Learning not to treat myself badly

Started by sigiriuk, June 30, 2017, 10:55:12 AM

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Candid

I see this is your first post, amcolg01, so welcome to our world!

link=topic=6828.msg47694#msg47694 date=1502956139]
i remember as a young child, maybe 9 or 10 writing out lists that could make me perfect. like brushing my hair 300 times a day, etc.  to this day i still have this type of harsh behavior.[/quote]

Me too.  My last whip-me-into-shape list was just a matter of weeks ago.

Quotei remember my parents telling me they found the list but not really discussing it with me. i just felt embarassed they seen them.

My mother had automatic rights to my mail, my diaries, and anything else she liked, too.  She read my diaries while I was at school, unknown to me until she banned me from seeing my boyfriend based on what she'd read. 

This is a violation of your privacy and personal boundaries.  What is it about people who so love spying on us, and it never seems to occur to them simply to ask us what's going on? 

The embarrassment is that you wrote that list for you.  You wouldn't have written it knowing they would see it. 

Everyone has a social front: what we consider acceptable to others.  For healthy people the social front isn't too far removed from the inner world.  For troubled people the inner world is often the complete opposite of the social front.  CPTSD tends to divorce us from ourselves and make every public appearance an acting job.  It's tiring, not being Who We Are.

Naturally it's healthier to show our wounded selves to a close friend or therapist, but a lot of us go for very long periods without that validation. In that case, writing (even an I'm-not-good-enough list) is a great outlet for the distress that demands expression.

Barging into our inner world without permission -- in my case it was the person who put me in the darkness to begin with -- is unpardonable.  That they then refuse to validate what they find is, to put it mildly, worse than useless.  They saw your struggle to be "perfect" and they did nothing to reassure you you're already perfect.  Not just good enough, but perfect exactly as you are.

Being embarrassed is actually a good thing.  Your spirit knew the list was silly. I hope you won't mind me saying that; I've still got all my own lists and they were silly, too. You (and I) could never have twisted ourselves into what They wanted, and we made ourselves miserable trying.

Quotei am getting better, but for the longest i thought maybe if i figure out what is causing my low self esteem all of my problems would be solved, and i would be confident in that exact moment. i was completley wrong, but i do think it helped me realize that my train of thought is off, and practicing self love does help.

:yahoo:

I believe that when we find out "what is causing [our] low self esteem", the worst of our problems are solved.  I know where my low self-esteem came from.  That doesn't mean I'll never have another problem, just that I'm now in a far better place to deal with it. As you say (with masterful understatement!) self-love does help.  It becomes a whole lot more powerful when we no longer have to practise it, we just know it.

Quotewhen i think negative harsh thoughts i try to remind myself that no one is perfect, and that there are a lot of great things about myself.

I believe we are all perfect, just as we were created.  It's all the dodgy add-ons that cause the trouble, for everyone.  All the "great things" about you are Who You Are.  They're your guiding light.  Wanting the hair of a supermodel is a dodgy add-on.  Even the supermodels don't have the hair of a supermodel (much less the complexion).  They have bad-hair days same as the rest of us!