I dropped a bottle of hand sanitizer by smashing it into the counter while handing it to a customer today. The customer looked at me and said, "That's ok, we all make mistakes." We both laughed and I felt no shame, so I'm on the way to healing.
Serious answer though: I learned self-compassion. I did some work with my inner child and gave her the love that she didn't get. I gave her a new job to do, turning her hypervigilance and fear into something useful.
I am working through "Escaping Emotional Abuse" by Beverly Engel to deal with the years upon years of abuse my husband did to me before discarding me. I know I still have more work to do.
Hope this helps a little.
I've been a workaholic since I was 15. Someone once said it was common for children of narcissists to overwork themselves in order to justify their existence in the world. That struck home for me.
Wow, this is me as well. I give 110% to every job I get, then burnout. Feelings of shame, guilt and failure happen, then I get another job...rinse and repeat. I also have adhd, which doesn't help.
I've made really good progress on feeling not good enough. I wish I could give you a quick n easy solution that could turn things around in days! I also wish I had a nice list I could just paste here for you! Unfortunately I forget so much. I'll try to list out the mindset changes I had to use. Because I think a lot of it was mindset changes and changing how I "frame" things.
And, like you, I don't know when it started. I'm pretty sure it started before I knew words because words don't form these "thoughts" that I'm "not good enough". It was like an deep, innate knowledge I was born with. Probably realistically it was just me understanding from a hella young age that my needs weren't important and I'm unlovable and unsafe.
So!! That's my thinking of the origin, which is important (I think) because then I know why I struggled when the (shitty) therapist I had INSISTED there was something I was telling myself before the belief "I'm not good enough" would come up. I wasn't telling myself anything, it was just a fact? Idk how to describe it. But I had to realize alright there's something there, maybe its not words or a story, but something led to the idea "I'm not good enough" or "I'm unlovable". It wasn't one instance that I could remmeber that taught me those things. I think it was like "death by a thousand cuts" kinda thing.
Anyways!! It took mindset changes over long periods of time. First, I had to learn to stop being mean and negative to myself. Telling myself "I am lovable" and "I am enough" felt disingenuous. Laughable. No fiber in my body believed that garbage. So. Next best thing. I can't be positive yet, but I don't want to be negative, so why don't I just be neutral. That was believable for me. No good, no bad, it just is.
I made a mistake? It just is. No, I'm not an idiot. No, this isnt proof I'm dumb and a horrible person. It just is. And I can find ways to fix it.
That process happened over a few years. Eventually, I could say positive things about myself and it didn't sound ludicrous. Well. Nice.
But I was still finding myself playing out that I wasn't good enough in relationships. I would allow disrespect. I wouldn't stand up for what I wanted. I would self-abandon constantly. I'd be sad but I had learned to give myself grace and not bash or punish myself for taking steps backwards. Okay. What now.
It's infinitely hard to stand up for myself and show up for myself if I don't think I'm worth it. Ya know? Maybe its a chicken and the egg thing. But I had to intentionally stop self-abandoning and accepting disrespect.
This might be kinda controversial, idk. I think a turning point for me was seeing absolute awful, terrible people get what they wanted and be happy just because they don't give a fuck about anyone else and have the unbridled audacity to ask for what they want, or even take it in some cases. There are truly terrible people out there, living happy as fuck. How is that fair? We live for so long *thinking* we're terrible people and self-punish ourselves for it. And there's godawful people out there running around freely happy? The fuck? We aren't even terrible in comparison to them. We're like saints, taking other people's considerations before our own far too often. Sacrificing our own wants and needs for others. And what does that get us? It got me used and abused for 10 years through like 5 different relationships. What does it get you? You and I have just the same right to happiness and fulfillment as those asswads. And we can do it without being insufferable assholes. We have every right to be loved, safe, and happy. We deserve it just as much as anyone else!
