Oh.

I thought maybe it was a useful coping skill. I mean, if I *am* saying "IHY IHY IHY" in my mind, as a mantra, I think I *do* need to not have that show on my face.

I've already tried the route of telling him. Didn't work. Now I don't wanna walk around with a snarl on my face every time I look at him.

As a somewhat related skill, it seems some folks have this ability to smile and appear quite nice and pleasant, all the while telling you something you don't want to hear.

Jayne, try smiling and BENDING OVER. Say; "Go ahead and $#%# me AGAIN!!!!!!"

Jayne,

Is IHY "I hate you"?

If so, that mantra would be a repetitive lie, IMO.

You don't hate him. You hate what he didn't do.

And if that isn't correct, then you hate yourself...for what you didn't do, either.

Could be I'm in acronymic distress. Could be like an Alana Morrisette "IHEE" you mean, instead.

LA

lol to Bubbles and LA!

LA, you are correct in what IHY means. I think it is a sign of how extremely caring and loving you are, that it took you so long to figure out what FYB meant.

These new acrynoms going to be added to 'The List'?

lol, Lil...

good one.

Jayners...I'm no more caring and loving than you are...

When I promised myself (first, to keep my own darn promises) to get rid of the DJs, that included name-calling...because that's not allowed in my code...not at others and not at myself.

I had the IHY mantra in my head for most of my life...I love myself more for freeing myself from it...I experience my love so much more.

And here I am, wanting that for you, too. 'Cuz I love you.

LA

LA
I have failed at changing me. And will continue to fail. Until my desire for change outweighs my fear of change.

I understand that God is providing for me. He is giving me ED. So I stop wanting sex. Stop pressuring my wife for sex. So maybe I can focus on something else besides sex. We shall see.

And I realize I only say FYB inside my head to distract myself from my real thought. Which is IHM. And please do not condescend to tell me that is a lie.

Some day, I may choose to forgive myself. And then perhaps IHM will not be true. But for now. It is.

:-(

I remember the expression I used to say to myself over and over again in my head, "My life is being run by idiots!" Not even realizing that it was for me to Mind My Own Business, to run my own life, and competently at that. Like Stella switching jobs to one she wanted. Good thing we get do-overs!

Hold, I don't know if I have ever posted to you before. I don't have great vastness of wisdom or anything. But I do feel for you. I have fits and spurts of your same feelings at times, or lack of feeling. I'd give you some of my lithium, but I need it

Like I said, I don't have any great comments that you haven't already heard from these people. I just envy your ability to be so honest sometimes. No, my life isn't like yours at this time, but there was a time I thought it was. And I actively tried to give up, not care, so it would quit hurting. I couldn't do it -- the eternal optimist, or more likely just stubborn. Now the areas of my life where I feel like you are not marriage. But I know that it still hurts, so I know you hurt, even if you don't feel it right now.

Anyway, that's enough rambling. I just wanted you to know I care.

Hold,

I hear you are hurt when I say I see you lie to yourself and that you don't want me saying that again.

It was figuring out all my lies to myself which enabled me to change...freed me to change my actions, my choices, form my code.

I'm limited to the only way I know.

And the lie is that you failed to change your choices today. That's it. Truly, that is reality. Today is all we have as humans...and no matter how broken, bad or unacceptable you view yourself...I believe we still agree you're human.

When we fail to choose differently, we can experience our lives as consistent failure. Becomes our comfort zone, where we achieve success by failing. You know this. You're choosing your perspective for a reason...please share your intent on continuing to make the same choices, "will continue to fail"...

Do you truly "I hate myself" or do you "I hate my choices"?

IHMC...sounds like a military branch to me.

Btw, I caught myself reactive yesterday at work...and discovered I am still keeping score when I believed I'd laid it down...put it away. Resentment is like a pulse to me. Does that mean I failed? Or failed yesterday to act and not react?

