On letting go of spite | Hacker News Reader

On letting go of spite

ewanvalentine.io

99 pointsvegancap62 comments

There's a meditation I've found healing for memories like this.

>> In one instance, a teacher uttered the words ‘Ewan’s naturally bad at maths’. I was 6

The exercise goes something like:

Summon up a painful memory, like feeling underestimated by a teacher or ashamed of yourself. Let the memory (and feelings) get as strong as they need to be, without trying to suppress or judge how you feel. Then, imagine stepping into the memory and giving a younger version of yourself exactly what you needed. This is especially healing if there were adults in your early life may have failed to provide what you needed, and you're still holding on to pain/blame/spite.

Here's the guided meditation where I learned this technique:

https://timdesmond.net/self-compassion-skills-workbook/

As the post suggested, this was very much a start of this process, but truth be told I had no idea where or how to start. So thank you for this, this looks really powerful and I can't wait to try it out!

Good on you for spending time/energy on yourself. A lot of things in your post really resonated with me (like diagnosis late in life). Excited that you get to uncover the things you're capable of on your own terms.

This is a really nice playlist, but how are you supposed to use it? Are you "supposed" to go through all 8 meditations in one day? Or just one once per day? I see it's from a book, but would like to try these out before reading it.

There's a workbook that explains how to use the playlist. It's a bit like a choose-your-own adventure game.

I originally found the workbook while browsing library ebooks (Libby) but ended up buying a copy to support the author.

I'm doing guided meditation (sometimes) with a guy who styles himself a hypnotherapist, and he does this thing too; I believe it's called reparenting (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparenting).

edit: The bit in that article about the therapist assuming a parental role and the "patient" assuming a child state with bottle feeding and the like is a bit fucking disturbing if you ask me; this shouldn't be necessary for most people.

Many people grow up and live their adult lives having missed something in their childhood from a parent / caretaker, unaware of how it affects them in their daily lives. They run away from it, seeking comfort in distractions, work, or whatever, and / or look and cling to other people hoping that they can provide what they have missed for them (see also: codependency). Reparenting and this type of guided meditation is a way to "fix" these issues. I'm late 30's and now I feel like this is the thing I needed in my mid twenties, instead of just sit with vague issues and feel sorry for myself.

Yeah the wiki definitely captures some of the more, er, extreme versions of reparenting.

I usually hear "reparenting" used to mean deliberately practicing self-validation, self-compassion, or any form of emotional self-care, with the purpose of healing pain and letting go of spite/resentment/trauma from childhood.

It's something I see people doing as a gift to themselves and their kids, to break one part of the cycle.

But your spite is directed towards the person that humiliated you, naturally. How would you telling yourself in your imagination something nice help that? If someone put you down in public tomorrow and someone else stepped in and said something nice on your behalf that would not change the fact that the first person humiliated you.

If someone humiliated me, I'd humiliate them back at that same moment if it was spiteful. If I had done something embarrassing then I'd try to laugh it off before giving someone else a chance to. If I couldn't do it at the moment because of some brain freeze, then comes meditation.

The situation will play in my mind several times regardless, analysing why I did what I did will usually give answers. If it was some failed comedy I'll say to myself better luck next time or if it was general lack of attention, I'll calm myself saying I need some sleep or if it was because of lack of exposure or skill then I say let's learn that before it happens again in public.

The key prerequisite to this form of meditation is to not attach a person to an incident. Separating yourself and putting yourself above that situation generally shields you from the emotions that lowers yourself. Another separation is separating the person who humiliated you with that situation, it shields you from brewing hatred towards that person. Both are equally important. It doesn't matter if it was from one person or many, mob usually catches the vibe and will follow it. Maintain sympathy and think of their pitiful upbringing, label them as such if you want to in general feel sorry for them but with care and sympathy. Then detach them from the situation and then address the issue with some examples I mentioned earlier.

This has worked for me several times, hope it helps.

I do a variation of this. Instead of stepping into the memory to adjust it with kindness, I intensify it. I turn up whatever feeling is being invoked until it is at comical levels. Was the experience one person saying you are bad at maths? Now, imagine the Nobel prize committee publishing an expose at how bad you are at math!

