Could you expound on this a little more? I try to do this by arguing with the voices in my head that say negative things, like I try to be optimistic against the negative thoughts, but it never works. It always feels hollow and weak. How the fuck do you love yourself? I'm seriously asking.
if you go look at the recovery section, seems like it's common consensus that "go love yourself" is pretty much BS. that's my stance too. love is interpersonal by default. you try to be your own friend but you're only yourself. I find the "love yourself" shit degrading even, cuz that's just others' excuse to distance themselves from us. to ask us be "self-sufficient" when we're doing all that we can to reach out for help. to get us stfu when we deserve love and caring from another person.
but I also know genuine compassion is almost nowhere to be found, beyond the very few safe spaces we simply don't stay in for every minute of our lives. so, tips on how to feel a bit better:
- someone I knew in HS does this, he keeps a list of nice things others have said to him. words that has touched him, basically. reads them whenever he's god-awfully depressed.
- my own advice, keep a pet if you want to. no one loves you more than your pet. for real. you both need each other's companion and it's very bonding.
- observe your thought pattern. is it possible to trace it back to something or someone? cuz like, you tried counteracting your own thoughts *with* your own mind. or worse, with toxic optimism that simply gets rejected like foreign matter. with the exception of acute psychosis, people rarely just hallucinates negativity in their heads. it likely comes from somewhere. as an internalization of something. some based in the here and now, others an echo from the distant past. analyze it, understand it. sure, it doesn't mean you have "fixed" it or can fix it by now, but you've found a plausible attribution. and that's better than falsely attributing it to yourself.
- last thing I'm gonna say is just acknowledge it. not some "admitting to God your helplessness" BS, but to sit with it, accept it exists. IMO that's the first step to not being so hard on yourself.
