My story about arrogance

[Lila]

Michael has said that arrogance is a chief feature of shy people. Well, as a child I was extremely shy, imaginative and sensitive - sensitive to other people's negative emotions and sensitive to criticism. I was an unloved child and hated by my mother for my "weakness". So, I tried to deserve my mother's love by what she expected from her children: being excellent at school and and getting a fine job. If I didn't meet her expectation, she cruelly humiliated me. I learnt to suppress my feelings which made me emotionally crippled for approximately 10 years. All of this was good ground for arrogance to grow. It would have developed to self-depreciation as well,  but mostly I excelled at school and was a quick learner. I became very confident about my skills but in my relationships with other people I was suspicious, expected hidden agendas and thought that I was unlovable as a person and that everybody hated me. I thought high about myself and liked only very few people. Other people started to tell me that appeared to be cold, distant and arrogant. I had romantic relationships in which I tried to avoid true intimacy at all costs. I cheated almost all my boyfriends between the age of 22- 32.

 

Luckily, I realized that I had all the chances to develop a serious social phobia, if I didn't open up to people and give them a chance. I took it as a habit to talk to a stranger whenever I was out or in a social gathering. After many years, I made the conclusion that people or mostly benevolent and my shyness was basically fear of people (being abusive and judgmental). Because I didn't fear people anymore, the shyness was gone as well. I started form genuine friendships. However, I was still afraid of opening up in love, but in my thirties I felt that I have no choice, because I just felt empty inside and I started to lose the connection to Self, which I had always had so far. So, I had a chance to start a relationship with a man whom I'd known as a friend for years. I decided to open up to him and trust him, but he fooled me. That crushed my arrogant ego and opened the Pandora's box - the suppressed feelings I had kept in the bottle for years. There was mostly anger, but also other feelings, which I went through one by one. I realized during this process how much I had projected my own unconscious feelings to other people seeing them mostly in negative light when actually I just hated everybody. When the hatred was gone and love and light started to flow in, also other people started to look much nicer. I understood and felt that people suffer and are not perfect, but they are still lovable and worth of compassion.

 

I often think that I have already beaten this dragon, but I do notice that I may have the "I know the best" -syndrome and get immediately humiliated when I think that I am wiser than I actually am. ?

[Amanda]

I came to this post as my primary CF is Arrogance.  I never really read too much about it (because I didn't think I needed to LOL) but I put my reasons, whatever they were, for avoiding it aside to look into it further.  

 

I'm glad I did.

 

Your post was like looking in a mirror for me.  All of it.  Thank you so much for posting this, it has  helped me take another look at myself and take note of my problem areas I have been avoiding.  

[Andrew]

@Scout I concur.  Maybe I'm just being arrogant but it certainly feels like arrogance can be a tough one to handle because of its very nature.  "I don't have a problem! You're the problem ya knob!" lolol

[Luciana Flora]

12 hours ago, Andrew said:

@Scout I concur.  Maybe I'm just being arrogant but it certainly feels like arrogance can be a tough one to handle because of its very nature.  "I don't have a problem! You're the problem ya knob!" lolol

 

@Andrew 

You said something interesting here .. And I do not know to what extent what I'm going to say is real or only an illusory interpretation of reality ..

But as I had some relationship problems with my family I asked little by little the profile of my parents and my brothers and now I have the profile of all ..

And the main thing is that everyone except me has arrogance as one of the CF. it's one of the things I've felt my whole life was that it was like my family was telling me, "We do not have a problem, you have a problem."

Edited July 13, 2019 by Luciana Flora