I find doing this for a while defangs the feeling. You stop being as affected by the experience and get to explore it mentally rather than emotionally after a while.

> I’m constantly desperate to prove I’m not an idiot... in some sense it’s not a problem, quite the opposite. But in a few important ways, it is a problem. Every victory, every success is not my own. It’s a moment I share with an array of teachers who have likely forgotten I even exist. No victory motivated by spite is ever your own, you share it with those you are trying to prove wrong.

Other things mentioned in this blog posts are ADHD and "the format of traditional schooling". None of that inherently causes the spite described. It's more philosophical.

Scholasticism is found everywhere from religion to bootcamps to public schools. It lends itself well to institutions. It's about encouraging conformity and "training" people to perform a certain way in a role. The assumptions causing all this pain are oversimplified ones: the teacher is always right, agreeing with the "right" answers means you understand, and that knowing these answers means you're ready for "the real world".

I never felt spite towards these institutions because I was told by my parents from a young age that they merely represent collective agreements, not necessarily the truth. There may be plenty of overlap, but the incentives are completely different, so they eventually diverge. Institutions represent society, not the individual. To be happy with this is to just take it for what it is and let your faith lie in yourself and what you learn to appreciate on your own. Indeed most good teachers will also tell you to not take bad grades personally even if you still need to improve. There's a lot to admire about institutions and the results they deliver, but it's madness to pour your heart into them.

I feel bad for the myriad persons "diagnosed" with artificial conditions that would not exist in absentia of the system ... a fake light illuminating an image to identify with and thus increase "productivity" in this unnatural environment ... I choose to hold onto spite as a reminder of what has been taken from the majority , to behave otherwise requires apathy or delusion

"Madness and Civilization" by Foucault is one of the greats even though it's historically inaccurate.

That said we all have multiple roles with no guarantees they won't conflict. How that's resolved by an individual is their identity.

Roles are not a product of authority. It's the other way around. Taking on responsibilities is power. It's silly, but even simple household chores can be seen this way. My parents used to point out that their frustration with a dirty floor, beyond just being "my fault", also meant that I had power over their emotions and a demonstration of how we're all at the mercy of each other. Heavy stuff for an 8 year old. Sure expectations are the other side of it, but that's where bargaining comes in. They were fair to never expect me to be perfect, just good enough.

oh I've always loved looking backwards at the uncle ben great power = great responsibility adage

someone defined knowledge as wordly information made static and power as ability to exact influence on the world ... emotions (and knowledge) are merely a guide to behaviour which actualizes such power ... fuck your feelings of self resentment, I just got stabbed to death ... or conversely fuck your cowardice, you still saved my life

how can one claim responsibility when their mechanism to do so has been robbed by their environment? imagine being a kid whacked on stimulants before 10 and having all neuronal connections formed under a drug enriched environment?

I've done some exploration of the path you talk about here and above, thoughts like "...artificial conditions that would not exist in absentia of the system..." and I struggle to bring it back intact into my world with doesn't exist in absentia of systems.

Parents are different. Reading sociology, it seems that those who got from blue-collar families to be white-collars their life, feel this isn't guaranteed and are obsessed with grades and extra-curricular training, like music.

Psychologists point out that a very frequent complaint is like this: "fix my kid. he wants nothing. codes on his computer/plays sports/reads that stupid scifi, dropped out from music/sports/drawing classes."

In fact, sociologist Bourdieau pointed out that lots of skills that help at school are inherited. E.g. you have a geographical atlas or map at home, and at school you easily perceive all the data in the geography class, whereas to others it's just like senseless magic speels to be learned by heart.

My personal observation is that parents who were born into white-collar and especially who saw this "social class panic" by their own parents, are much more relaxed about school and grades.

One imagines it's easier to relax when your performance at school won't have much of a material impact on your situation.

It usually does. But I think such parents have distorted perception. When parents were blue-collar kids, they studied at lower-grade schools, and with some persistence could get high grades. This allowed them to get to university and move up by social ladder. (Even though, there's been a trend that more % of people get higher education.)

