[CW: Internalized Bigotry/Self-Hatred/Mental Health]
Yeah…
I’m still in that whole “I literally have to put down whatever I’m doing and take some time to try and calm down just because I’m stressing out over what happened with my brother” kind of mindset.
The worst fucking part is… my therapist listened to me explain the situation, and even he himself said such self-judgment may be going a bit too far, but I simply cannot stop with the self-judgment.
I will never talk to these family members again, yes. Nothing will make me change my mind that this is the right thing to do. However, that doesn’t make sitting with these feelings any better. It doesn’t change the fact that this happens to be another point of added stress on top of other things I’m stressing over. I think the feelings of isolation I felt during my birthday kind of got me to focus in on these feelings again.
I’ve hated myself my whole life. Of course, there are numerous reasons for my self-hatred. I’ve hated myself for my race, my gender, and my neurodivergence, yes, but I also have hated myself just due to the broad perception of myself as a bad person undeserving of happiness. I feel myself to be immoral in some way… not that I intend to, but, obviously, I’ve harmed so many people.
At some point, intention simply does not matter. I’m far too scared to stop being closed off from other people. Not only do I have to constantly fear bigotry, assault, and physical violence, but in a moment that I do encounter a person who is willing to put up with me at first, eventually, I’ll do or say something that harms them.
I’ve had to stop talking to people because of the harm they’ve done to me, but things especially hurt knowing that I’ve had to stop talking to people because of the harm I’ve done to them.
It brings me back to my ex-girlfriend. I did something unforgivable to her, and I told her that I never want to do it to her again. Now, it’s unforgivable in my eyes, but she herself actually did forgive me and told me I’m being “unfair” by closing myself off from talking to her ever again, but I don’t think I was. I have a long history of causing damage to people, and obviously, I don’t intend it. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I caused her more harm. I’ve already done enough.
This situation is what led me to getting a crush on that woman who’s quite older than me (I don’t know if any of you recall) because she was the one who comforted me through that really bad situation. Even on her end, she told me that she finds I didn’t do anything wrong to her, but I cannot agree with her.
What this helped me to realize is that my mind always sides with placing the blame on myself.
It’s bad enough that I judge myself a lot, but considering that a user on the original post about the incident with my brother commented that they agree with my brother, and such comment was viewed very favorably, it hurts. It hurts to the point of excessive anxiety, a growing sense of hopelessness, and a concern for what I should do with myself.
I’m in panic mode right now… I’m genuinely not sure what I should do in a case like this. I don’t know. My thoughts are rushing all over the place.
I was thinking of reaching out and getting some immediate professional help because I feel the lowest I’ve felt in ages right now, but I realized I cannot do that. That will actually exacerbate my situation because it could lead to some time in a hospital where I’m facing discrimination from the staff and being kept away from things I have to do in my life, like some job interviews. But I must say that puts me in a bit of a catch-22 because things like job interviews seem like they have less of a point when I feel like this.
Knowing I do so much wrong, I want to close the post by saying this: I apologize if I’ve said or done anything to any of you that hurt you. I didn’t intend it, and I understand your pain. It happens a lot, and I’m really sorry.
You’re literally one of the kindest people I’m seeing on this site. Very smart to boot, I learned a lot from intersectionality by reading your posts about them. Don’t know if this means something to you.
Your post reminds me a bit of my wife who has CPTSD and had an abusive upbringing which primed her to immediately look for ways to blame herself as soon as anything bad happens. She legit apologised to me when I carelessly broke a glass while doing the dishes because she had placed it there prior to me starting doing the dishes. As in, she placed it there, then I came to do the dishes and despite me having ample opportunity to see the glass, placing it somewhere better if it felt precarious, she apologised to me. When I asked her what she could have possibly have done better she said “she could have chosen a better place”. This incident actually opened my eyes to this, because it was so so backwards. It really felt demonic, because here was this beautiful person visibly shaken and apologising in what could only be a defensive measure. I think the glass crashing triggered her and she became this scared little girl again that just apologises without skipping a beat and finds a reason for it during.
She can’t turn it off, but she is starting to not believe her feelings of guilt anymore because they are not trustworthy. I hope you can get to a similar place?
So, first off, it might be worth exploring the world of PTSD and cPTSD. You may be experiencing things that these areas can help you navigate. I say this as someone who recently discovered that PTSD was affecting me and I had no idea that’s what it was. But my inner narrative sounded similar to what you wrote here. So, that’s first. Explore the world of PTSD and see if you can find things that help you.
