Self-loathing
 

I've been dealing with a lot of self-loathing lately because I can't just get things done effortlessly the way I'd like to. I'm trying to say soothing things to myself , but it's hard to believe them. (Since someone is likely to ask, yes, I do deal with depression as well, and I'm sure that's part of the problem right now.)

When you're being really hard on yourself for AD(H)D symptoms, what helps you get through it?

Re: Self-loathing
 

I'm not sure. Ironically, it's probably that I can't seem to sustain even self-loathing for very long without getting bored of it.

Re: Self-loathing
 

I can't explain this too well, but somewhere in my 20s, I thought "Why should I care what other people think? I mean who are they? They are just people." I don't care if it's bank president, a doctor, whatever. It's not that I do not respect other people or their professions, I do. But, inside myself, I saw some good regardless of the difficulties I was having and said, I am valuable, I am a worthwhile human being."

Now, I am past my depressive periods -- lasted from my 20s to my 40s. At times, I would relish the depression because I grieved for all that I had lost, for those who had died, for beauty, for love, for so many things...then, I would hold on until the depression lifted. If I had to sleep more, so be it. I think somewhere in my research I found that tomatoes could help with depression, so I ate alot of tomatoes, had virgin marys, made spagetti....

I guess what I am saying is one--don't be too hard on yourself and two--the depression will pass. (I don't know much about clinical depression, meaning long-lasting depression, I think they are a different animal than periodic depressions.)

Anyway, play music, dance, take a walk, cry, write in your diary....until you can find the sunshine of life.

Re: Self-loathing
 

I hear ya, darlin'! I struggle struggle struggle with self-loathing and thoughts of having failed, of being unloveable etc... One thing I do that can help is I have a "book of positives" that i try to write in a bunch of times a week and fill with nice things others have said or done, or reframes of situations that were really positive. It can help me sometimes to look back over my entries and to remember, that i couldn't be that bad if these things are true.

Re: Self-loathing
 

nothing seems to help, other than finally getting **** done :o and since my main problem is I can't ever get my **** done you can imagine I self loathe quite a bit. Lemmie know if you figure something out, b/c I'd love to not do that!! :cool:

Re: Self-loathing
 

I try to think of reasons that my negative thinking is incorrect or inaccurate.

Minimizing problems helps, too.

"I always mess things up!" -------> "Sometimes I make mistakes. This can be fixed."

"I'm never social enough" ----------> "I'm not a social butterfly, but people appreciate me once they get to know me"

Re: Self-loathing
 

I'd ask yourself, would I hate a friend for being a way they can't help and didn't choose to be? Of course you wouldn't - and you are entitled to the same leniency as a friend would be.

Re: Self-loathing
 

What spunkysmum said is so true. When i feel really bad about myself, i have learnt to start treating myself like i was someone else. Hard to explain- i kinda just ask myself what i do if i was looking after someone else with whatever problems im having, and do those things.
Eg. When i fight with my bf i think what id do for a friend is make them a cup of tea and get them to have a nice hot shower, so i make myself a tea and have a shower while its brewing. It helps a lot, because when you feel crap about urself its hard to be kind to urself.
Hope this helps- im in the same boat atm, which is why i really must go now and sort some things out to prevent myself from losing hope and being sad later, lol.
hope you feel better soon!

xxBB

Re: Self-loathing
 

I do/think many things:

1. If I can't do it now I'll come back to it later. When it comes to writing if I feel a fog in my head, even on pills it's a no no for writing heavily descriptive chapters. But I'm usually capable of reading, playing games (though this is reserved for the late afternoon when my pills are about to wear off), or house chores, shopping.

2. Sometimes I think it's good to suffer because that will help me as a writer. I have this notion that people aren't interested in reading something by an author who has this perfect life of everything always working out for them. I don't think any human being is like that but with me I pick up in an author's writing what made them write about certain things. It's all the crap I've ever been through that adds to my layers of writing.

3. Write my feelings down as poems. This is new. Or write a blog to off load some thoughts.

4. Escape into my interests. Books/TV/video games/internet/exercise

5. Last resort: hang out with people to forget about my worries.

6. This is actually higher up on the list: prayer. Really when I get stressed out I pray (that's the condensed version I give to non-Christians - the Christian version is 2000 pages long and full of many emotional words and words hardly used such as 'ye' or 'thou' or 'iniquity.' I have the King's James version o'right?)

7. Get distracted involuntarily (which has happened about 10 times in writing this).

When I get stressed I try to take on my problems one step at a time. After screaming like a banshee.

Oh yes, self loathing. Well, I have a lot of self loathing when I'm not doing anything, like if I just play video games all day. And self loathing turns into frustration of not being able to do those things and so I do the above.

And sometimes I just go into hyper child mode.

Re: Self-loathing
 

Starry, I can so relate. I've gone through years of self loathing and still do.

Like K Funk said, the thing that helps the most is to act like a person that I can like. However, I don't think that's the healthiest or most reliable way of dealing with it. We should be able to appreciate and respect ourselves irrespective of our achievements. Besides, considering that I rarely act the way I want to, it just sets me up for more negative self talk.

Since suspecting that I've got ADHD, I've actually started being slightly easier than myself. I try to tell myself that I'm doing the best I can. It doesn't always work but at least it shifts the problem from a moral/ethical one to a clinical one.

It's difficult to completely turn off the negative self talk but try not to think about yourself in extremes. For example, I keep telling myself that I'm absolutely useless, brainless, nasty through and through, a pimple on the face of the earth, etc. But that's not accurate. Instead I could tell myself: "Well, I'm not pleased with myself because I forgot to post that letter." This could help because by qualifying your statement you are not making the jump from forgetting one thing (or ten) to being a completely useless person. Does that make any sense? Also, it might help in figuring out what exactly it is that you dislike about yourself

Re: Self-loathing
 

Egomania works for me.

Re: Self-loathing
 

For me, I just have to find the weakest link in the cycle that I can find and step on it there.
Like it is a chain in a circle spinning around. When it stops moving it collapses under gravity. I noticed early on that it takes a lot of energy to feel bad for myself. That lead me to realize I would constantly dig up things to grieve over more to keep that chain spinning and spinning.

Like getting up in the morning when I don't want to I don't have to convince myself to get my whole body out of bed, I just twitch a toe or a finger and let every other part of my body collapse under the gravity of reason. That I have to get up & go to work and school. Smallest link to the biggest, toe to foot to leg, to a wide swing of my belly and hips until I'm sitting up right and shaving. Ok, I don't actually shave, I do that at night.

But anyway, step on the link, take one step forward (normally with me it is just going to the gym or getting started on something I'm procrastinating about) and I don't look back.