Below- self examination and why my inner voice is an asshole.
It's difficult for me to offend- fictional- non-human game bots. That's a problem. Which is part of why I am playing as "Evil" (for those who game- I'm playing as a Raider Overboss on Fallout 4 and going full tilt with that).
For the better part of my life I have lived as a "people pleaser" afraid to offend anyone and literally getting myself deeply upset if I have. Wanting to always be diplomatic and seen as very kind and very good. The problem with people pleasing is that it isn't actually about caring for others- it's about pride and the appearance of being liked.
While yes, I do try to have compassion for other people and see their side- "people pleasing" is not this self-matyrdom of goodness. It's a fear of being exposed, fear of who you are, and the inability to have the self worth to contend when someone challenges it by "not liking you". It's a terrible cycle of pride and coupled with self-loathing. I could not accept the reality of my personhood. I was either "all good" or "all bad" when I am simply, like most people, capable of the selfless and the selfish.
So I had to come to a place where at 26, I lived a different life. At 26, (literally and hilariously in part on my birthday) false narratives I had in my mind, ways I thoughts relationships were, shit hit the fan. I had to re-examine myself and this inner cycle I was perpetuating because I was suddenly in a new and kind of painful place. Where I was faced with my imperfections and failings while also feeling hurt and alone and I had terrible cognitive dissonance. "I'm bad and I'm terrible" with "wait a minute do I deserve all this flagellation?" and it went round and round and it was such crap.
My Pride needed me to be seen as "always good", "always kind", and "always wise". My pride and perfectionism dictated too much. You can't ever *be* perfect yet I set this standard that I inevitably failed- enter self-loathing. I had to come to a place where I radically loved myself. Self-love is entirely different from pride.
Self love acknowledges and understands the flaws, it challenges them to better, while still appreciating and caring for the person you are. It is not "I'm hot shit all the time." It is the understanding "That I am only human but I am still priceless and worthy of love." It smacks in the face of the prideful and perfectionist attitude because it sees the humanity and still calls it beautiful.
I'm not "one with the self love" yet, I am still imperfect at all of this. I haven't reached my Nirvana of inner great self-talk. I have been going at this with trial and error. I thought at first "I am going to no longer feed any negativity in my head. No negative vibes, emotions, nothing." and a friend immediately pointed out "Hannah, you can't be half a person. You have to accept the positive and the negative. You need the negative to help appreciate the positive." and he was right. So, I pictured myself as a ying-yang and tried to focus on giving myself and my heart balance. That I needed to give more energy to the positive but I can't just cut myself off from things that don't feel warm and fuzzy.
So, at 26, I started to change myself. I changed my brain meds (because hey-oh, I can't out-think bad brain chemistry) and have tried to rebelliously, fiercely, and valiantly love myself. To build up my inner self to contend that when someone doesn't like me. So I can easily say "ehhh, fuck them then." Not wishing anyone any ill- but that it is no longer my problem. That I fix me, own any mistakes I make, and then move forward.
Breaking decades worth of chains that I put on myself isn't done in a month. I have been working at retraining my brain but it will still be a journey. As cliche as that is. I envy the people who can do this easily. I envy the unbothered. However, I can still be a compassionate and caring person and do so without an endless inner cycle of prideful b/s and terrible self deprecation. I have come far to who I was and I still have far to go. However, the person I am becoming is worth it because of the person I already am. Nifty.
Little Note: this blog was originally much longer and likely had superflous examples of self-reflection and then Weebly errored and I lost over an hour and half worth of writing. So this is the succinct version for which I am not normally known for (ha-ha). If I didn't have years worth of blogs on here, I would switch providers.