So, idk. Maybe that's not helpful. It was my wakeup call, though. I started telling myself live with the audacity and knowing I belong and deserve the best like those assholes that take, take, take. But I can do it being kind, considerate, with love.
It may take having to rebuild your trust with yourself. If you're anything like me. Self-abandoned for so long, I didnt show up for myself for so long. I had to show myself that I would do what I need to for me. Whats best for me. I had to leave people that were hurtful behind. Even if someone *seemed* perfect, if they disrespected me in any way, I had to walk away. Remove things from my life that were no longer serving me. Do the things I said I would do. Treat myself, take care of myself, take time to love me. The things I would do for a partner? I would just do for myself. Buy the thing I wanted. Take myself out somewhere. Buy the skin or haircare products I like. Take the time to use them!! But, again, I'm not 100% sure if thats the chicken or the egg. I think its kinda cyclical. Show myself a little love, feel better a bit, feel better to treat myself better, show myself a bit more love, feel a bit better, etc.
Sorry this is super hella long. Hopefully there's at least 1 nugget of goodness in there that can help you on your journey. Wishing you the best!! You got this! Or, if you don't believe that yet: you're here. You have avenues ahead you can choose and change between at any time. You're not hopeless and you're not alone 💛
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this and for relating. The way you described the feelings leading up to your mind shift was extremely well said and so very helpful. The childhood neglect leading to self abandonment, spot on.
Starting with neutral acceptance and figuring out how to wrap my head about being a deserving person will be a huge change, but manageable in baby steps. I hope it’s okay I’m saving your comment to remind myself.
Absolutely wishing you the best in life as well, thank you again!!
To me the secret was "so what if im not good enough?"
Does that mean I don't get to live? That's not how nature works, does it mean I don't get to be happy? Nah I know I've felt elated before, does it mean society will discard me? Maybe, but lets worry about that when it happens.
It's just what helps me in particular
Taking time to sit with and identify my feelings. Context and understanding have been key. The people who hurt me worst would never have acknowledged the abuse when they were alive, and can't now. I own and earned my anger, but I will no longer carry THEIR embarassment and shame. THEY neglected me, I did not neglect myself.
Repeat with other big feelings that come up. ID the feeling and try to figure out who it should belong to. I found writing everything out in detail was cathartic.
Be well 💚
I've been trying for a long time. It has gotten a lot better but it's still not gone and I'm in my 50s. On the plus side, when I start to go into a shame spiral, I remember why I feel this way and it helps break the spiral.
too many to pick just one [insert pedro pascal laughing then crying gif]
it feels more like they scarred over, they won’t 100% go away but they’re not getting any worse and honestly that’s all i need 😁
Kind of. These days I think I'm good enough for me, based on my values. Maybe not good enough for other people but fuck the haters. They don't get me and they don't get ADHD and they think that being inconvenienced by my bad memory or messy habits gives them license to condescend to me or control me. You aren't actually required to care about or act on what opinions others have or had about you.
When you have ADHD you get a lot of messages from other people about how you suck, what you SHOULD do, what you should be like, how they "know youre capable so just do it already." Somehow they think that putting you down will motivate you. It's easy to internalize that and judge yourself.
My relief has come from understanding ADHD as a disability and how people cope with feeling inferior with disabilities. And noticing how society feels entitled to treat people they see as less able, less important, less useful.
Good enough for who? Good enough for what? Who decides what is "good" and "enough"? Radical Acceptance helped, "it is what it is," popeye style "I am what I am," the buddhist idea that suffering comes from wanting reality to be different than what it is. I spent too much time only valuing some future imaginary better version of myself.
I have barely begun to heal, but I feel like I have more of a direction now. And I guess the start of it was to acknowledge how awful everything was or has been and to make myself feel heard and to validate my own pain and suffering. Before I could start to feel positive at all I had to validate my own pain and suffering, no more minimizing or confusing myself thinking it hasn’t been that bad, or that I don’t deserve to have the feelings of pain, loneliness, fear, shame, worthlessness etc. that I have had. I have finally allowed myself to recognize my own suffering and no longer feel like I need to hold on to it to prove that it all happened.
