A NEW CHAPTER

      That feeling of overwhelmed by your surroundings and the expectations that you have to hold onto. It’s a big step I’ve to admit that; living off to a new place. However the one thing that I realise whenever I got to a new place, is that I got this huge feeling of anxiety and inferiority. I realised I have such a big problem with anxiety when I was at matriculation. The very first few weeks of staying there was horrid. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. The feeling of vomiting would come in the morning, before going to class. I thought it was just indigestion of some sort. But nope. You could say that I diagnosed myself. But I was right. I realized I had this problem. What did I do? Well I assessed and analysed my problem. Finding the root cause of the problem. Nip in the bud before any other major problem arised from it. Of course, I got it cured. And I was having the time of my life there with my friends. Taking pictures together. It wasn’t really the anxiety that held me from socializing with them. It was me myself that thought I wasn’t good enough. That fear of thinking that you have anxiety will actually cause you to have an anxiety episode. It’s bad enough when that happened, but I had the constant feeling even I was not in that situation. It’s called the catch-22. A paradoxical of regulations and rules that makes one a victim of its provisions no matter what one does. But I don’t want to get deeper into that.

                And now, not just a couple weeks ago, I enrolled in National University of Malaysia under the course of Bachelor of psychology. And you have to realise the expectation of people when they hear this. And it’s like I’m always proving myself that I can reach this expectation, and so, this is where my major problem revolves. Upon closer inspection, I realised I had an inferiority complex. An inferiority complex is is a lack of self-worth, a doubt and uncertainty about oneself, and feelings of not measuring up to standards. Well, the feeling of inferiority is not that all abnormal. An inferiority feeling usually acts as an incentive for development. What Sigmund Freud coined this term as a complex is because of how the inability of a person to compensate for one’s inferiority. In the classical Alderian psychology, they categorised it into primary and secondary inferiority feelings. The first or primary inferiority is the normal or usual feelings of inferiority that a child has the feeling of weakness and dependency towards others. However it can be intensified with the comparisons of siblings, romantic partners and adults. The secondary inferiority is the adult’s experience of insufficiency to achieve one’s desired objective of success to compensate for the inferiority feeling.

        And if you know anything about me, this is the perfect description of myself.  Ever since I could remember, there was my brother. Five years older than me, charming, have flair of persona, and most important of all, he can convince anyone. And I have this kind of a total dependency towards him. Always afraid to say no to him. Always liked anything that he liked. And not to mention the age difference between us. This feeling of inferiority is exaggerated of course, with my incapability to achieve the impossible- which is perfection.  When I first came here, I was overwhelmed and thought that I could never live up to be a famous psychologist like my senior or my professors. Its like I have to put on a mask whenever I said that I was a psyche student. Put on a smile. Try to look confident a bit. Make eye-contact.

                Alas, I realised something, the reason behind this. There’s two reason; first, its because that I looked at everyone like how I look at my brother. That same total dependency. Its only when I finally I realised that human have their own weaknesses. Like my brother, everyone has that one thing that of they cannot do. Something that they’re afraid of. So in a way, they’re no better than me. The second reason is the feeling as though my weakness is dragging me down, and I can’t do anything about it. However, everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses. And to focus solely on your weaknesses and neglect your potential is a waste. After I realised this though, everything started to shape up. Its true that knowledge is power. Once you know the root of the problem, it’ll be much much easier to handle it.