(no subject)
it's hard for me to show appreciation - i realised. I find it extremely hard to just show emotion when someone leaves - like my therapist said she felt it was a pity that our sessions were finishing, that she enjoyed our sessions - and I felt exactly the same, and I was not able to verbalise it at ALL. My physiotherapist yesterday told me it was his last day at the hospital, and again, I was not able to say express how much he was helpful, how much I am grateful. I was just awkward, and words didn't come out properly and I felt like an idiot. People don't know what goes on in my head - I think I seem aloof, weird, sometimes ungrateful, when I feel and appreciate a lot people's interactions. I really don't know how to give compliments, to tell people they mean somethng - because that means, maybe, recognizing that I feel things, and that's fucking weak (so I was told).
I read recently about self-hatred - how many people grow to hate themselves, and there's a theory that says something along the lines of people's self-worth is forged during their childhood - when they are infants. And that when caretakers do not show enough love, enough appreciation to us, we internalise these things as we are not worth of love, worth of appreciation. This Alain de Botton guy says, in one of his videos, that instead of hating the people who failed us in our upbringing, we end up hating ourselves. That idea that the people who made you were incapable of providing the right amount of love, when you were the most vulnerable and litle, is more disturbing, more out of control, than finding flaws in ourselves. I don't know if I agree totally with this guy, but if I think back to my childhood I do have many occurences where I felt like I was not supposed to be here -I was reminded many times how stubborn I was, even in the womb, resisting all the attempts of my mom to induce a spontaneous abortion. Isn't that just fucked up? How am I supposed to not hate myself? But now I know these things but it doesnt't make it easier to go forward.
When you hate yourself, I think it's not just a hazzard for yourself - you hurt others who care about you. Because their appreciation and love feels wrong, they are either stupid for giving you what they give you, or not genuine - I constantly think people are delusional for loving me - that they are naive. Maybe because it's hard to really love in a totally positive way. I think, in a way, I do love myself - enough to keep myself alive, enough to keep trying, enough to protect myself, but it's a toxic way - critical, demanding, self-sabotaging way. I think sometimes, this type of love is also pointed outwards.
So one thing I need to do more is to give compliments.
I read recently about self-hatred - how many people grow to hate themselves, and there's a theory that says something along the lines of people's self-worth is forged during their childhood - when they are infants. And that when caretakers do not show enough love, enough appreciation to us, we internalise these things as we are not worth of love, worth of appreciation. This Alain de Botton guy says, in one of his videos, that instead of hating the people who failed us in our upbringing, we end up hating ourselves. That idea that the people who made you were incapable of providing the right amount of love, when you were the most vulnerable and litle, is more disturbing, more out of control, than finding flaws in ourselves. I don't know if I agree totally with this guy, but if I think back to my childhood I do have many occurences where I felt like I was not supposed to be here -I was reminded many times how stubborn I was, even in the womb, resisting all the attempts of my mom to induce a spontaneous abortion. Isn't that just fucked up? How am I supposed to not hate myself? But now I know these things but it doesnt't make it easier to go forward.
When you hate yourself, I think it's not just a hazzard for yourself - you hurt others who care about you. Because their appreciation and love feels wrong, they are either stupid for giving you what they give you, or not genuine - I constantly think people are delusional for loving me - that they are naive. Maybe because it's hard to really love in a totally positive way. I think, in a way, I do love myself - enough to keep myself alive, enough to keep trying, enough to protect myself, but it's a toxic way - critical, demanding, self-sabotaging way. I think sometimes, this type of love is also pointed outwards.
So one thing I need to do more is to give compliments.