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Altering my core belief of being totally bad & unworthy no matter; corrosive self doubt

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How have you cracked this one?

I have an issue with corrosive self doubt. I have an issue with deep, intense and passionate self hatred. What my parents instilled within me are total lies. I am simply not as bad as a person that I feel/think that I am. I can write that but I cannot experience within myself as being true.
Hiya. I'm sad that you have corrosive self doubt. I think I have been there.

You are not as bad a person that you think that you are. 🤔 What basis are you foundating this thought on?
I deeply believe at a total core level that I am totally bad, awful, revolting, too much, too needy, too desperate, too horrible, too destructive, too aggressive, too reactive, too dangerous and too disgusting to have anything in my life.
What connection does your belief about your self value have with having anything in your life? What is it that you want that you can't or shouldn't have?
I sabotage myself and f*ck up things for myself and then go through the recriminations and self hatred.
Would you care to say something about an example?
I only just noticed the self sabotage thing. So I have awareness of that at least.
Awareness is HUGE! I think it's also called self insight. Anyhow, I'm tracking several things on my phone to increase my self awareness. 😎
I walk around all day saying to myself "You have to improve. What you do is not good enough".
Why? What is wrong with what you are right now? What would it be like if what you did was good enough?
This is different from the passionate for healing/recovery/management. I am being totally brutal to myself. I just pound myself no matter how little or big a thing that happens is, and I pound myself whether I can or could not change the thing or not.
I used to do that. For me, it was a matter of coming to grips with who I AM instead of continuing to strive to be who I have been influenced to believe I "should" be.

We do the best we have with what we have, where we are at. That's all. What better can we do?
So I am not doing a lot of reality based thinking. I am doing a lot of distorted cognitive thinking. I am living and reinforcing my own inherent negativity bias thing, which all humans to do some extent.
Howis this benefitting you? We typically do what somehow rewards us. What reward is keeping you in this habit of thinking?
I am terrified to be in this now, though I am no longer in danger or threatened. I tried for many years to get better in a place that was dangerous and it didn't work. I understand why that is now.

I don't have to continually attack myself after each encounter with other people. I don't need to walk around all day saying to myself "You have to improve. What you do is not good enough". I do that all the time and it is sabotaging my recovery/maintenance. It's not unreasonable to not be able to give up comfort eating or binge watching TV if being present in my body is to be aggressively, dissected and self attacked by my self. I am constantly aggressively putting myself down or attacking myself.
Great awareness! What's next?
1. is to be really aware of it. The first thing is to note each time I do it.

2. is to be able to sit with it and see what I am doing. I need to notice the patterns.

3. is to gently, gently, gently pry myself away from obsessive thought patterns I have used to save myself from my parents and then the emotionally and financially abusive psychologist and the sexually exploitative psychologist.

So ways I disconnect from myself include:

dissociation,
depersonalisation
derealisation
maladaptive daydreaming
food addiction, binging and comfort eating
depriving myself
punishing myself
sabotaging myself
aggressive and abuse self talk - which I am often not aware of but it's related to those horrible feelings.

The last three I have been aware on and off and people often tell me that I am so hard on myself and that I am giving myself a hard time. I didn't really get it though. Well I get it a lot more now as I have just had a major depressive episode. These thought patternes
You are very aware of all that is going on. This gives you a huge advantage over many who are still trying to figure this out. There's something positive to hold on to.
I will rarely let myself be nurturing to myself or helping myself. It all has to be me fixing my badness, so I am reinforcing myself own negative patterns, corrosive self doubt and self hatred.
Why do you hate your self?
I have been here just one month off a decade, and I had worked so hard for many years before I got here. I have worked really hard since I have been hard. This is an adjusting an attitude and life practices. I think once I have gotten this one down I will be at a maintenance place. It feels impossible to do this but I have felt many things have been impossible and done them with lots of persistence and perseverance.

I realise now too that when I am deeply in self hatred and punitive mode that if anyone agrees with my self hatred I spiral down in to confirmation of my parents ways of treating, seeing and hurting me and I get so much worse.
Was there some abuse involved?

Chat you soon.

🤠
 
Hiya. I'm sad that you have corrosive self doubt. I think I have been there.
Sorry to read that.
You are not as bad a person that you think that you are. 🤔 What basis are you foundating this thought on?
My distorted thinking and feelings.

What my parents said to me as I grew up.
How they treated me as a child.
What connection does your belief about your self value have with having anything in your life? What is it that you want that you can't or shouldn't have?
I feel bad and guilty at being alive. I feel not good enough to be here.
 