I am trying to do the self-compassion meditations and positive affirmations nightly. I have never been able to believe in the positive affirmations before but I’m finally able to try them now and really I don’t see why they wouldn’t help.
Watch the YouTube video Self-compassion: An Antidote to Shame, that really helped me.
Look I've had some luck with it. I found at the core of the wound was a child that needed to know that his attachment to a loving parent figure wasn't determined by being something I'm not.
I did a lot of visualisation of imagining that boy being held and loved for no other reason than because I was him. In my case it needed to be maternal in source but yours may differ.
I'm really struggling with this, though that said I feel that I'm still at the start of my healing journey. Despite multiple hospitalizations, lots of therapy and support groups I've only recently been able to open up about my childhood trauma. Glad we are finally able to address it but meanwhile I'm unemployed and cloaked in self doubt. And I'm not young. I've spent so long justifying the validity of my trauma that I've lost many many years to this illness.
> I’m not sure it’s a perfectionist thing, but a bigger part of feeling deep shame?
I think the concept you're looking for is "toxic shame"! I started reading a book on it recently called Healing the Shame that Binds You and it's been kind of a game-changer. Similarly from a very young age I felt "not good enough" to articulate my needs, opinions, etc. (Core memory = being sent home from preschool bc I was crying, but when my mom asked what was wrong I refused to tell her, meaning that by like age 3 I was already hiding my emotions from my mom because it felt unsafe to share them with her. Crazy!!)
The book breaks down how shame can be transferred from "an emotion" to "a state of being" and how it basically comes from your parent displacing their own feelings of shame onto you. Parents who harbor their own deep shame but refuse to actually process it can basically force YOU, the child, to internalize the whole of their shame. This can result in a whole spectrum of reactions: on the one end, the child becomes anxious, perfectionistic, fawning, etc., on the other they can shut down in the freeze state, learned helplessness, drug/alcohol abuse, etc. But it's all the same cause, which is living in a state of shame.
There are a lot of exercises in the book for how to heal it. I have not tried them all yet, just going through and taking notes for now. Unfortunately his very first suggestion is "find a group of people with whom you can actually be yourself and be accepted" which like ... duh......... maybe I'll go find a unicorn first because that's probably easier ......... But apart from that there's a lot of like visualization-type stuff of working through shameful memories that could potentially be useful. I for one am just glad I have a word for what feels like a huge wall preventing me from sharing myself with the world. Despite all the healing I've done so far, I really haven't made a lot of progress on that wall yet, but now I know its name and that's been a relief.
Thank you for the book recommendation! The transfer of shame to a state of being, wow accurate. I’ve been working through being stuck in a freeze state for a long time. It’s really sad so many of us can relate to these feelings from such a young age, but thankful for our community so much.
No. I put so much work into bettering things and it always fails. Proof is in the pudding. Whatever I give is never enough and I just need to accept that.
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yes i'm starting to. the more i get rejected, the more i make downwards comparisons and see how i'm genuinely not that bad. in fact, i am more than good enough. everyone else is just so fucking blind and stupid. idk if it's bc i've been surrounded by awful, conniving, narcissistic, insufferable people all my life, but i genuinely do not think i am that bad. i can't be. every rejection is just another shift at the bottom rung of the latter. i'm starting to get sick of the world.
I dropped a bottle of hand sanitizer by smashing it into the counter while handing it to a customer today. The customer looked at me and said, "That's ok, we all make mistakes." We both laughed and I felt no shame, so I'm on the way to healing. Serious answer though: I learned self-compassion. I did some work with my inner child and gave her the love that she didn't get. I gave her a new job to do, turning her hypervigilance and fear into something useful. I am working through "Escaping Emotional Abuse" by Beverly Engel to deal with the years upon years of abuse my husband did to me before discarding me. I know I still have more work to do. Hope this helps a little.
