DECONSTRUCTING SELF-DESTRUCTION

/ December 8, 2015

I logged onto Facebook this morning and was shown this memory from the past.

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It is a picture of an old friend and my daughter.  I love this picture.  I don’t hold onto memories very well anymore.  My short term is horrible and I have lost many older memories too.  Sometimes pictures will snap the past back into place and other times they don’t.  Also, my daughter is freaking adorable.

Facebook has a way of holding onto the past.

People will come and go in your life.  Some stay longer than others and maybe there is a reason. Maybe not.

Yada Yada Yada

I don’t have many people in my life that I can say I miss.  I don’t get close enough.  I even prefer my best of friends to be fairly arms-length or I start to get anxious with all the ways I will screw the friendship up.  Arms-length equals the occasional text to ask how they are and they reply “great I hope you’re doing well”… And you both carry on knowing you will always know each other and can count on each other if needed.

I keep people at a distance because I am self-destructive.  It took some time and some bad experiences to learn this about myself.  These behaviors stem from self-hatred and low self-esteem.  I bond strongly with and recognize this behavior in others.

There are many things we do that make life harder to live.  We set ourselves up for failure.  Procrastinating and letting life dictate what our pace is.  We don’t typically have the self-confidence to plow through obstacles.  This alone can keep us from succeeding.

Self-pity, self-harm, drug and alcohol abuse, unnecessary self-sacrifice are just a few of the things we do on a continual basis.  NONE of it is pretty.  NONE of it is easy to live with and therefore we are typically alone or going from one relationship to another.  IMO

If I let people close I will commit social suicide.  It has happened only once on a grand scale and I lost the friendship because of it.  I mean that was the whole point.  THAT is what a self-destructive person does.  They are masters of self-fulfilling prophecies.

Behaviors like possessiveness, emotional manipulation, neediness, jealousy, anger, and sometimes violence become extremely exaggerated.  And the real kicker is…  WE NOTICE OUR OWN BEHAVIOR and many times feel completely helpless to stop it.  But we aren’t helpless.

The bottom line is:

I don’t feel worthy of love and that truth manifests itself in all my close relationships by the way I choose to act.

Did you notice I said CHOOSE?

Yes, I have to stop myself in my own tracks.  I have to listen to what is happening in my brain.  I have to identify what I am thinking and why I am thinking it.  I have to acknowledge I am self-destructive.  I have to zip my lips and tie my hands and feet until I can decipher my nature’s intent.

I must tell myself I am in control of my behavior.  I can CHOOSE to trust someone loves me.  I can CHOOSE to believe I am worthy of that love.  I can CHOOSE to envision something greater for myself because I owe it to myself to be the best I can be.

My life and the way it turns out and how I feel about it relies on ME.  I can CHOOSE to love and I can CHOOSE to walk away.

Take an inventory of your life.  Of your habits.  And one by one start replacing bad behaviors with better ones.

Eventually, you will find people who will love exactly who YOU are. You will get anxious but you’ll be able to identify that feeling and seek help for it before it destroys your friendship.

Best of all…

YOU will fall in love with YOU.

Much love,

Hasty

 

 

 

 

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25 thoughts on “DECONSTRUCTING SELF-DESTRUCTION”

  2. Some of those habits can hide so well behind arguments of necessity, protecting others, caution — oh, so many hiding places and so entangled together – first finding them, seeing through their disguises – then, as you say, one by one changing them, or getting them to grow in a different direction, toward a different, truer light. Sounds like a life-long project, and that’s OK.

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  3. thank you for writing this post. this sounded a lot like me, except that it ends on a positive note. its hard, really hard to change things that you want to change. some times it feels like going one step forward and phew….two steps backwards…thank you for this..i really loved reading it.

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    • It really just fell out of my head this morning. I am glad it at least made enough sense to get something from it. It is hard. Very hard. I am wading in slowly to new relationships. Catching myself doing things that can be done differently. Many times it just takes letting something go… THAT IS HARD but letting go is a muscle that can be worked and once it gains strength it becomes easier to do.

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    • Well I think a lot about this. We can’t choose not to be depressed or… There are lots of things we really can’t choose.

      For instance triggers cause fight or flight which is a very chemical reaction that causes our logical brain to disconnect. So in a very real way we are not in control during this reaction. But self destructive behavior is different. It hides in the shadows and likes to wear masks so we can’t identify it.

      I have been watching my reactions to certain events and things and when I notice the behavior I sit and deconstruct the whole situation. I am slowly learning to create new habits and new pathways of thinking in my brain.

      I think therapists call it something. Something with the word behavior in it but don’t remember. But so far I am doing better. It’s so hard.

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  9. My latest major depressive episode stripped me of all confidence, all self-love and self-worth… I feel like the truest ME is locked away somewhere, maybe hiding? I’m not even sure where to begin looking for her. I don’t know if it’s safe for her to come back yet, I am still weak and afraid. I’ve forgotten how to be kind to myself. I recognize what needs to be done, I’m just not sure how to do it.

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