Why I am an honest attention-seeker

[nyecamden]

Occasionally I write livejournal posts directly requesting positive attention. A lot of the time* I battle with crippling insecurity. There are things I can do about that on my own, and when I can, I do them. But sometimes it all gets on top of me and I need outside input. Every f*cking time I see my psychiatrist (twice a year for 10 minutes or so

Comments

[nyecamden]

Thanks.

I also think that it's something that we need new strategies for in this new(ish) era where we don't know everyone who lives near us/live near all our friends, so we can't just pop down to the greengrocer's if we want attention from someone who knows us.

Hm. I actively avoid being friends with anyone who lives too nearby, and I like faceless places like Sainsbury's and Starbucks because I often can't cope with too much social interaction. See my edit above. :-(

[barakta]

Interesting what you say about the standing out - I do something like that with parts of my body that I don't like. I used to hate my left hand and I'm not much better with it now - I just don't look at it.

At school in the days before wild nailvarnish I used to mix and match colours and buy special cool colours (yellow and blue) from the Goth Shop in the area. I found it made a HUGe difference to how I could handle my hand if I did something special with it. Part of it was almost certainly self-care looking after it, but also it drew attention to it in a different way from "spaz" and was "oh those nails are interesting" which stopped people feeling conscious about asking etc.

I should really get back into it, I've gone very black and goth or worse non descript blue denim and grey in my old age through laziness.

I think the directness on attention seeking is a good thing cos it's at least clear what you're after and people aren't obliged to give it to you - or if they feel that way that's their issue not yours.

[severe_delays]

I know exactly what you mean about the way an audience helps. Even if people are just passively reading and not always replying there's something about that slight connection with others which provides evidence that we are heard. Others might not understand what is written but they still read. It's an important connection to the rest of humanity. Of course, if they seem to understand and post accordingly then it's somehow much more supportive.

I know that some people read my blogs (and especially the f-locked ones) and don't comment. But I know they are reading because they will comment on a later one which links back to the subject of an earlier one. And it helps amazingly. Even if people don't always read everything, having them read some is a positive thing.

I think what I'm trying to say is that I don't always reply to you but I do always read you.