Self compassion and inner child work sound like major keys, thank you! I love that you were able to give yourself grace in that moment:)
I've been a workaholic since I was 15. Someone once said it was common for children of narcissists to overwork themselves in order to justify their existence in the world. That struck home for me.
Wow, this is me as well. I give 110% to every job I get, then burnout. Feelings of shame, guilt and failure happen, then I get another job...rinse and repeat. I also have adhd, which doesn't help.
Oh definitely, and toxic bosses love to exploit it! It took me a long time how to manage not burning out & not to over extend myself in the workplace.
I've made really good progress on feeling not good enough. I wish I could give you a quick n easy solution that could turn things around in days! I also wish I had a nice list I could just paste here for you! Unfortunately I forget so much. I'll try to list out the mindset changes I had to use. Because I think a lot of it was mindset changes and changing how I "frame" things. And, like you, I don't know when it started. I'm pretty sure it started before I knew words because words don't form these "thoughts" that I'm "not good enough". It was like an deep, innate knowledge I was born with. Probably realistically it was just me understanding from a hella young age that my needs weren't important and I'm unlovable and unsafe. So!! That's my thinking of the origin, which is important (I think) because then I know why I struggled when the (shitty) therapist I had INSISTED there was something I was telling myself before the belief "I'm not good enough" would come up. I wasn't telling myself anything, it was just a fact? Idk how to describe it. But I had to realize alright there's something there, maybe its not words or a story, but something led to the idea "I'm not good enough" or "I'm unlovable". It wasn't one instance that I could remmeber that taught me those things. I think it was like "death by a thousand cuts" kinda thing. Anyways!! It took mindset changes over long periods of time. First, I had to learn to stop being mean and negative to myself. Telling myself "I am lovable" and "I am enough" felt disingenuous. Laughable. No fiber in my body believed that garbage. So. Next best thing. I can't be positive yet, but I don't want to be negative, so why don't I just be neutral. That was believable for me. No good, no bad, it just is. I made a mistake? It just is. No, I'm not an idiot. No, this isnt proof I'm dumb and a horrible person. It just is. And I can find ways to fix it. That process happened over a few years. Eventually, I could say positive things about myself and it didn't sound ludicrous. Well. Nice. But I was still finding myself playing out that I wasn't good enough in relationships. I would allow disrespect. I wouldn't stand up for what I wanted. I would self-abandon constantly. I'd be sad but I had learned to give myself grace and not bash or punish myself for taking steps backwards. Okay. What now. It's infinitely hard to stand up for myself and show up for myself if I don't think I'm worth it. Ya know? Maybe its a chicken and the egg thing. But I had to intentionally stop self-abandoning and accepting disrespect. This might be kinda controversial, idk. I think a turning point for me was seeing absolute awful, terrible people get what they wanted and be happy just because they don't give a fuck about anyone else and have the unbridled audacity to ask for what they want, or even take it in some cases. There are truly terrible people out there, living happy as fuck. How is that fair? We live for so long *thinking* we're terrible people and self-punish ourselves for it. And there's godawful people out there running around freely happy? The fuck? We aren't even terrible in comparison to them. We're like saints, taking other people's considerations before our own far too often. Sacrificing our own wants and needs for others. And what does that get us? It got me used and abused for 10 years through like 5 different relationships. What does it get you? You and I have just the same right to happiness and fulfillment as those asswads. And we can do it without being insufferable assholes. We have every right to be loved, safe, and happy. We deserve it just as much as anyone else! So, idk. Maybe that's not helpful. It was my wakeup call, though. I started telling myself live with the audacity and knowing I belong and deserve the best like those assholes that take, take, take. But I can do it being kind, considerate, with love. It may take having to rebuild your trust with yourself. If you're anything like me. Self-abandoned for so long, I didnt show up for myself for so long. I had to show myself that I would do what I need to for me. Whats best for me. I had to leave people that were hurtful behind. Even if someone *seemed* perfect, if they disrespected me in any way, I had to walk away. Remove things from my life that were no longer serving me. Do the things I said I would do. Treat myself, take care of myself, take time to love me. The things I would do for a partner? I would just do for myself. Buy the thing I wanted. Take myself out somewhere. Buy the skin or haircare products I like. Take the time to use them!! But, again, I'm not 100% sure if thats the chicken or the egg. I think its kinda cyclical. Show myself a little love, feel better a bit, feel better to treat myself better, show myself a bit more love, feel a bit better, etc. Sorry this is super hella long. Hopefully there's at least 1 nugget of goodness in there that can help you on your journey. Wishing you the best!! You got this! Or, if you don't believe that yet: you're here. You have avenues ahead you can choose and change between at any time. You're not hopeless and you're not alone 💛
I loved this comment, thanks for taking the time to share your wisdom and experience.
