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Re: PS. About old habits--

Posted by chdurie2 on August 29, 2000, at 19:25:32

In reply to Re: PS. About old habits--, posted by Jena Lyn on August 26, 2000, at 23:05:22

Jena - listening to you, reading your words, i feel like i'm staring in the mirror.
depressed people hold onto the bad, but quickly forget the good. that's real basic.
you have to re-train yourself to paint a more positive picture (if you're gonna hold onto everything, at least hold onto it all.) easier said than done. easy for me to say now that i've had a good day, rather than one of my many bad ones. but sad to say, somehow you gotta force yourself to include some good stuff.
second, appreciate the fact that you are further ahead than a year ago - if it were me, i'd be saying big deal, but i was in a hospital a year ago and i have so much further to go before i'm "normal." if you don't appreciate your progress, that's just another excuse I (and maybe you)give ourselves to beat ourselves up - we might as well just get out the whips and chains. also, for me, not acknowledging my baby-step progress and bemoaning the fact that i have so much further to go is an iron-clad justification for staying exactly where i am - stuck in the same place - cuz if i appreciate my baby step, it opens the door for the possibility that i may have to take another - and that's frightening. but no self-praise, no forward movement, equals safety.
which brings me to your question of why do you keep doing this to yourself over and over again. well, i knew the bad news for me when i read nibor's website (and it's really good) is it finally clicked that on some level i don't want to change. maybe the same is true for you. do you really want to let go of that self-loathing, my fears are all powerful, stuff? for me, it's a racket - as much as i hate the misery, it may be easier than changing.
another thing that might help - my shrink and i have a deal that it's okay to do my self-destructive number (not great, but okay) but it is NOT okay to beat myself up for it. I can fuck up, but then i just say I fucked up. I'll try to do better next time. what i'm not allowed to do is agonize endlessly over my fuckup.
what that does is it frees up energy to be used more positively and also fucking up loses some of its neurotic allure.
finally, as one who was sure i could never let go of anything bad and still has a hard time doing so, let me assure you that you can. it's a skill that takes practice. basically, the process, or some variation, thereof, goes like this: Imagine this horrible thing you've done in all its horror. don't leave anything out. dwell on it. then imagine this thing as an object (a piece of paper, a rock, whatever)then tell yourself that you no longer have any use for this thing, and you're throwing it away, and imagine yourself doing that - repeat this exercise as often as necessary, if need be, for life. my last words are not original: they are paraphrased from a book called A Little Book of Forgiveness by L.(?) Patrick Miller, which you can have ordered at a bookstore.
hope this helps.caroline


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