in case you ever wondered why I have a "zoloft is my candy" tag...
Sometimes I wonder why I tend to take internet comments so personally. I don't mean just general ones, but ones that specifically reply, harshly, to me.
The problem I face is that I can't always separate legitimate criticism from illegitimate, so I assume all the criticism must be true. If a person says, as someone says some months ago to me, that I'm "smug and self-satisfied" because I said that attendance was mandatory in my classes, I take that to be true. Even when I know, intellectually, that it's not. But it must be my fault, because, to use some therapy terms, one of my "core beliefs" is that Most Things [That Happen To/Near Me] Are My Fault.
It's a perversely arrogant kind of belief. Arrogant, because...what, I cause things to happen? Am I God now? Perverse, because it comes from a form of self-protective low self-esteem. If I blame myself, the anger of others will hurt me less. And since I almost certainly did screw up (<---core belief), then it MUST be my fault...somehow.
Which leads me back to taking comments personally. I don't accept my own mistakes. If I've said something wrong, or that hurts someone, it isn't something I can shrug off. I will practice days--maybe weeks--of internal flagellation, beating myself and my wounded pride into submission, because if I just abase myself and make myself LEARN what not to do, I won't make a mistake again.
Part of this, I know, is the GAD. People with anxiety disorders tend to try to control their environments, in part because if it's controlled, there's less to fear. And one method of control is insane perfectionism. I cannot allow myself to make mistakes, and when I do, as I must, b/c I'm human, it's meltdown city. (Which is itself, I suppose, a form of failure, which creates a vicious cycle...)
I wish I knew where this insane standard for myself came from. I wish I understood it, and understood how to eliminate it. I think it would be nice to be able to take an angry comment as either justified criticism or unfair anger, and let it roll off either way. Instead, I try to respond appropriately, when all I really want to do is curl up in a ball and weep and beat myself up for being such a failure. Again.
Of course, right now, I'm totally PMSing, which is making it worse.
The problem I face is that I can't always separate legitimate criticism from illegitimate, so I assume all the criticism must be true. If a person says, as someone says some months ago to me, that I'm "smug and self-satisfied" because I said that attendance was mandatory in my classes, I take that to be true. Even when I know, intellectually, that it's not. But it must be my fault, because, to use some therapy terms, one of my "core beliefs" is that Most Things [That Happen To/Near Me] Are My Fault.
It's a perversely arrogant kind of belief. Arrogant, because...what, I cause things to happen? Am I God now? Perverse, because it comes from a form of self-protective low self-esteem. If I blame myself, the anger of others will hurt me less. And since I almost certainly did screw up (<---core belief), then it MUST be my fault...somehow.
Which leads me back to taking comments personally. I don't accept my own mistakes. If I've said something wrong, or that hurts someone, it isn't something I can shrug off. I will practice days--maybe weeks--of internal flagellation, beating myself and my wounded pride into submission, because if I just abase myself and make myself LEARN what not to do, I won't make a mistake again.
Part of this, I know, is the GAD. People with anxiety disorders tend to try to control their environments, in part because if it's controlled, there's less to fear. And one method of control is insane perfectionism. I cannot allow myself to make mistakes, and when I do, as I must, b/c I'm human, it's meltdown city. (Which is itself, I suppose, a form of failure, which creates a vicious cycle...)
I wish I knew where this insane standard for myself came from. I wish I understood it, and understood how to eliminate it. I think it would be nice to be able to take an angry comment as either justified criticism or unfair anger, and let it roll off either way. Instead, I try to respond appropriately, when all I really want to do is curl up in a ball and weep and beat myself up for being such a failure. Again.
Of course, right now, I'm totally PMSing, which is making it worse.