Second - if we were a single, whole, indivisible, atomic, objective personality, it would be really difficult to hate yourself or think many of these negative things about ourself. You are engaging in a relationship with yourself through these words, and that means you are composed of multiple personalities (not in the pathological way) that are able to relate to each other. A billiard ball cannot hit itself and lightning cannot strike itself, but one (as a person) can feel hatred (towards a person) towards oneself? This indicates that we have multiple personas within us.
And this actually makes a lot of sense. We have to build models of other people in order to understand them and their perspectives. We have empathy for others because we can imagine what they are experiencing. That means we have a persona that is able to construct a model of another persona and interpret experiences through that constructed persona.
Why does this matter… I know it feels rambly, but I have a point. You were taught to hate yourself. Not explicitly, not by any one person. But the way we are socialized constructs multiple personas in our heads and those personas relate to each other. Our parents create personas in our heads that tell us to behave when they are not looking. Religions create personas in our heads that tell us to behave even when no one could ever know. Our teachers create personas in our heads that tell us if we’re doing well or poorly. The TV creates personas in our heads that criticize us or praise us. It’s constant. And as children, it’s nearly impossible to even be aware of this. As adults it’s possible but rare that we understand this. But know this. There are personas in your brain that were constructed through the process of socialization and it is these personas that hate your other personas.
You get to choose now. You get to choose if your inner critics get to live rent free in your head and continue to abuse you. You get to choose if the personas that tell you to you’re a bad person are allowed to persist and be rewarded. You get to choose if the personas that tell you to isolate, and disengage, and self destructive are given air time. Your brain is powerful good at producing personalities. But you can use it to eliminate inner personalities as well. You can say to your inner critics “that’s not true and it’s not kind”. You can say to your inner judgements “I forgive others for their mistakes, therefore I forgive myself for my mistakes”.
It takes time. It takes repetition. Your inner cops weren’t built in a day, and fighting them will take some time. But it won’t take 20 years.
Be kind to yourself. You deserve love and care because you are human, not because you earned it. You cannot lose the rights to love, care, kindness. You deserve them because you exist. But the most important person that can give you these things is you. Give yourself grace, compassion, love, respect, care, comfort, safety.
You don’t have to let these relationships with yourself continue to make you suffer.
“all you know is yourself! what do you know about the person I see?”
Just because you’re inside you doesn’t mean you know yourself best. Maybe in fact you are too close to see the real you.
it worries me to see you talking so casual about pushing folks, both family and friends, away.
You show your clear eyes in this post, how you know you are very harsh on yourself, but then in this same post you deny others any right to give you an ounce of grace, to show you the beautiful person they see, the person they want to continue to know.
You shut them out from yourself, framing it here as ‘what is best for them’, but i believe that is a lie you’re telling yourself to protect your own heart.
You demand perfection from yourself. You must make the right choice for everyone involved at all times. This is an extremely, impossibly high standard, doomed to fail, cuz youre a human.
When you inevitably fail to meet that lofty perfection, you shut down and shut out everyone else, “protecting them”…from what exactly? Your humanity? let them decide. its dismissing to them to make that choice for them, they don’t need protection from you.
Humans make mistakes, hurt others on accident, even with the best intentions. You know this, but still try to be better than human, a higher standard than is possible to achieve. It can’t be done, and you’re hurting yourself by trying, setting yourself up to fail, and when it inevitably happens you’re hurting yourself, cutting out those close to you who care.
tldr give yourself more grace and love, and if you can’t, at least listen and don’t shut out people that want to be around you. They can see things you don’t see, and help be a bulwark against your exacting self-eval
Afaik you’ve never done or said anything hurtful to any user in here. You might’ve made mistakes in the past but you’ve clearly tried to solve them, and you’re actively trying to become better. That makes you a good person, and you might not be perfect and you might’ve made mistakes, but you don’t deserve hating yourself either.
Even on her end, she told me that she finds I didn’t do anything wrong to her, but I cannot agree with her.
If she didn’t see anything wrong, you probably haven’t done anything wrong, and might be just overthinking.
I don’t know you irl, but from this post and some others you’re clearly a good person trying to improve for the better, and you shouldn’t let your past mistakes hinder your future.