And then they set much higher standard for school, sending children to where it's really hard to get all A-s, even though the kid performs pretty well, way above the nation average.

Interesting perspective, not something I'd considered but seems quite likely.

Many wise words here, especially about seeing dysfunctional institutions for what they are without taking it personally when your get your fingers crushed by the machine.

Unhealthy though bitterness is, it's sometimes an engine in great achievements. Roger Waters could not have written "The Wall" if his teachers had all been lovely.

Are they really dysfunctional though? If these institutions are the best we have, then by definition they are not dysfunctional until something better comes along.

I feel like most bitter people lack the understanding to be that genius who makes a difference. Those who are usually conformed first and become a revolutionary later when they were ready.

What I tend to see are desperate people playing the lottery with their beliefs and just following whatever negativity is trending because it seems better than doing nothing. The vast majority of reddit is like this for example.

> Are they really dysfunctional though?

I believe they objectively are, yes. And for many reasons, all of which must be seen contextually in the frame of history. They're not the best we've had, as a measurable fact or certainly a verifiable/pollable mass opinion.

Staffing levels of institutions has fallen. Spending on public institutions has fallen, and therefore the quality of personnel. Many have moved their functions into the private sector. Trust in institutions has fallen. Effectiveness of institutions has fallen. Many institutional buildings are decrepit. Morale is low.

Of course the strength of institutions rises and falls through history, and some transform or vanish completely. At one time the universities all but disappeared from Europe (save for strongholds in Paris, Bologna, Oxford and Cambridge), only to appear again, vibrant after the Middle Ages. I think they are going through a new crisis right now, one that originates within.

> If these institutions are the best we have, then by definition they are not dysfunctional

That logic seems wonky to me. Currently institutions don't meet the needs of a the complex society we have, and there are obvious consequences in poor or inequitable healthcare, education, policing, defence, environmental management...

FWIW I'm a big believer in strong public institutions and hope to see many restored to integrity, maybe even within my lifetime.

> They're not the best we've had, as a measurable fact or certainly a verifiable/pollable mass opinion.

I don't necessarily disagree, but "mass opinion" being lower could be due to standards changing. What exactly is your "measure" here for a "measurable fact"?

The world would not have needed The Wall if /all/ teachers had been lovely!

Well, I guess "The Wall" is about a few things; overbearing mothers, boarding school abuse, war trauma, fascism, loneliness and isolation, the purpose of art.

I think we can only pin _some_ of that on rotten teachers. :)

That album art image burned into most people's minds is Gerald Scarfe's scowling teacher - the one screaming "You.. behind the bike sheds...!!!!" Terrifying.

Sure, but you still had to sit in that classroom 7+ hours a day for over a decade to hear bullshit hawked by children to indoctrinate you into being an office/factory drone. If you didn't feel spite towards that you have a Buddha's level of perspective.

> I’m now writing this in an attempt to start letting go of that spite. Just like I was during school, those teachers too were probably doing their best, and making mistakes, as we all do. Instead, I thank them for trying, I thank them for their patience. I know I derailed nearly every class and I know that many of you at least recognised the potential, and tried to get me to see what I was capable of.

This reads like: now that I'm old and very wise I finally understand that those who hurt me as a child can't be blamed because they tried their best.

But I don't think absolution makes sense here. The 6 year old isn't at fault for being who he is. It's the responsibility of adults to figure out why a kid isn't thriving. Trying to force a round peg into a square hole year after year after year is not reasonable, and cannot possibly be considered "trying their best". Should teachers continue to bully kids who can't sit still? Is the status quo for ADHD kids acceptable? Of course not. ADHD kids deserve a happy childhood, too.

It's totally fine to make peace with the past and to let go of anger without trying to justify what happened.

> It's the responsibility of adults to figure out why a kid isn't thriving.

Isn't that putting the bar too high?

> Should teachers continue to bully kids who can't sit still?

There's no mention of that in the article.

The author also makes assumptions that look rather fanciful. There's no reason to take his explanations/rationalizations at face value.

If the adults aren't responsible, then who is??

