Not trusting my instincts. I would sooner declare myself a horrible, stupid, miserable bitch than trust that the situation I'm in is no bueno, or the person I'm talking to is actually an asshole. I'll think to myself, "Alright, this guy's a condescending prick" or "I don't like the way he said that to me" and I'll feel GUILTY for thinking that and change it to take the blame myself like, "Oh my god, (my name), you are a complete bitch" or "seriously, (my name)?, get over yourself!" It makes me want to scream! It happens everywhere. At work-I'll have a gut instinct about something and I'll ignore it, or not follow up on it, just to find out later that I WAS DEAD ON!! Like literally, exactly right. It's not like I'm in bad situations all the time-this is mostly in reference to my work, the people I date or the people my friends date, etc. Sometimes it will even lead to self-abuse. I don't know if it's a recreation or a reliving of "punishments" and experiences of when I was a child, or what. But I'll berate myself. I used to do a lot of self-harm (although I didn't consider it to be self-harm bc it wasn't the typical method). Now that I know what I'm doing I try to control it, but it's still like a natural response to my "stupidity", my mistakes. I'll even bring up past mistakes and punish myself again for it. Things that happened years ago, a decade ago even....it doesn't matter. I hate it. It's amazing, really, the number of thoughts I have. It's funny because I really don't think the average person could handle it. I will go through this multiple times a day and still work a full day, handle other people's "stuff" and text my friends, email colleagues, drive where I need to go, have meetings, and everything else. Is this how it's meant to be for me? Like is this just the hand I was dealt? Is this something that I just have to live with? Or can it stop? Is it possible to change? Am I the only one with this shit or is this common for "survivors"?
I'm not even sure how to do this...consistently anyway.
How are people "kind to themselves" as a way of life? I can go like a day, maybe, or for a short amount of time. When it comes to myself, my natural reaction is to be hurtful. When it comes to other people, my instinct is to doubt, because of the way I think of myself. And I just have to laugh, because nobody really knows!
Thank you so much for sharing all of this, not only this post. It is so,so recognizable. Too much of it. It hurts. The only way I can be kind to myself, is by taking a bath, once every six months. But then I have to be reading a book that makes me cry....
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