Recently I have been involving myself in various mental health support forums and am finding it for the most part to be fairly rewarding, but... I find myself getting very frustrated and annoyed by the number of people who are so absorbed in their own self hatred that they completely disregard or contradict anything anyone tries to do or say out of concern for them.
It is sad and really detrimental to their recovery because they will drive away anyone that would have tried to help them. I won't even offer a kind word to these people any more because they don't listen, so when the time comes when they've decided to get proactive and work towards their recovery, suddenly no one will be there. It is like some horrible real-life Boy Who Cried Wolf.
I really think the key is to boost self esteem and challenge negative thinking before it consumes you. There are so many different ways to start building your self confidence and starting to challenge negative thoughts. These can be as simple as giving yourself positive affirmations and can go all the way to identifying negative thinking and challenging it.
Here are some links to get you started!
- Building Self-Esteem: A Self-Help Guide
- Feeling OK about who you are
- Self-Esteem
- Challenging negative self-talk
- Thought Awareness
- Overcoming low self-esteem (this entire series of work books is AMAZING, not just the self-esteem module!)
I strongly disagree with the idea that negative thinking is somehow bad for you. For example, if you're a victim of bullying but you keep trying to think nice thoughts, you'll just continue to be bullied. The way to resove the problem is to become angry enough to stand up for your rights. Life demands anger and grief of us just as much as it requires love and joy.
ReplyDeleteThose people who frustrate you with their self-absorbed disregard are very likely behaving that way to avoid their own negative thoughts about something in their lives. Trying to boost their self-esteem only replaces one form of avoidance with another. A good therapist would unleash their negativity, allowing them to change things for real and move on.
Being angry and standing up for yourself is VERY different to thinking negative things about yourself. There is a massive difference between telling a bully to fuck off and thinking "I am a worthless, fat, ugly piece of shit". They aren't even on the same level and I am definitely not talking about the former of the two scenarios here.
ReplyDeleteI do not think that someone talking constantly about how shit and worthless they are are in any way trying to avoid negative thoughts about something in their lives.
I really don't think you've understood my post at all, actually.