They too were children once.

It comes down a lot to your definition of responsibility. Yes, those teachers were adults who could make their own decisions. But sometimes you can make all the decisions that you see as being the best and most informed at the time you make them, and still produce poor outcomes, simply because you don't have the resources or knowledge or ability to do better.

So should we judge the teachers based on how they tried to make decisions in the moment when the author was young, or should we judge them based on the results of their decisions with the knowledge that we have now? I find that quite a hard question to answer definitively, but I do know that I tend to use the former rule for myself and the latter rule for others, which certainly seems quite unfair to me.

I think you're right that there is definitional question here. I think it's right to state that adults are responsible because children are physiologically incapable of taking responsibility for themselves. I think it's right to observe that harm has been done when harm has in fact been done.

The question of "guilt" or "judgement" is more complicated, as you say. Where many people go wrong is that they automatically jump from harm + responsibility towards guilt. That's how you end up with articles like these where the author feels like he has to choose between anger towards his teachers and thanking them because they tried their best. That's a false dichotomy if I have ever seen one.

A teacher who traumatizes a child isn't that different from a surgeon who botches a surgery. It doesn't mean the surgeon is a terrible person but neither does it mean you have to be thankful to the surgeon because he tried and because he operated successfully on other people.

No, that's the inherent job of an educator, to assess the student's situation which includes physical, mental, and emotional support.

If you want to teach someone anything while yelling at them, or making them uncomfortable because the room is too hot, or by making them do meaningless puzzles that don't relate to the material it deeply compromises your goal of teaching them.

An interesting anecdote, I was sent to months of psychological and physiological evaluation as a child as some adults knew something was "wrong" or more accurately things didn't seem to make sense.

Those things finally made sense to me when I did a short screener for autistic masking and found myself in the 99th percentile.

My mother knew I was “on the spectrum,” when I was a teen, but I never figured it out, until I was in my fifties. I just assumed I was “weird” (because I am), and “good at programming” (because I am). I’ve been taking IQ tests, all my life. I’m smarter than the average bear, but can also report that there’s a lot more to life than brainpower.

It’s a long, sad story (bring a hanky), but I never got any formal sheepskins. In fact, I have a GED, as I dropped out of high school. Used to bother me, especially when looking up people’s noses, but it never actually had much negative impact on my career.

In fact, if I think about it, it’s probably the opposite.

No one has ever “cut me slack,” or “taken my word,” because I had the right school tie. My aspect didn’t help, either. I was often quite blunt, and had to learn the art of verbal communication (which I overlearned, as you can’t shut me up, these days). I’ve had to prove myself, every step of the way. This meant that I rapidly learned to deliver, even if it came with a dose of “screw you; top this.” So I’ve been delivering finished product (often under active attempts to interfere), my entire adult life. That counts for something.

Sort of like a dork version of Johnny Cash’s “A Boy Named Sue” song. “That which does not kill you, makes you stronger.” (or leaves you weak and exhausted).

But that also means that anger informed my approach to life, for many years. I had to learn to let go of that, in my late twenties. Difficult job, but I had good support, and good tools (part of the long story).

I’ve found that anger (“spite,” as the author calls it) was very good fuel, but also highly corrosive to its container (that’s me). I really needed to put it aside.

In the aggregate, I’m glad everything went the way it did, as it got me where I am, but the journey has been “interesting.”

I wish the author well; however, I’ve learned that life is not a series of milestones, but a continuum, with serendipity playing a huge role. Also, my ability to relate to others has been incredibly important, and did not come naturally. I had to learn to get along. Trying to force the direction of my life actually interfered with that.

But, as always, WFM. YMMV.

I strongly relate. Only for me it wasn't anger but pain, a different perspective of the same thing I imagine. I would always follow my anger and found that it always lead to existence.

But what if you don't want to let go of spite? What if spite, anger is a shield that protects you from seeing yourself properly?

All this conformity school, parents, fucked me up. I have this deep desire to appear normal. All my life, I've been trying to be normal, appear normal, learn what's required for normalness. Without spite, without anger of everything that fucked me up, of what it made me become means I cannot blame everyone for my problems any more. And I cannot deal with that.

