I think I’m a very cynical man because I am afraid of true happiness and prosperity in my life. So I’m here asking you to maybe help me expose me to my fears and desensitize myself to them and my triggers all the while identifying my triggers.
You need more rewards in your life.
One summer at school I made the dean’s list.
I was in the paper.
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If I can help I will, but I don’t know what your fears are, can you be a little more explicit?
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I guess I don’t trust the sincere niceness from people, especially if it’s in the form of a joke. I always see it as someone being mean or that I just don’t trust that the person is being honestly nice.
And displays of moral uprightness, like “I am ready to sacrifice myself for my moral code because I believe it’ rewarding”, would be an example.
And selfish interest in oneself is bothersome but I don’t expect you to handle that one.
As I’m writing this, I think maybe I should tell a professional first and see their opinion and what they think I can do to find my triggers. I think just being around nice people will trigger me so I’m willing to go through that for x amount of time a day.
On a side note, I’ve learned that my Dad is hard on me, but that’s because he wants to see me succeed so I’m o.k. with that.
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I very much relate to that @Apathy. Maybe you and I both need to be more kind to ourselves. Maybe that will help to accept when others are kind. You’re very conscientious, I think. I always have been to, but the weight of the world is too much to carry. Give yourself realistic goals and be kind to yourself.
Glad to hear you’ve gained peace in your relationship with your dad 
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I wish I had more to say, so I will just say thank you.
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I can see how that bothers people who can’t trust others. Maybe it comes off as trying to be like the noble knight who just cares about his image…or it comes off as an insincere superiority complex…I can say this about my own moral quest: deep down, I do it because I’m afraid society will trample on my rights and throw me in a psychiatric detention facility if I don’t keep shouting about my constitutional rights.
I, too, tend to think if they’re being nice they are either pitying me or they’re secretly plotting against me and are forging a false alliance with me. Normally, I don’t bother with strategic friendships, as they are time consuming and demand too much attention from me. I just avoid people or come to curl up on their lap like a cat.
Then again, there was this professor whose body I needed on my thesis committee so I was flirty and it was like exhausting agony because he was sarcastic and rude and sometimes he’d get a kick out of embarrassing me in front of the class. I faked friendliness with him, but he’s one of my rare exceptions. Now that my thesis is over with, I can relax and go back to avoiding him, and by sad extension, all the rest of my academic mentors…since his office is like right down the hall from my fave profs! 
Maybe you just dont trust people and that’s really okay for now. Trusting is difficult.
In real life I don’t trust anyone either. It’s difficult for me to accept that others are being thoughtful when in the past that always turned out to be bullcrap.
I’m working this with my therapist. Maybe you should too.
Wow that’s pretty outrageous and certainly upsetting.
Yes that’s what I thought was best. Don’t have a therapist right now and getting one at the community mental health network is difficult and you can only see them for 3 months. So I have to go get this job and put myself through hell so I can get my car and go back to the therapist I was seeing that’s out of the community network.
Well yeah, it’s hard. But in all honesty, you’ll only do it if you really want to go to therapy, and this probably isn’t the only reason.
I’m a big therapy advocate really, I think with a good therapist people can really heal from stuff.
And you’re prone to change and “behaviour enhancement” 
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Always have been. Thanks to the culture and people I hung around with. It just feels stale after knowing I’ve done so much bull crap. I keep trying to improve but I seem to be getting no where. Probably because I’m my only advocate when it comes to my mental health.
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I think it’s imposter syndrome man… you feel undeserving for whatever reason and true happiness also might just be to foreign to you to process.
I had this to a degree and I had to kind of baby step my way to it. Rewards and small steps of growth like @daze said.
For me what got me there was being a stoner who was to errant to respect authority and most of all a life centered around work… then it was losing out with a few key women in my life that made me feel invalid in that regard and or just poor confidence in socialization which also looped back around to confidence with women… and then the SZ hit and I realized just how desperately I wanted independence and work… then I started to psychologically prepare myself for that…
I’ve also wanted a beautiful woman in my life for basically my whole life and having not had that aside from a few years made it seem impossible… the dreams too dramatic to even cope with being a possible reality… but I recently met a pretty awesome person and though things aren’t going to work out in the long run… she was beautiful enough to kind of show me that the appearance of a woman should not make them more intimidating… in fact they like it more when they are just treated normally… well in some cases… but also the rejection of a beautiful woman doesn’t mean much more than the rejection of anyone else… they don’t speak for each other… they aren’t unified… there are always more women out there.
So what is a happy life aside from a full one? Work, financial independence, and a good companion to share it with… kind of cleche but as I’m growing older here I’m starting to see it’s the only way to live.
Partying and excitement and meeting a bunch of people who never really care… just to a story to tell… well that’s all crossed off my list… and it was just a waste of time and brought even more issues up in my mind just being exposed to some of the debauchery that happens out there…
In my head it’s just frustrations all around… it’s no fun… but at least I’m losing that imposter syndrome based introspective focus that really amps up my voices in ways that makes me seem invalid and needing of removal from the world… but that’s ■■■■■■■■… I’m an awesome person and so are you man… so is everyone who isn’t an inconsiderate jerk…
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That sounds valid since I am always afraid that I’m going to be outed as non schizoaffective on here even though I’m diagnosed by two doctors with these attributes. Another thing I fear is that I’m going to be declared fit for work and lose everything I’ve built for.
Was always a sense of expecting Empathy for all I was going through. Empathy can be toxic though. Start to let more compassion into your life. Compassion is indeed a strength.
This made me think of when I went to the disability evaluator after stabilizing on meds for a few years and she told me that my doctor was an idiot for telling me I was schizophrenic. I was like, “which doctor? There have been like a dozen, all said the same thing” then she glared at me and laughed mockingly. I burst into tears. I don’t cry, like ever, but that day I just exploded into tears while she smiled at me.
I totally get your fear of being non-sz. Schizophrenia is not just an illness, it becomes the lens through which we see the world. It has become my identity and she crushed my soul that day. Luckily, my mother was there to comfort me by reminding me how psychotic I used to be and how scared she was when I would run off into the urban parts of the city in the middle of the night because I thought a man was coming to pick me up and take me away to a safer life…
that actually made me feel better for some reason.
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I used to think I had to “prove myself” as schizoaffective on this message board. Like people wouldn’t believe me unless I validated myself. Now I have little symptoms and I don’t worry about that at all. It’s weird.
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