Oh yes, I've definitely been there with this one, especially if I make a mistake related to lack of sight. If I walk into an object, I really castigate myself, and think I'm positively disgustig, even when I know rationally it was not the least my fault.

though sight based mistakes are probably the worst, it can happen with anything from cooking to singing to forgetting something quite innocuous.

I know just where this is from, indeed i'm not certain whether it was the verbal abuse at secondary school, being told day after day to my face that I was a deseased fucking bastard (though it got to the point where I actually welcomed the verbal abuse sinse verbal abuse was better than anything else that people could've been doing) , or my previous experiences at boarding school where I was told to my face that I was a criminal and would go to prison, even for something as simple as not brushing my teeth when the bell rang.

However, like dusty I've found that recognizing the source of tfeelings hose really helped. I now tend to view myself as my own worst critic and try to give no weight to those opinions. I don't always succeed at this, but understanding that where anything about me is concerned I'm my own most biased, unreasonable and unfair judge has helped, sinse slowly I can learn to separate those judgements from what is rational, though like everything it's not been an easy process, and I still have relapses, however I'm not going to give up, sinse damit those judgements are! wrong.

Yep, me too. The tiniest thing can send me into the shame/rage cycle.

Guys,
Wow, what a great topic.
Dealing with shame is very hard for me as well, I tend to think of it as "toxic shame" and compare it to radioactive waste that is "obviously" bad. I don't know ANY CSA survivors who don't have difficulty and trouble dealing with self esteem.

As a group we all have sustained tremendous injury to our "selves" in addition to the things we can point to like scars and physical trauma. Our damage of this type manifests itself in several ways, notable common themes include SHAME based value systems, worthlessness of self, debilitating self esteem, and in pronounced cases, a martydom-like victim role that pervades many attempts to change or improve.

Dealing with all these manifestations and symptoms of "low self esteem" is clearly related to the feelings and thoughts the Survivor is thinking and feeling. Feelings are caused by thoughts, an effort to maintain equilibrium in the face of negative thought can result in significant change. Dealing wih the facts instead of the feelings is also a technique that results in change. I compare and evaluate the thoughts that I have BEFORE I take action...I usually make a phone call and attempt to call my sponsor, or someone else I trust before I allow my "downward spiral" to continue. Usually It involves confronting my thoughts and identifying truth or at least untruth. The process begins with knowing that A) my thoughts affect me negatively, B) that I tend to "react" rather than "respond" which is always a normal response times ten or more. I then usually justify my reactions by trying to "overstate" the other person's actions.

This is all sort of mechanical for me, because if I let my feelings get involved then I open the door to taking things personally and justifying my behaviors to others rather than trying to change. I have to develop awareness of my thoughts and discount them so that I don't allow myself to act on them especially in ways that I find self destructive/defeating.

I tend to do this about lots of things but here are some recent examples.

1) a friend and I talk on the phone and she is in crisis with a situation. I call her for the next few days with no answer. After 8 days I leave a message that says, "Hey, it's XXXXX, I have been worried, call me back.....IF we are still friends.."

2) My sponsor, upon me telling him that I realize I have been beating myself up for recent stop smoking weight gain tells me to "put down the fork" among many other observations comments. I take immediate and personal offence and justify holding a resentment against him for being uncaring or treating me badly.

3) My spouse, who calls me, leaves a message, and doesn't answer when I return the call because he is on the phone. I "think" I am supposed to be important enough to get his attention and therefore I am wounded that I didn't. Immediately I call into question the "validity" of my worth in the relationship and "think" thoughts tha are untrue or "jump to conclusions".


As Robbie said in the first post, "I still "over-react" to being wrong, making a mistake, offending someone, over-stepping..anything like that".

The other side of that coin is that we demand the same behavior of others we implaccably demand from our own selves using the same skewed value system. By our overaction, we are imposing control on others through manipulation. We attempt to control them by instructing them on manuvering through our self made minefield of feelings and obstacles.

"The all walk on eggshells around XXXXX because he is so easily hurt".

Just my thoughts...."take what you like and leave the rest".

Geoff

I do beat myself up for very small things. No matter what I do there is reason to suspect that I did it wrong in some way. It's just a matter of finding where I made the mistake. That's what my focus is on, and that's what I find. It fits with what I believe about myself to think that I can't do anything right. I'm glad that we're able to talk about these things here. I'm glad we are able to share these things we each other. Although these aren't things to be proud of we seem to be able to relate to them. Maybe that helps.

hmmm ... for me it's more a matter of seeing a perceived mistake. Whether or not one was made - if I think it was made ... that's enough to start the internal shredding.

and yeah - I always perceive mistakes in what I do, especially if I'm doing something for someone.

I think this is called counter-projection. It's a tough one for us.

I haven't found any therapist who knows how to deal with this. Even the T's seem to fall into the trap.

Puffer

I have this problem, too. I never connected it to self-worth, but rather with emotional dysregulation.

Like something that happened to us made it impossible for us to gauge how much emotion to use in a given situation. So, we bottle it up and use no emotion or uncork it and it goes to 100%. No in-between.

Maybe emotional regulation is connected to self-worth? I don't know. I just know that I don't trust my emotions until someone else confirms or corrects me.

Cant