Being mean to yourself can feel, paradoxically, *protective*.
If you preemptively hurt yourself, you are the one in control of the pain. Exposure to others, and the potential of them hurting you, starts feeling less vulnerable; how bad can they be, when you’re already your own worst enemy? You steal their weapons and stab yourself with them: you are equally wounded as you would have been had these others turned on you, but at least it happened on your own terms. The uncertainty is gone. If you assume you will be hurt either way, that can seem like a good deal.
A wound you make yourself cannot be healed by others.
No matter how many times people will compliment you, no matter what you get or win, no matter how many friends or fans or attention or acclaim you gain… That wound is a void that cannot be filled by external validation. You’ll find that there is no compliment you don’t know how to counter or devalue, whether out loud or inside your head.
And the hunger that creates in the end, that need for something, anything, anyone, to say or do the thing that will silence that cruel voice inside and make the pain go away, is the most insidious thing.
Because the only person who can stop stabbing you is you.
Not being mean to yourself means, learning to face the inherent uncertainty and vulnerability of actually connecting with others. It means, relinquishing control over the experience of being known.
It’s not fun. Being nice to yourself? Hell, it actually fucking sucks. Even just… not being actively mean. You will think a thousand times that wallowing in self-deprecation could never be this discomforting, and you would be right. Relinquishing control is hard. Rejecting being cruel to yourself feels like going shopping in your undies. It feels like leaving your front door wide open. It feels embarrassing and exposed and unsafe. It’s really discomforting.
The first time someone says a nice thing, and it just feels good?
The first time you make or do something, and you just feel proud?
I know it sounds stupid, and shit, do I feel like the human brain is a cruel scam for working in this way?
But try it. It really is worth it.