From time to time, when I look myself in the mirror, the reflection asks "Does this look normal to you?" and have some sort of mini mental breakdown. Spite and anger is my shield, a deferred shield, I know. But really, I cannot handle myself in the mirror right now.

> What if spite, anger is a shield that protects you from seeing yourself properly?

If you're using spite as a shield for something like this, then it makes sense that it would be a scary idea to get rid of that defense mechanism. If that truly helps you and doesn't hurt you, I imagine that might be okay.

But then you continue with the fact that you can't look at yourself in the mirror. That shows that this coping strategy may not be working as well as you think it is. Your mental baggage of your past might be doing more than just giving you anger/hatred toward those around you -- your inner hate might also be fueled by it.

I would suggest you seriously consider talking with a therapist about this. A good one will help you acknowledge your past and hopefully move past your dislike of yourself, but also won't say what happened to you is okay or make you forgive anyone.

> means I cannot blame everyone for my problems any more

I once read that forgiveness is not a goal, but a possible side effect of healing. This really helped me put things in perspective. Basically, if you aren't at peace with yourself, blaming other people only goes so far. Once you have found stronger inner peace, forgiveness comes for free (or it doesn't, which is also okay).

more than that, what if you don't dislike who you are?

I grew up very poor, to the point of living in tents on the side of the river, living without electricity or water, etc (this is in the US).

fast forward 25+ years and I make more money than I could have ever fathomed. And yet, I still feel more comfortable living like I'm poor because the money is a security blanket. If left to my own devices could easily live off of 30k today, the only thing that stops me is my gf of 10+ years doesn't want to live like that. We've made compromises, one of them is we don't spend money willy-nilly without a strong justification.

You'll hear people talk about the tendencies of poor people who come into money and how they couldn't let it go, as if it's a negative thing. But you know what? fuck that, it's my strength.

I can't speak to your specific situation, I'm just commenting that I agree things that poor situations can sometimes give you strength and if not strength then maybe you as a person like who you are, don't feel the need to change because someone tells you to.

Classic schooling. Never fails to fuck people up on numerous unintended ways a decade later.

Though, in terms of the title, letting go of spite, i don't see the author really talk about that. Beyond just, yeah this happened to me, and now I want to try to let go of spite.

> i don't see the author really talk about that.

The last paragraph touches on that:

> Classic schooling. Never fails to fuck people up on numerous unintended ways a decade later.

I would redefine that as 'Life'.

The only way to produce "perfect" human beings is to put them into a sterile environment where you literally control everything about it and then you have the issue of homogeneity.

To live is to risk, for many "classic schooling" is very beneficial, for many it is not. I'm not advocating doing absolutely nothing because nothing is unknowable, I'm just pointing out that there is no such thing as a perfect solution.

There’s a point where spite serves and a point where it hinders. In freshman year of high school, a PE coach said to my face “You’re never going to amount to anything.” Because I was a scrawny kid with no interest in sport. The residual spite served me well as a motivating influence in the rest of my educational life: through university, graduate school, postdoctoral work. But at some point saying “I had the last laugh,” one last time and then forgiving is the right thing to do.

Forgiveness isn't necessary or even warranted though: forgetting conversely, is.

This is what I think TV tends to mess up: recurring characters are good for story or known quantities for production, but in real life? They don't need to exist at all.

Closure is necessary to forget and that's why someone might not be able to. I agree that forgiveness isn't always the best kind of closure.

The magic of forgetting is that it's painless and automatic.

it takes effort to hold on , letting go does not require effort

letting go would require a lot of effort for some people, especially if other people keep coming along and hitting on the same damn spot.

not making a decision is the same as making a decision, yes difficulty varies on circumstance..

I think we should forgive, but not forget. There's no need to forgive everything, though.

Sometimes, as with tough love, relations of hurt are not what they seem to be.

