People’s eyes are anchors. HELP!!!

[Unregistered7777]

I have this one problem I can’t get rid of. I am really tired of it and it won’t go away because, well, it reminds me of it every single day many times. Please help me with advice!!

Here is my story.

I had this one friend, who I moved in together. This friend liked to observe people’s interactions and means of communication a lot, that was his forte. One day we were talking and he said “You know I’ve noticed that if a person doesn’t look me in the eye when we talking then it’s a definite sign of weakness”. This pretty much set off the problem. From that point on, I , for some stupid reason, started to stare at him like dumbass every time we talked and he really liked talking. It was like a game but for real. Then our relationship started to deteriorate for some reason, I don’t remember even why but that’s irrelavent. And when I started to stare at him even harder, not to show the weakness, you know, accrding to him. I didn’t want to show him that I am weak. Stupid I know but that continued on for a YEAR. After a little while, I was just looking at him with my eyes wide open and couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying at all, just on maintaining eye contact. That really screwed everything up for me. Now I don’t know when I need to look at a person while talking when not. When I am looking, my eyes automatically start to widen and I can’t concentrate on what a person says. I thought that may be it will go away with time but it’s not going away, because other people’s eyes has become like an anchor for my mind, like everytime I see eyes, even MY OWN EYES in the mirror(even eyes of the people on a picture, can you believe it?) I have this automatic reaction. Everytime I see another pair of eyes, it just reinforces my problem. After it went on for a while, it got worse, now everytime I talk to somebody, my eyes start to hurt, it’s like someone poking me with the needle in the eyes and because of this I immediately look away. Then it got so ingrained that I felt like my eyes hurt all the time, even by just looking at anything. Recently they started to hurt when I was just talking on the PHONE with someone, because I guess now, talking to people and people’s voice is associated with pain. So obviously because of all these I started to avoid communicating with people, became highly anti-scoial, my memory and thinking abilities started to degrade and I don’t know what comes next. This problem exhausted me. It’s ruining my life completely.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I can't go on like this anymore.

[reborn]

When you are thinking and listening you don't stare at anything but your thoughts. In fact you are caught up in them - so do that. You can look at people's eyes when you are listening to them, but this is unusual and can be distracting. Most people are spinning off thinking about what they are going to say in response to something someone says. But if you give a person full attention to what they are saying, mindfull of what they are saying and the thoughts they are generating in you, then where your eyes are pointing won't be an issue. When you return communication you can look them in the eye from time to time, but you will be drawing your communication from your thoughts also, so it is not a matter of staring at the eyes, let your attention shift it's focus and let appropriateness determine the glance at the eyes. Your former friend probably just meant that if people never make eye contact it is a sign of weakness. But that is also quite loaded. Some people can be very intimidating. Perhaps your friend is like this? But rise up to it, what happened to you is that you allowed him to intimidate you. He psyched you man. Best, actually, with people like this is to be yourself, but rather than look anywhere near the eyes, look at them in the centre of the forehead at the point between the two eyebrows. The effect is you stare into their soul, and bypass the eyes altogether. Let that be one place where you point your eyes during communications, even for a few moments and perhaps when you are coming toward the end of what you want to say. Most of all relax and listen, and resolve to be for the conversation and against the bullsh1t mind games - which you create by not addressing implication points in a conversation... (okay, if you miss them at the time, let them be a lesson)...

[Merlin]

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I can't go on like this anymore.Find a skilled hypnotherapist.

[skip]

Well my friend, your friend was/is full of shet.

He was taking a cultural behavior, and hallucinating an incorrect reason for it.

White children in America are taught to look people in the eye when being spoken to, as a gesture of respect.

Black children in America are taught to look down when being addressed, for the same reason.

(Not everyone does this but generally)

Your friend took a cultural expression, and made a domonance assumption out of it.

Will be a big mistake, if he makes that same foolish assumption, with the wrong person, wont it? But he will get his lumps and learn ... perhaps.

NOW, you have taken this fxxckwits information, and given it a life of its own, in your life.

What do you want to do with it now?

Now my inclination is to take the stupid stuff, and put it with all the rest of the stupid stuff, that way you cant find it again. After all that IS where you hide a tree ... in the forrest

warmly,

skip

[exhausted]

Thank you guys for your insights, your advice really gives me something extra I can use to fight it. But it's easier said than done, I am trying to cope with it for the past 3 years now. It's just automatic, like you know with Pavlov's dogs, you turn on the light and bam you salivate, same here. I am losing my precious mind with this now.

Just tell me that hypnosis will help, I've got to believe in it...

[skip]

Hypnosis can help you relieve this.

[Simple Guy]

Exhausted,

See a skilled professional and you'll probably get over this
very quickly.