It’s not like one day you’ll wake up and decide “Yup, I deserve happiness and all the best things life can offer!”
Learning to stop punishing yourself for poor behavior during a period of survival takes time, patience, and lots of practice. Especially if you’re someone like me who morphs those feelings of shame into self-loathing. To this day, I look back on my period of survival and cringe. However, instead of hating myself for it, I remind myself that I shouldn’t punish the current version of myself for a past version’s behavior. Here’s the caveat though: This advice is for after you’ve done the work to really understanding the harm you caused, would choose differently if put in the position again, and have experienced the consequences of those actions.
When I was actively choosing the behaviors that were destroying me…because I thought that’s what I deserved… I attracted people who were similar to me. I was seeing beautiful people destroy themselves who could do amazing things if they just loved themselves a little more. Not to the point of being narcissistic, but to eat right, get some sunshine, or give themselves a chance to have the life they want.
In wanting more for the people I cared about, I realized I was doing the same things to myself that I wished they would quit doing to themselves.
It’s hard, and I mean REALLY hard to let go of those times that you knew you were being a crappy person and not feel terrible about it forever. But this feeling can morph into self-loathing or self-deprecating behavior that does nothing to serve the person you’ve grown into.
The best advice I can give is to sit with that past version of yourself. Invite that version of you over for coffee on the porch before the sun hits its highest point and the mourning dove still sings. Sit with the ugly side of yourself you are so ashamed of and ask who is this person? What caused them to become part of me? What am I satisfying within myself by behaving this way? Start there.
In my case, my dad had just died 3 weeks before I turned 26. Part of me died too. And part of me also held some guilt for his death because I was the one taking care of him those last few weeks–did I miss something and cause this? And then, if you know anyone who’s dealt with the death of someone who’s been sick for a long time, the guilt of feeling relieved that it was all over ate me alive. Today, I understand these thoughts and feelings and have worked through them. That didn’t happen, though, until I almost destroyed myself.
To cope with his passing: I moved to a little town that looked straight out of a hallmark movie, got an apartment, got a job as a waitress, and decided I would give myself a year to simply exist–no goals, no path, just living day to day.
In the little town, I was working at a restaurant/bar that the college kids all hung around and truth be told, I played hard like I was a college kid again. Then I got a second job at the other bar down the street. I partied and played and made decent money. And while there was so much fun to be had, there were also a lot of things I’m not proud of (and just embarrassed about) that happened in that season. I was extremely self focused because when you’re that deep in grief, you don’t really care what other people think or how your actions affect them. I was being selfish because I was busy surviving. I knew my behavior wasn’t great; that I was better than that, but I didn’t care at the time. And because I was being a crappy person who knew they were being crappy, I believed I then deserved to be punished. It’s a bit dizzying, I know.
It didn’t take long to discover punishing myself for being selfish during that season did nothing but continue the behaviors. Grief and self-loathing reared their ugly heads despite my hard work to avoid it. I spent a good amount of time crying to and from jobs, in the bar after one too many, to my dog, in the shower, pretty much anywhere. Instead of working through it, I drank through it, did dumb things, then believed I deserved all the bad things that happened to me due to my bad habit of internalizing everything…then eventually (almost 2 years later) I realized destroying myself wasn’t moving me forward so I had to pivot.
Like a pendulum, I swung all the way to self loathing, so I decided to swing the other way and try some self love. So, I put my focus on making myself feel good inside and out.
Yes, this was still a kind of selfishness, but when I felt better about myself, I was kinder, more patient, and more positive.
I love a good mantra so here are two that made the most impact:
- “Good food, good mood.” I didn’t start a whole healthy eating journey, but I did invest some time and energy into finding foods that boosted my mood and it really does make a difference! I enjoyed the experimentation of it. And it’s important to note that “good” food also can mean good for the soul – not the gut – at times. The nights in with a big order of chinese food was soul healing in a way a salad could never do for me.
- “Look good, feel good.” I started having nights of self care. It may be TMI, but punishing yourself can manifest as not washing your hair as much, skipping out on shaving your legs…general upkeep we humans need. I noticed I wasn’t doing those things as much as I should and started to invest more time into it. I also would dress nicer and put on makeup because I liked doing those things, and in turn, my self-esteem grew and mindset improved.
I sat with the ugly side of myself and saw a selfish person I didn’t like. She was so deep in her sadness that she did whatever would satisfy her need to avoid feeling utterly broken. And she didn’t care how her actions affected other people. But this version of me that I sat with wasn’t a terrible person who needed punishing. she needed love and understanding and some tough love reality checks. So that’s what I gave her. And I’m way better off because of it.
And when I look back on myself in survival mode, a whole mixed bag of emotions come up…sadness, anger, pity, shame, etc. I no longer punish the current version of myself for that time in my life, though. And you shouldn’t either.
Love yourself through the mess. You cannot beat yourself into being a better version.
Love and Light,
B
Rebalyn 