the stupidest thing about mental illness is the short half life of reassurances. like yes I know you reminded me yesterday that I'm not secretly toxic waste that everybody wants rid of but that was like 18 hours ago and I forgor
I was talking with my therapist about this post this morning, and she helped me realize that just seeing this post is helping me manage this unwanted thought pattern.
When I think back to my youth, and about how the group I hung out with as a teenager felt to me like they mostly kept me around as the butt of the joke, as someone to make fun of, it's easy for me to assume that that formative social interaction a) actually happened the way I remember it, and b) provided an experiential basis for a belief that I'm "secretly toxic waste that everybody wants rid of".
But seeing this post -- and seeing that tens of thousands of people have agreed with the sentiment -- has led me to the realization (which my therapist agrees with) that this is just a common thought pattern among people with social trauma. And if it's a common post-traumatic thought pattern, then I don't have to accept that it's true; it is extremely unlikely that we are all secretly toxic waste and that nobody really wants us around (in fact, it's far more likely that that's not true of any of us). And that gives me grounds* to look twice at that thought pattern and discard it when it comes up.
* It doesn't always work, but at least now I have a better chance.