I had one canny and amazing teacher, humane and funny to the core. It took me 5 years to grow from hating her to loving her. On the last day, when I graduated her class with A+ and a special prize she finally said to me;

   """ I always marked your work unfairly, very poorly. I know kids
   like you, and wanted to make you say "I'll show that fucking bitch"
   """

Occasionally, sparingly, I use that same device in my teaching. It's hard to pull off and you have to watch very carefully where it lands. You need to watch for Pvt. Gomer Pyle's who can't process it, and give them 100% heart. But for many, being the bitch is the way to their hearts, because it gives them something to triumph over. A sorry kind of teacher is one who really cares too much what people think about them.

I'm currently in the process of a late 30's ADHD diagnosis. As is becoming increasingly unsurprising, I'm unsurprised at how relatable the article and all the comments here are.

I'm writing this just to say, it's ok. I'd like to be able to tell myself that and believe it but I can't yet.

It's hard to even express how painful ADHD is. I have had first hand experience of multiple major traumas as a child and none of them come even close to a life of undiagnosed ADHD.

Sincere question but what’s the hardest part of having ADHD?

failing at everything you care about all the time, also filing documents or whatever

For me, it's knowing what you want to do but being unable to do it.

That's expressed quite poorly, I know, let me try harder. "...knowing what you want to do..." is not at any point in time or in any specific dimension. It is literally what I write and can be as simple as "pick up the leaf off the floor", it doesn't need to be valuable, expected, novel, easy, hard, etc. "...being unable to do it..." is not unable to reify an ideal or perfection. It's being unable to consistently "do", to however you define "do", to whatever you set out to do no matter how small, simple, easy you make it.

What made that hard for me was before the diagnosis I didn't have enough language to make sense of that in a way that wasn't damaging to some aspect of myself. And in me that created an early bias to the shutting down of expression. A retreat into my mind, as the stuff of minds is not as limited by the doing.

The diagnosis is a shortcut, a way to tap into the work others have done. And that work is so easily applicable because what I thought was a problem unique to me is shared so strikingly by other people in the ADHD/autism cohort. It took me a long time to find that out.

And just as a minor counterpoint to some comments, the pressure never came from my parents or teachers or... (well it did come from needing to exist materially in the world) but from myself. So while it may be convenient to think that the problem with ADHD is the 'system', it's not required. It's not required because in the mind, the system and the I are the same thing and cannot be separated.

I know what I need to do but I can sit there unable to do the thing whilst the guilt about not doing the thing takes up all my bandwidth.

Indeed. You can build a system to mitigate most other things, but infinite procastination and the associated guilt is awful.

I live by my calendar. I try to write everything I have to do down. I put my things always in the same place. But procastination...

Meds do help a bit.

Similar boat. Late 20s. I’ve missed out on so many opportunities due to my inability to focus and organize, and decades of being told “have you tried trying harder” left me with an anxiety that was stopping me from pursuing a medical solution for years.

There’s been a shift in how people interact with me now. It’s downplayed as something “quirky” by a lot of people. Out of any source of grief in my life, I can honestly point to my anxiety about retaining information and completing things fully has been the biggest source of pain for me. It’s hard to express that to people when they want to talk about how I should “learn about my adhd super powers” or “try this fun journaling method!”.

I kind of fear it’s the same refrain as “he’s just slow, he should try harder with an agenda” but with a new cushy coat of paint. “Have you just tried being happy instead?”

> those teachers too were probably doing their best, and making mistakes, as we all do

Some people are simply arseholes or incompetent and others have unresolved issues. Compassion and empathy are important, but I don't think we should project good intentions onto everyone. I prefer to assume that a teacher who says verbatim that a 6yo is "naturally bad at *" is a bad professional, and an arsehole.

Thesis: ADHD is caused by low-quality educational systems (generally characterized by overcrowded classrooms, boringly repetitive rote learning, inattentive underpaid teachers, etc.) - it's not a result of genetics.

This thesis is supported by these facts: (1) there's no solid objective diagnostic test for ADHD at the biochemical level, and (2) there's no solid genetic determinant of who and who won't come down with ADHD.

This doesn't mean ADHD isn't real, it's just much more likely to be a symptom of societal failure to provide quality education for children than 'an inherent defect'.