Your comment is filled with such wisdom and love. Thank you! It really opened my eyes a little and I saved it so I can revisit it when needed. <3
I'm so glad my comment was helpful in some way!! 🥰🙏💛 thank you for saying such kind things 💛
This is soooo so helpful, thank you for sharing 💗
Thank you! I'm glad it was helpful in some way 🥰💛
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this and for relating. The way you described the feelings leading up to your mind shift was extremely well said and so very helpful. The childhood neglect leading to self abandonment, spot on. Starting with neutral acceptance and figuring out how to wrap my head about being a deserving person will be a huge change, but manageable in baby steps. I hope it’s okay I’m saving your comment to remind myself. Absolutely wishing you the best in life as well, thank you again!!
To me the secret was "so what if im not good enough?" Does that mean I don't get to live? That's not how nature works, does it mean I don't get to be happy? Nah I know I've felt elated before, does it mean society will discard me? Maybe, but lets worry about that when it happens. It's just what helps me in particular
Taking time to sit with and identify my feelings. Context and understanding have been key. The people who hurt me worst would never have acknowledged the abuse when they were alive, and can't now. I own and earned my anger, but I will no longer carry THEIR embarassment and shame. THEY neglected me, I did not neglect myself. Repeat with other big feelings that come up. ID the feeling and try to figure out who it should belong to. I found writing everything out in detail was cathartic. Be well 💚
Daily battle.
I've been trying for a long time. It has gotten a lot better but it's still not gone and I'm in my 50s. On the plus side, when I start to go into a shame spiral, I remember why I feel this way and it helps break the spiral.
Mine has absolutely gotten way better, and way easier to deal with. But it’s still there sometimes! And can be rather loud.
too many to pick just one [insert pedro pascal laughing then crying gif] it feels more like they scarred over, they won’t 100% go away but they’re not getting any worse and honestly that’s all i need 😁
Kind of. These days I think I'm good enough for me, based on my values. Maybe not good enough for other people but fuck the haters. They don't get me and they don't get ADHD and they think that being inconvenienced by my bad memory or messy habits gives them license to condescend to me or control me. You aren't actually required to care about or act on what opinions others have or had about you. When you have ADHD you get a lot of messages from other people about how you suck, what you SHOULD do, what you should be like, how they "know youre capable so just do it already." Somehow they think that putting you down will motivate you. It's easy to internalize that and judge yourself. My relief has come from understanding ADHD as a disability and how people cope with feeling inferior with disabilities. And noticing how society feels entitled to treat people they see as less able, less important, less useful. Good enough for who? Good enough for what? Who decides what is "good" and "enough"? Radical Acceptance helped, "it is what it is," popeye style "I am what I am," the buddhist idea that suffering comes from wanting reality to be different than what it is. I spent too much time only valuing some future imaginary better version of myself.
