, face the triggering situation and don’t engage in excessive reassurance seeking. It will be difficult at first, but it will get better with the passing of time. By refusing to engage in excessive reassurance seeking in spite of the difficulties, you become emotionally open to the possibility that there are better ways to search for happiness. Other ways to be happy is to use appropriate means to be accepted and respected by others. I wish you the best in a new life where you seek a normal degree of reassurance (like everybody else) from your past choices and actions, circumstances and others.

[Purplerain1985 in reply to deValentin]

Hi thank you so much for your considerate response. Although I've struggled with it for a long time, I didn't until really recently think it was as bad as it was. Yesterday was the first time I realized that reassurance won't provide me happiness long term. I know it will be harder before it gets easier as I relied on reassurance for so long now. However I want to break free from this as it's weighing me down from living a full life.

[deValentin in reply to Purplerain1985]

You’re welcome and I wish you the best in your endeavor. Don’t forget that we, as human beings, need a certain amount of reassurance. For instance, if I’m writer and sell a lot of books, I’m reassured about my skills as a writer. Nothing wrong with that. If we see the sun rise every morning, we’re reassured that it will continue to rise in the foreseeable future (Ancient Egyptians weren’t so sure of it; it may not have been OCD, but they felt the need to perform rituals to be sure it happened). The problem is when we feel compelled to do too much to be sure of others’ love, our own worth, an auspicious future, etc. It usually backfires. It makes us feel less sure in the end. It reminds me of a video about a boy who felt the need to ask his mother whether she loved him over 50 times a day. He couldn’t be persuaded of it. Emotionally it was never enough because he was so anxious. He was excessively using his mother’s words of love to calm his anxiety when he should have also used ERP and healthier strategies to calm it down. I hope a therapist was able to help him.

[Purplerain1985 in reply to deValentin]

Thank you trying to have patience with myself as I go in the path to getting rid of reassurance. There's been times today I've felt hope about it and times I've felt hopeless about it today

[deValentin in reply to Purplerain1985]

Recovery is not linear. It's more like a bumpy road. Daniel Goleman wrote an interesting book in 1995 entitled Emotional Intelligence. In essence, the book says that we may be intellectually smart, but not always emotionally smart. Sometimes, we may need to learn to be emotionally smart. It takes time and it's not always easy. Hope is built on small successes.

[Purplerain1985 in reply to deValentin]

That is so true. Ever since I've started on this journey a couple days ago it feels like I'm improving some days and going backwards other days.

[Purplerain1985]

also those past experiences definitely shaped me for the worse unfortunately. I would also say my self confidence and self esteem are also not good. This only makes me more likely to fall into the trap of reassurance.

[Purplerain1985]

Hello, everyone Trying not to be hard on myself today. I had my first setback since starting my reassurance journey a couple days ago. I allowed myself to go back to those old thoughts patterns and I feel kind of crappy now. I'm not going to give up though. I'm sure setbacks are normal, especially after relying on reassurance for so long. I've loved how I've felt the last couple days , and am determined to get back in that state

[Purplerain1985]

scared of going back to that place