I found this really interesting. I excelled academically and was a teacher/lecturer's pet. Yet I have the same fear of failure and looking like an idiot. The root cause is different - I fear failure because I didn't fail often enough growing up and never learnt to process it - but the consequence is virtually identical. The only real difference is that I don't feel spite. I am prone to arrogance though. It seems like there's a sweet spot of failing some proportion of the time, which leads to humble confidence in later life.

When I was young, I was categorized as "learning disabled". I wasn't allowed to take a second language in middle school or high school. I took "special" classes that were dumbed down for kids like me.

I had a lot of resentment and spite-- that's for sure. I was accepted to college, no doubt with the help of my special categorization. When I began my studies I made it a point to take the hardest second language I could (Japanese at the time) and study abroad in Japan. I also made it a point to get a master degree in engineering, and then built a million dollar company on my own.

So fuck them and their categories.

A lot of this hits home very hard for me. I’d extend it beyond school to my anger with religion and how the world generally functions. I found spite and anger started in the latter half of high school, where I found myself struggling when previously education had been a breeze. This, of course, coincides with the point where your education starts to impress conformity and a particular way of doing things, as well as increasing reliance on fixtures that I do not thrive in (such as standardized testing).

I didn’t know I had ADHD until nearly middle age. However, I didn’t notice because I didn’t have the language to even understand it let alone tools to manage it, and it “didn’t matter” because I was able to turn it into relative success.

On the other hand, the cost of this has been high. My self-esteem is very poor. This can result in unhealthy, erratic, and self-destructive behaviors to compensate or mask my insecurities from myself or others. I sometimes let myself get taken advantage of and don’t advocate for myself because I think I deserve it and I fear failure. I work below my capabilities and overestimate risk for the same reasons. I often mistake self-deprecation as humility. I set very high standards for myself which are sometimes impossible to achieve, and I treat myself brutally when I don’t, creating a terrible feedback loop which results in burn out, anxiety and panic attacks, apathy, and reclusion. I also feel pathologically compelled to prove that I’m intelligent and capable, which can be annoying and off-putting to friends and coworkers. I have compulsions to take on more than I can handle, which naturally results in falling short and ironically disappointing people and risking devaluation. I try to control things because I’m afraid if things are done a way that I don’t understand, I’ll fail.

It’s fucking exhausting, and it sucks. I don’t feel sorry for myself, but I’m tired of feeling like worthless shit and letting people (and myself) walk on me. I feel like I have untold depths of potential I’m just wasting, but I don’t know how to exploit them. I don’t want to coddle myself, but I wish I could just love and forgive myself in a healthy way and not feel shame all the time. I wish I would stop yelling at myself in my own head the entire time I’m awake.

The worse part is that all this shame, fear, depression, and anxiety colors your worldview and impacts how you treat others. I’m not wretched to other people, in fact I honestly believe my friends and coworkers find me kind, generous, respectful, and supportive. I try to be nice to others and give them the benefit of the doubt. But I sometimes demand too much, treat people paternally, and I focus on negatives. It pains me to admit but I’m not always honest (with them or myself) and I’m not always reliable, qualities that I cherish in others. When I forget there’s a real person on the other side, all that unrelenting judgement and poor self esteem can result in pettiness and trollish behavior.

I’m still trying to figure out what to do about all of this. My partner has been a great help. Part of the process is what you saw happen here: a straight forward inventory of your feelings and being honest with yourself. Then, sometimes with the help of others, you can reevaluate the severity and sincerity of a perceived problem. Discard those things that don’t pass muster, and focus on the rest. From there you start by just forgiving yourself, committing to not repeating those mistakes using quantifiable measures, and building healthy new behaviors around positive results. Be honest about what you can do, whether you _want_ to do it, and hold yourself accountable. And if you fuck it up again on the way, just recalibrate and try again, no fury or wrath is going to make it better. Celebrate appropriately when you do something right because fear of hating yourself is not a good motivator. Mindfulness seems like such a weak, simplistic, and hand-wavy solution but it’s worked better than any punishment I’ve metted out on myself in the past.

Sorry this was so long, thanks for your time if you got this far.

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