I’ve put 3 cause I vary wildly between abject self loathing and arrogant self-assuredness, the latter consistently triggering bouts of the former. This is all sprinkled with a burning desire to improve and tempered with an acknowledgement of my fundamental laziness and inability to do so.
I spend a lot of time beating myself up over things I’ve said and done and I’ve lately noticed that this can sometimes mean I don’t realise when I’m doing or saying something in the present that I’ll later regret.
CBT and meditation has helped me live in the now a little more which is really helping me to accept myself.
Yeah I’m definitely finding myself having to “become” something else quickly, at least in the terms of being more tangibly financially/emotional supportive and well - just fast changing into what I would deem more adult (pointlessly, maybe) and it is giving me a fair lick of imposter syndrome.
Knowing or accepting myself seem like nice luxuries I can’t afford right now but i hope that changes.
I think I pretty much accept myself for who I am now. That isn’t the same as liking myself, but I can live with being me.
I’ve had to work on that, but at least it was a much better use of energy and brain-space than active self-loathing.
The main thing that helps now is to think how would I treat another person under these circumstances? So why should I treat myself any worse (because I hold myself to a higher standard than other people I suppose). But it helps.
what’s been helpful for me is accepting that I have failed at life in a conventional sense and that when things get too tough down the road I can always end it. In the mean time I just live in the present.
Kind of weird to consider suicide as a positive and life affirming thing
I hope this isn’t speaking out of turn, but I can imagine in your situation that you feel a lot of responsbility and you maybe feel a bit like a new parent in lots of ways, with your desire to protect and care for your mum, while also having to deal with your own feelings of how new everything is.
You are doing good man. You need to give yourself time xx
much harder to accept the world than yourself isn’t it?
Like if you are critical of capitalism then it’s just a relentless battering of misery. It will make you despise the things you used to like as a child, people you know, the way you have to live your life.
One thing I’ve just noticed is that when I was in my 20s and I was getting to know someone, be it a romantic interest or a new friend, I’d curate my personality to fit what I thought they wanted.
These days I am very much ‘here I am, like me or don’t’. That’s a huge improvement. I’m really clear about my interests (however geeky), my opinions, my hopes and fears, etc. It’s great, because I know if that person still wants to hang around with me then they must truly like me. I don’t think I was ever assured that anyone liked me when I was in my 20s.
Still got a lot I need to work on but being able to lay it bare for other people and not freak out must be a good thing.
One of those things people say that is kind of repeated as gospel about “you can’t define yourself based on your relationship to others” is always weird and doesn’t sit particularly well for me.
I don’t really know what we are as a species if we divorce ourselves from the people we spend time with. We’re all sums of our experiences and our experiences are all irrevocably linked to the people we’ve shared them with. It’s odd to me to see an increasing trend towards “just focus on yourself, you aren’t defined by anyone else” as a kind of shorthand for self care? Dunno.
I think the other thing that really helped is the realisation that for whatever reason I’d ended up with probably a very (small c) conservative notion of what it means to be happy, what it means to be successful, and what “good” relationships look like. Not fitting into those boxes was making me think much less of myself in relation to all of those things.
But of course all of those things are massively varied from person to person and there’s absolutely no point in trying to conform to those ideals that aren’t right for you and you’re not any less of a person for feeling that way.
And anyone who tries to make you feel differently can get tae absolute fuck.
Generalising horrifically here but a lot of the younger folks tend to think in this scary, self obsessed way. Seems a product of unquestioning capitalism, same way none of them ever get drunk.
I agree with this and I kind of think, in some ways, it’s a result of more positive stuff (identity politics or what have you) but sometimes it manifests itself in just pure unadulterated selfishness but it’s dressed up as “self-love” or whatever in a really toxic way.
Also just to add- when our son was very young I had some symptoms of PTSD (he nearly died when a newborn and it was quite stressful) and I got some excellent counselling from a charity. It was probably the turning point in my life for realising that I had some work to do on myself to be a decent parent and a genuinely happy person. I would say it was vitually life changing. I wish I’d kept it up but life got in
the way.
I don’t know if you’re getting any counselling but I would really recommend it- to everybody. I think literally everyone could benefit from unpacking their emotions from time to time.
I feel like socialism will always fail if it just ends up being about helping each of us as individuals improve our lives. It will have to be about fostering a sense of joy and acceptance at helping others