Sorry to read that.
It's ok. We're all dealing with something.
My distorted thinking and feelings.
Why not change them?
What my parents said to me as I grew up.
How they treated me as a child.
That kind of stuff sucks! My dad destroyed my ego as a child. A lot of that damage stuck with me through the years.
I feel bad and guilty at being alive. I feel not good enough to be here.
That's a crappy way to feel. You are here though, good enough or not. What steps do you take to make the best of the fact that you are here?

What would make you feel worthy to be here and be alive?
 
It's ok. We're all dealing with something.
:(
Why not change them?
That is the focus of my life. I have been working on this for a long time. I have chipped away at a huge amount of stuff.
That kind of stuff sucks! My dad destroyed my ego as a child. A lot of that damage stuck with me through the years.
Me too.
That's a crappy way to feel.
It is...
You are here though, good enough or not. What steps do you take to make the best of the fact that you are here?
I do my best every day. I don't know how to do any more than what I am doing. I struggle with dissociation, comfort eating, maladaptive day dreaming, corrosive self doubt,

I am listening to a lot of David Burns. List of Feeling Good Podcasts | Feeling Good

I am being more present, hopefully that will lead to something.
What would make you feel worthy to be here and be alive?
I don't think there is anything or if there is I am not aware of it.

Part of me says getting my family back but that's not an option.
 
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Would you care to say something about an example?
I do something and then think it's not good enough and then spiral downwards into self recriminations and corrosive self doubt.
Awareness is HUGE! I think it's also called self insight. Anyhow, I'm tracking several things on my phone to increase my self awareness. 😎
That's good you are developing self insight.
Why? What is wrong with what you are right now? What would it be like if what you did was good enough?
I have no idea. That's a good question.
 
:(

That is the focus of my life. I have been working on this for a long time. I have chipped away at a huge amount of stuff.

Me too.

It is...

I do my best every day. I don't know how to do any more than what I am doing. I struggle with dissociation, comfort eating, maladaptive day dreaming, corrosive self doubt,

I am listening to a lot of David Burns. List of Feeling Good Podcasts | Feeling Good

I am being more present, hopefully that will lead to something.
This helps me a lot. I'm learning to just sit with the thoughts instead of fighting them. Sometimes after a while they pass on by.
I don't think there is anything or if there is I am not aware of it.

Part of me says getting my family back but that's not an option.
I'm sorry that getting your family back is not an option. I've a few similar situations myself. Learning to live with this too. One day at a time.
 
I don't have a long history of ruminating. I know I have dont it before but have broke the habit with distractions and business.
Most recently, I have been ruminating about one thing, which triggers rumination about something further in the past, which then triggers rumination about a bunch of stuff. Much of it has to do with a lot of self criticism,....I should have done this, shouldn't have done that. Then thinking about how I felt and the time and remembering why I did something the was I did, etc. It just goes on. It has gotten totally out of control. I feel awful most of the time. I do things to distract myself, like watching a good movie, but end up missing parts because my mind starts ruminating again.

Much of it has to do with my lack of being able to protect myself, my boundaries, and so forth. Then I feel guilt and shame, then comes depression and anxiety and round and round it goes. Sometimes I find my self indulging in too much alcohol to shut it down, but that does not work either.....something else to feel guilty about.

Seems that its been increasing over past couple months. I can identify the trigger but cant seem to shut it down. Since I have been able to stop it in the past (never bad like this), I suspect it has to do with going through a year of covid and isolating so much. Also, during this year, my health has declined and I am unable to do all the physical things I use to do. (actually every year has gotten worse physically)

I think the key is to find blanket self forgiveness. Most of my actions that I ruminate about do not come from me being mean or vindictive, but from symptoms of ptsd (freezing, inability to know who to trust, feeling extremely vulnerable, inability to see a bad situation coming, and things like this.) With little stress in my life right now and lack of serious things to worry about, and maybe loneliness and boredom, these things really seem to be surfacing.

Does anybody have any thoughts on this and how they have handled it themselves, and what has worked. I welcome any feedback.
 
I think the key is to find blanket self forgiveness. Most of my actions that I ruminate about do not come from me being mean or vindictive, but from symptoms of ptsd (freezing, inability to know who to trust, feeling extremely vulnerable, inability to see a bad situation coming, and things like this.) With little stress in my life right now and lack of serious things to worry about, and maybe loneliness and boredom, these things really seem to be surfacing.

Does anybody have any thoughts on this and how they have handled it themselves, and what has worked. I welcome any feedback.

Self-Compassion (There's a Self Compassion Break and other audio exercises here)





The Space Between Self-Esteem and Self Compassion: Kristin Neff at TEDxCentennialParkWomen

Hope one resonates with you @brat17
 
Given how much I struggle with this it would perhaps be best if I didn't give others advice on this.
 
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