I owned my part and amended. Good to know, though I have definitely changed my choices (hence, changed per your post), I can still make old ones again, even when that's not my intent.

Minding my own business through you, Hold. Just like so many others here at MB, still in your corner, even if at times you may see it as being in the ring with me, instead.



LA

My intention? To continue to make bad choices to punish myself for my past bad choices. To live with my mental illness, rather than to seek a cure. After all, I think we can agree I must have a mental illness if my intention is to spend the rest of my life punishing myself for being a nerd.

Do I hate me, or hate my choices? I think I truly hate me. I am so ashamed of who I am. Not just the choices. I hate my body. Even though I have been blessed (so far) with relatively good health and functionality my entire life. I focus on what I lack rather than what I have been blessed with. I hate that I am short. I hate that my son is short in large part because of the genes he inherited from me. I hate my face. I hate my private parts. I am a walking bundle of hate. Sometimes I wonder how I even get out of bed in the morning. Then I realize that I get out of bed to go to a job I dislike to punish myself further.

I hate how much I hate myself. I hate that I am not prepared to do anything to change that. And I hate that I am so afraid that I prefer to live in misery rather than doing something to work toward happiness.

Do I hate me? Yes, I honestly believe that I do.

I believe you, Hold.

Except for hating how much you hate yourself.

I'm guessing you love hating yourself and believe that you're only hurting yourself with your self-hatred.

Do you think hating/punishment is a motivation tool gone awry?

I don't think your habit of hate is a mental illness. I think it's a habit of perspective, as you said, that you've had your whole life.

And the accompanying depression seems reasonable, as well.

I think you nailed it, too, that your hate comes from fear (which you hate, too).

And I have this undying belief in me that you, too, will change in the future, the fruits of your hate are fully visible to you, around you...when you see your children with the same habit of hate for themselves...which shocked me to see it so plainly during crisis in my sons. And they have it, too, Hold. Breaks my heart I passed that on...even though I stopped five years ago.

Seeing just how much my self-hate harmed those I deeply loved (under all my hard-crusted resentment)...and realizing I wanted them to NOT self-hate, to love themselves, even as I loved them...was what did it for me. It hasn't for you, yet.

I believe it will. Now, having shared that with you, I can better grasped how much God needs us to love ourselves, even as he loves us...to do otherwise breaks our relationship, impedes and does harm to it, with him.

Takes a lot of energy to punish yourself, your marriage, your wife...especially when being a nerd is no crime...no transgression. Of course, I prefer being a Geek, myself.

And I look forward to when you change your choice to hate habitually...when you know forgiveness for the unforgivable...

Until then, you know you're loved, anyway.

LA

Hold -

I'm just another faceless bunch of type on the 'net, but I want to offer something to you because whether you believe it or not right now, you deserve better from yourself. Take a chance on this, it's just a book. Go find a copy of The Feeling Good Handbook by David Burns -- Half Price Books (if they're in your area) usually has a copy.

Don't just *read* it. Work through it, one section at a time, and *do* the assignments.

You don't have anything to lose except the pain, and the power of your victimhood. Trust me, it's *much* better on this side of things.

TAC

Last night D12 and I went over her science test. She got a 53. Had a 91 average before the test. So this will haunt her all year (or at least all marking period, not sure how that works).

She was careless. Also, she has a hard time dealing with (i) keeping decimal places and orders of magnitude clear in her head (ii) converting dry volume measures to liquid volume measures, and (iii) arithmetic. Especially the latter, since her "granola" elementary school program was very good at building self esteem and OK at teaching reading and writing but completely ignored memorizing the multiplication tables. So she doesn't immediately recognize that 16, 25 and 36 are "perfect squares". Or that 20 * 30 is 600 because 2 * 3 = 6 and you add 2 zeroes.

We spent hours focusing on always converting dry volume to cc or liquid volume to ml (since 1 cc = 1 ml), and then moving the decimal place as required to express the answer in whatever units were requested.

