every post i see that's like "if you're scared of being like [bad person] that's means you're better than them and won't be like them" and it's like. lmao. my dad used to have crying sessions where he would confess his fear of being like his mother and causing me to grow up to hate him. usually after he did something fucking awful, to redirect the attention to his own pain. the girl who sexually assaulted me had panic attacks sometimes about the idea of maybe being a rapist, making it impossible to set sexual boundaries with her without her freaking out. whether you're afraid of being some kind of bad person has basically no bearing on whether you are that way
LITERALLY ANXIETY ISN'T AN INHERENTLY MORAL SOURCE OF SELF-CRITICISM. BEING AFRAID THAT YOU ARE BAD DOES NOT MAKE YOU GOOD IT JUST MAKES YOU ANXIOUS!!!
#as a person with anxiety I find anxiety is often counterproductive to self-reflection#because you’re too busy spiraling over Bad Thing You Did to actually do anything about it#you need to break that tunnel vision in order to actually make the change#i don’t like to sit with my anxieties for that reason#sitting there feeling guilty over what I did doesn’t do any good#it just made me and anyone I hurt feel worse#striving for actual change and making amends is the best way forward#but you have to break the doom spiral in order to be clearheaded enough to do that#sa tw
literally you get it.
