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Comment by Wowfunhappy | Hacker News Reader

But if you don’t mind me asking—what happens when you, well, don’t have the laundry done, and you realize you actually really need a clean shirt? (Or whatever.)

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At the risk of being ELIZA, what is it you are afraid will happen which you think self-hate is protecting you from? The answers are probably distorted by fear instead of a realistic appraisal of what will actually happen. How often do you "actually really need" a clean shirt as a matter of serious consequence? And when you do, do you really have no options? Could you beg one from a neighbour or buy one at short notice or wash one quickly? If you don't NEED one could you wear a jacket over a less clean shirt? If this is going to worry you could you keep a clean or unopened shirt in the closet for emergency "I didn't do any laundry" wear only, just to guard against this situation?

> "what happens when you, well, don’t have the laundry done, and you realize you actually really need a clean shirt? (Or whatever.)"

Sensible answer, ideally you say to yourself "I don't have a clean shirt, what options do I have?" and consider the best available option and use it, absent the self-hatred and judging and putdowns and bad feelings and stuff which isn't helping anyway.

[Edit: I missed something major in this response; it's not necessary to make all the bad feelings go away entirely and be happy with everything. It's more that you can choose - if feeling bad does help motivate you to do the laundry, keep some of it. It's the "I didn't do laundry, I'm 100% a terrible person, a lazy slob worse than everyone, I fail at everything I don't deserve to live, woe woe" spiral which is an overkill response. You might decide to keep 50% intensity self anger, or 10% intensity self-ticking-off or 5% intensity self-eye-roll. Whatever you decide is enough suffering to be motivating, if any.]

As I understand OPs story, that happens with or without the self hate.

Figuring out a way to get the laundry done should in theory be easier once you are not being bullied by yourself.

I think this approach only works if you're already too hard on yourself. If you live like a slob and tell yourself to continue living like a slob then it's not going to help you much.

You can alternatively decide that despite the fact that you "live like a slob" you are sufficiently happy, healthy, and productive. And that the standard that says "this is slobbery" (which comes from projecting an external viewpoint) is not relevant to you, so you can ignore it.

(You can also substitute any X, where X is not harmful behavior, for "slobbery".)

speaking as a procrastinator. I wear a dirty shirt (or whatever). And no one cares, or probably notices, and the world doesn't implode.

Does it stop at not doing the laundry “or whatever”? Or does your procrastination sneak into other aspects of your life?

Pretty much everything. It sometimes causes mild annoyance to people, or forces me to drop everything to get something done. But as a wise man told me "if you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute.".

Speaking as somebody who used to have to sit close to others in a cube farm; we do notice, you stanky bastard.

I definitely fall into some of these patterns; that being said there’s a pretty likely chance of me just buying new clothes

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