Afterward she was so proud of herself. And so happy to have spent the evening with dad. Even doing science homework. AT the end I got a thank you hug. I know I must rate if she enjoyed doing her science homework! I am loved.

And I am getting what I signed up for.

Hi, Hold. We've only corresponded a couple of times, but, I follow your sitch regularly. Just wanted to throw out a couple of ramblings.

I've seen you frequently state how much you hate yourself and for how long. I just have to ask: Why?

It seems to me you're a pretty decent guy. You certainly love your family. You work hard in a vocation where you're unhappy in order to provide for your household. I would say you're loyal to the point of your own detriment. You're not malicious, vengeant, or mean. You practice faith. You have great perseverance.

Personally, I believe you'd rather hurt yourself than hurt someone else. You actually care about others that much. At the very least, you maintain a pleasant demeanor because you don't want to manifest your unhappiness on those who are not the cause of it.

So, I've a notion that all this self-hate you carry is from:

1. Feeling guilty or ashamed that you're angry at someone who you believe you shouldn't have anger for.

2. Having anger that you know is reasonable, but you believe, either from experience or intuition, that expressing it dangerous.

3. Fear that if you start expressing your anger, you'll lose control and it will come out as an uncontrolled torrent, possibly with grave consequences.

Does any of that ring true?

One of my favorite sayings is:
"The definition of stress is having to restrain oneself from beating the crap out of someone who desperately deserves it."

I'm not saying we should go out and start pounding on people. But I am saying that chronically, acutely suppressing our feelings is detrimental to the point of being unhealthy.

I've lived these experiences and still do; I would bet you are, too.

Maybe we shouldn't be asking how to change ourselves, and we know better than to ask how to change others. Maybe the real questions should be:

1. How do we make peace with being angry at those we don't want to be angry with?

2. How can we properly express anger in situations where we believe it is dangerous to do so?

3. How can we express our anger and still maintain control of ourselves and our emotions?

If I can learn the answer to those questions, my life will improve by orders of magnitude. I'd bet yours would, too, Hold.

'Reckon that's about enough out of me for now.

COTF
Yes! Yes! Yes! That is it exactly! Excellent questions.

When you find the answers, please drop me a line.

Shabbat Shalom, Hold!

Shabbat Shalom Mark.

Musical service tonight at our synagogue. Tomorrow night is bingo night. Should have a chance to be surrounded by warm feelings IRL.

Hope everyone has a healthy and fulfilling weekend.

1. I believe that this behavior roots from childhood. Perhaps he was feeling angry at someone and was made to feel bad about it.

But a child will create coping mechanism and behavior that shapes toward putting toxic shame on himself when he feels that anger, and suppresses that feeling so that he will be likable and lovable.

This coping mechanism prevails throughout his life because he does not know better, nor realize that "feeling angry" is ok, and he has a right to feel anything he wants. That is far different from the "actions" he does when he is feeling angry.

2. The second point pretty much supports that the learned coping mechanism. A child would not know the difference of feeling, expressing feeling, versus acting towards that feeling. An adult would.

3. I think that fear of losing control is a false belief. I think deeper in his psyche, if he expressed his anger, he is thinking that will make him a person not worthy of love and care. I think that psyche is of the child and that fears still lingers despite that fact that the adult logic can assess how he can control himself and not let his emotions run wild just by expressing he is angry.




1. How? By believing that you as a human have the right to "feel" what you are feeling. Feelings come and go. You can feel happy, or sad. And you can certainly feel mad.

Just look at the pre-school TV show "Ni Hao Kailan." My D4 asks, "Daddy are you happy, sad or mad?" It is ok to feel these.

2. The trepidation of losing control is a concern. That's why there is anger management specialists. But this fear should not be the inhibitor of expressing anger. Expressing anger can be done in productive ways. Saying it without really expecting a respond works. Yelling inside a car works. If you need further physical exertion, there's a gym.