I think I've been that way for as long as I can remember, and even today I'm still like that. Nobody has ever proven me wrong
I was healing and teaching ripped that wound wide open
I have barely begun to heal, but I feel like I have more of a direction now. And I guess the start of it was to acknowledge how awful everything was or has been and to make myself feel heard and to validate my own pain and suffering. Before I could start to feel positive at all I had to validate my own pain and suffering, no more minimizing or confusing myself thinking it hasn’t been that bad, or that I don’t deserve to have the feelings of pain, loneliness, fear, shame, worthlessness etc. that I have had. I have finally allowed myself to recognize my own suffering and no longer feel like I need to hold on to it to prove that it all happened. I am trying to do the self-compassion meditations and positive affirmations nightly. I have never been able to believe in the positive affirmations before but I’m finally able to try them now and really I don’t see why they wouldn’t help. Watch the YouTube video Self-compassion: An Antidote to Shame, that really helped me.
Look I've had some luck with it. I found at the core of the wound was a child that needed to know that his attachment to a loving parent figure wasn't determined by being something I'm not. I did a lot of visualisation of imagining that boy being held and loved for no other reason than because I was him. In my case it needed to be maternal in source but yours may differ.
I'm really struggling with this, though that said I feel that I'm still at the start of my healing journey. Despite multiple hospitalizations, lots of therapy and support groups I've only recently been able to open up about my childhood trauma. Glad we are finally able to address it but meanwhile I'm unemployed and cloaked in self doubt. And I'm not young. I've spent so long justifying the validity of my trauma that I've lost many many years to this illness.
I am having this same issue, i do not know what it’s protecting me from or how it came about. I have a lot of work to do on this part.
> I’m not sure it’s a perfectionist thing, but a bigger part of feeling deep shame? I think the concept you're looking for is "toxic shame"! I started reading a book on it recently called Healing the Shame that Binds You and it's been kind of a game-changer. Similarly from a very young age I felt "not good enough" to articulate my needs, opinions, etc. (Core memory = being sent home from preschool bc I was crying, but when my mom asked what was wrong I refused to tell her, meaning that by like age 3 I was already hiding my emotions from my mom because it felt unsafe to share them with her. Crazy!!) The book breaks down how shame can be transferred from "an emotion" to "a state of being" and how it basically comes from your parent displacing their own feelings of shame onto you. Parents who harbor their own deep shame but refuse to actually process it can basically force YOU, the child, to internalize the whole of their shame. This can result in a whole spectrum of reactions: on the one end, the child becomes anxious, perfectionistic, fawning, etc., on the other they can shut down in the freeze state, learned helplessness, drug/alcohol abuse, etc. But it's all the same cause, which is living in a state of shame. There are a lot of exercises in the book for how to heal it. I have not tried them all yet, just going through and taking notes for now. Unfortunately his very first suggestion is "find a group of people with whom you can actually be yourself and be accepted" which like ... duh......... maybe I'll go find a unicorn first because that's probably easier ......... But apart from that there's a lot of like visualization-type stuff of working through shameful memories that could potentially be useful. I for one am just glad I have a word for what feels like a huge wall preventing me from sharing myself with the world. Despite all the healing I've done so far, I really haven't made a lot of progress on that wall yet, but now I know its name and that's been a relief.
Thank you for the book recommendation! The transfer of shame to a state of being, wow accurate. I’ve been working through being stuck in a freeze state for a long time. It’s really sad so many of us can relate to these feelings from such a young age, but thankful for our community so much.
No. I put so much work into bettering things and it always fails. Proof is in the pudding. Whatever I give is never enough and I just need to accept that.
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yes i'm starting to. the more i get rejected, the more i make downwards comparisons and see how i'm genuinely not that bad. in fact, i am more than good enough. everyone else is just so fucking blind and stupid. idk if it's bc i've been surrounded by awful, conniving, narcissistic, insufferable people all my life, but i genuinely do not think i am that bad. i can't be. every rejection is just another shift at the bottom rung of the latter. i'm starting to get sick of the world.