I’ve had a bit of a rough go with it in terms of being raised in a bad environment, not properly socialised properly early in life, and to top it off my partner of 7 years just ended things because of some pretty nasty issues between us that I felt were perfectly fixable.
Everything as it is, I’ve started having issues with feelings of being disposable. Like I don’t matter, like I’m nothing and I can’t expect people to stick around, like they’re waiting for a reason to abandon me.
On a logical level that doesn’t hold much water, but at this point I’m starting to wonder how to fight these feelings if they come from very factual places. How can I justify the thought that I inheritly have worth, if the reality of the situation is that I keep being treated like garbage.
I’m doing all the right stuff, seeing a psych, prioritising recover, actually have a pretty decent inner voice going, but the feelings are still really strong and it’s hard to fight them. I’m not really sure how to handle this.
In your experience, does fighting the feelings help? Answer not using your logic, but your felt experience.
Odds are, fighting doesn’t help. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here asking for help.
You hurt because you care. You care about belonging, about contributing, about being open to others. And, since you care about this and you’ve experienced their opposites, you hurt.
We can’t get rid of this kind of hurt. Would you even want to? Would you want to be indifferent to other people?
I’m not trying to be mean or brutal. I’m just trying to get to a place where this hurt is a meaningful part of your life and not something you keep fighting (and failing to defeat).
So what can you do? You could notice your thoughts as thoughts. You can try giving your brain a name and thanking it for informing you about the things it informs you throughout the day. This doesn’t make thoughts disappear, but it helps seeing them as thoughts and not reality.
You can also imagine that you carry your sensations, memories, moods, thoughts, images, etc. in your hands, as if you were carrying a delicate flower. This is a way to honor your life without running a way from it and also without being entirely determined by it.
Finally, you can ask yourself what kind of person you want to be, what you stand for. What are the qualities of being that you would like to adopt in your life? You can discover this intuitively by wondering what you care for. If rejection hurts, you likely value inclusion. If abandonment hurts, you likely value consistency and kindness.
The task the becomes accepting our current reality (thanking our brain for its suggestions and holding our whole life experience preciously) and taking our next step with the qualities of being that we value.
If you’re curious about this perspective, let me know and I can tell you more about it :)