Another name calling thread...

[FauxLiz]

I have what I consider to be more cognitive distortions than cognitive realities. My t gets upset when I call myself things such as stupid, fat, ugly, worthless loser piece of trash.

No matter how hard I work with my t I can't break the cycle. What methods, activities whatever have you used to help turn your distortions into positive realities?

 

[Deleted member 541]

It’s not so much about breaking the habit, or it wasn’t for me. It’s about actually believing that I wasn’t those things. I did some work on it I will admit, but more of this...

If I called myself stupid, I’d say, “no, your not stupid Wendy, your just clumsy today, or you just dropped it no need to blame yourself.” I’m not sure what you’d call this, but I just had to rephrase how I spoke to myself. It takes time and patience. But with constant work, you can do this.

And you KNOW that you aren’t these things, but we’ve just gotten caught into a bad behavior. Time to break the old and bring in the new. You are a good person!!!!!

 

[Friday]

I break shit down into pieces.

One version of that looks like this:

Is it true?
Do I care?
Why do I care?
What can I do about it?
What am I willing to do about it?

Another version of that is to flip things around.

Worthless? Sweet! In order to define something as worthless I have to have pretty damn strong opinions about value. So what do I value / what do I find as having worth? (List that shit out). Once I’ve got that list going? I can start working on it. Because if I don’t want to be worthless, and I’ve got this here list of things I value sitting in front of me, I can actually start bringing those things into my life. Item by item.

The things that don’t actually face the scrutiny of being broken down into pieces? Tend to be bullshit. But the things that actually have truth to them? THOSE I can work with.

 

[Scarlet13]

I struggle with this as well. I still feel like I am a piece of shit. This just feels like a deep truth.
One thing I can say is that cbt type of therapy does not work for me with this issue.
It is relational validating therapy that works.
So a skill to use is to validate myself.

 

[shimmerz]

Two things:
1. Picturing my child (young) standing in front of me and my speaking to them like that.
2. I trained my brain to say Ho'oponopono EVERY time I caught myself saying bad things to myself.

I got caught calling myself stupid the other day. I realized it was the first time in forever! I used to call myself an idiot 1000+ times a day. And it really, truly, changes things beyond words.

 

[Sideways]

No matter how much logic I throw at disproving them, some of my warped core beliefs didn’t budge for years.

Then I just started behaving like they weren’t true. Treating myself like they weren’t true.

That’s what started to make the beliefs shift.

It’s not easy to treat yourself like you have value when you believe that you don’t. It comes with committed practice.

But it’s a lot like @shimmerz point with your inner child. You’re teaching yourself what to believe by the way you behave, the way you talk to yourself, the way you treat yourself. And if you treat yourself like you have value for long enough, the belief that you don’t have value starts to not make sense.

I’ve never been good at looking myself in the mirror and saying things like “I am a valuable and decent human being”, because positive affirmations like that just feel like bald-faced lies. But the behaviours I have each day towards myself? They can be pretty durn convincing if you stick with them long enough.

The first step, for me? Wasn’t practicing self-love. It was practicing ‘self-neutral’. That’s I quit doing the things that were just reinforcing the beliefs. Sounds like not a big deal, but if you’ve been treating yourself like all these horrible things are true, it was a lot easier to start with the halfway point: treating myself neutrally. Which means not calling myself names, meeting my basic human needs, requiring the people around me to treat me with a semblance of decency. Self-neutral came to me a whole lot easier than going straight to self-love, or self-respect, but it made a huge difference in the way I started thinking about myself.

 

[Rani G2]

’ve never been good at looking myself in the mirror and saying things like “I am a valuable and decent human being”,

This never worked for me, I always felt as if I am superficially trying to sugarcoat and it doesnt get to the source.

Self-neutral came to me a whole lot easier than going straight to self-love,

Yes!

I have my difficulty with the inner child..it feels somewhat unnatural. I know these experiences happend as a child and they need to be repaired accessing them through the child... I'm trying

 

[freebird]

Don't say it to yourself if you wouldn't say it to your loved one. If it's not true of them, it's not true of you.

 

[Tornadic Thoughts]

Self-directed neuroplasticity, pretty much, via mindfully asking myself if I'd talk to loved ones the same way....using the Ho’oponopono prayer when those feelings arise towards self or others (@shimmerz , it tickles me to see others familiar with it and actively using it!)....finding a safe comfy spot to sit in stillness and chanting Om Mani Padme Hum (loving kindness)...staying in tune with my breath, and paying close attention to what I consume and surround myself with each day.

I've learned shallow breaths equals shallow thoughts, and that whatever I consume, I'm not only consuming the product itself, but also consuming ALL of the energies of the process(es) it took to get it to my table/pantry/bathroom closet/cleaning cabinet/etc.. What I put in, be it substance, aroma, and/or thought, always comes back out in some form or another. So much of the discomfort I was experiencing and had been diagnosed with could be, and has been, greatly lessened by choices I eventually learned I have full control over.

I'm also one of those folks who looks in the mirror daily to tell myself how much I love me and how beautiful I am, both inside and out, as I've learned it's totally up to me to be the love I never received from the folks who were supposed to be nurturing my growth. No one else is waiting in the wings to offer that up for me, even the ones I pay for various services.

It was very uncomfortable when I first tried it, and felt really fake as others have mentioned, like I was simply trying to convince myself of something that wasn't true....because up until that point, those closest to me made me fully believe I wasn't worthy of such praises through the years, but now it's simply part of my morning and evening routine when I'm brushing my teeth and such.

It only took me a little over 4 hellish decades to figure these things out, and I still manage to trip over my own best intentions some days.

 

[Freida]

Wasn’t practicing self-love. It was practicing ‘self-neutral’. That’s I quit doing the things that were just reinforcing the beliefs.

I love this!

 

[Mach123]

I have had a really hard time with this. People used to look at me when I spoke about myself and even if I hardly knew them they would say "don't talk about yourself like that." It goes to everything, everywhere. All the stuff I experience or think about if colored by this. It actually makes life what it is. (what it isn't is probably a better way to say it) I had a monster in my subconscious. I know now I was trying to get help, like I was drowning. I was saying out loud "I have this thing in me and it's eating me alive and I can't stop it." Plus I think now it tries to make you kill yourself so you won't tell. I still have repressed memories. I feel closer lately? I have a lot less contact with people now. It is not as active when there are no people around. : (

 

[Freida]

@Mach123 - Oh hun -- it sounds like you were reaching out but people didn't realize it. That doesn't mean they didn't care. It just means they weren't aware that sometimes people have monsters in their head that can't be seen.

Maybe your T can help you with reconnecting with people without the monster acting up? you could use that as a goal over this coming year?