Do You Like Yourself? Your Thoughts are Welcome!

[blondguy]

Hello Everybody and new posters especially:-)

I have had anxiety since 1983 and depression from 1997. There is always someone that says 'You have to Love Yourself' before recovery. When people are suffering from anxiety/depression this may be the last 'advice' they really need. This is only my experience when I am 'advised to love myself' to rebuild my life. I have heard the following from people that cant 'love themselves' which is fair enough as I am a person that cant either. Your thoughts will help me and others learn from your point of view. I can only be 'gentle' to myself to heal...not love.

• Why should I love myself if I dont in the first place?
• I am in a dark place, how can I love myself?
• I dont deserve to love myself
• I am depressed...How can I love myself?
• I have mega anxiety attacks..what is there to love about myself?
• I hate myself and what I stand for...why should I?
• I love my partner more...I will care about myself 'later'

When people have depression/anxiety/denial they dont need to be counseled with ' love yourself'. Thats a huge ask.

I dont need to climb Mt Everest by trying to love myself when I cant. It can be an unrealistic and even silly target to achieve having depression

I just prefer to be 'gentle' to myself. Same results and way less stress 🙂 Your thoughts/opinions are more than welcome

Thankyou so much

Paul

[Guest_1584]

PS , and yeah there is a huge different with parents and different kids too. Even with whom they understand better , get along and click better with , how they treat different ones, or don't , ttime they spend with others , and on and on.

l just thank the Gods we only had one , l can't even fathom where mum and dad even begun with all us.

rx

[Guest_4593]

How do i take control of my life when i alone take care of a parent who wants to control my life in order to feel in control themselves..

[quirkywords]

Hello everyone

what a lot of interesting posts since I last posted.

I will start with last first.
Guest that must be so hard for you. Taking care of a parent is hard as roles are reversed and so the parents wants to be in control. When I had a parent who need cared I tried to make it seem they had some control over their life by giving them a few choices where possible. I know this isn’t possible. I was always criticised over my own life decisions and that was difficult so I stopped talking about my life.

Have you contacted carers Australia? Does caring for your parent make it hard for you to like yourself times.

Rx being in a large family would be challenging and rewarding. Did many of your siblings choose to have small family?

jstar thst is interesting about the 25% rule. I gs evfound thst people who tell me it to worry if people don’t like me do themselves want to be like by everyone.

Different personalities in same families and chi,Daren having different memories in the one fami,y. You often see this in famous families where one chi,d writes a book/movie and another child says that is all false.

Some say birth order affects the personality, some say say how the chi,d us raised, gender my affect this, age if parents, culture etc.

Some people can have a chaotic childhood and ,earn to like themselves while others can come from what appears as a loving childhood and have trouble liking themselves.

If it was easy to work out why and how we like ourselves we wouldn’t need this thread!!

Thanks Paul and everyone for helpful contributions

This is a very long post for me !!! I may have rambled on a bit.

[smallwolf]

Hi. I read what you said about control. And it must be hard when you feel like the only one to look after your parent. There is another person who I chat with that looked after his parents for a number of years.

Back to your parent... I think part of the problem can be they see themselves as the parent still and perhaps have difficulties in accepting they cannot do the things they once could. And then perhaps things being done differently. And ...

This is only based on my limited experience with what I see from family and others.

None of this will probably help except that thinking how they might be feeling helps. I guess it is separating the person and the behaviour. And still it is challenging.

[Guest_1584]

Hi Quirk .

Afraid there's not much rewarding about it it's a nightmare , especially as we're all older now and scattered everywhere. You feel obligated to touch base every yr or two but so many so everywhere and you don't even like half of them, where do you even begin. Show up at a family Christmas every few yrs use to cover it but since we lost mum and dad a family Christmas are far between , and it could be anywhere in the country. l just can't maintain so many people and personalities plus kids, l envy so much those with just one or two.

Nah , none of us would be silly enough to have a large family after ours. The ones wiih kids only have one or two.

rx

[Scapegoated]

Yes, I love myself. Sometimes, when things are hard and the narcissist's words burn through my soul and are remembered I have to reorient myself to reality and know she is a liar and a narcissistic sociopath(my mother), but i am able to do that pretty quickly now. My mother is a horrible person and my father is too week to leave. he promised me when I was eleven that if only I stayed with him he would divorce her-then he got a better job and she manipulated and convinced him that "he is a worthless drunk who could never succeed at the job without (her) waking him up every morning." yeah. So. Promises promises. Unfulfilled. Same story. My mother is a narcissistic sociopath I knew that at 3 but my father is th eone who broke my heart because he can feel he has a conscience but he is too weak to use it to protect and love me. I have no faith in men I see all men as weak as a result of my abuse and I am not gay so who knows when this opinion of men will change or if it ever will. But I love myself. I have been my own hero in my life. I had and have no one. But i have a strong spirituality in NAture. So I feel loved by the divine. My grandmother calls me a pagan I don't care. And when I swim in a pool or he sea I feel God. I feel peace and love. So I don't need my mother or father because there is the Divine there is something greater that is pure peace and love that has nothing to do with them. It is not male or female and it Loves me. And I LOVE me. So the answer to your question , Paul, is Yes.

[Scapegoated]

You are beautiful and wonderful. You r mother is untrue to tell you you are anything but good. I am sorry her words hurt you. When my mother's words come into my head they hurt me too but i fight against them I say "NO she is a narcissist a sociopath and Liar.

You MUST fight. You have to fight against those words because a little voice inside you KNOWS she is lying. It knows you are good. You are a star Jstar don't you forget it!

[Ggrand]

Hello Everyone....🤗,

Scapegoated, Thank you for a very inspiring post..I usually like myself most days..but when triggered and the nasty, cruel and degrading words and actions from my late husband enters my thoughts...My liking myself turns into guilt, confusion, and dislike towards me....Then I have to try to distract those thoughts, which I can do mostly now..then I start liking myself again....

It’s a never ending circle....but at least I do like myself more then not...which is a huge achievement for me...

Nature is in my opinion a natural and wonderful distraction from every day life...where we can rest our soul and find ourselves again...

My kindest thoughts everyone...

Grandy..

[Guest9337]

Great opening post by blondguy all the way back in 2016.

I can't recall feeling love for myself. Sure I like myself, but love, nope haven't felt that.

I care about myself enough to meet some needs, but mostly my wife is keeping me afloat. I am the guy who might go 16 hours without eating just because I became so engrossed in what I was doing.

I care enough about myself that I'll seek support from allies and defend against perceived threats.

Another thing I do consciously is to define circles of relationship, this armours me up against some acquaintances who just don't quite get it, but also makes clearer to me who is inner circle or medium and wider circle.

So some guy I don't really know but sport with, won't have a line into deeply hurting me, whereas those really close do.

[quirkywords]

David

What a thoughtful post.

I remember teaching children en about inner circles of friendship.

I am glad it helps you.

When Paul started the thread the word love was used then changed later to like. Some. Like the word respect or other words, what ever word works for the individual.

Thanks everyone for the posts as I keep learning from others.