xdude wrote:Hey vertices,
I think most people who are reasonably mentally well are also unaware that they have a general sense of well-being, maybe even self-talk at an on-going level, except that their persistent inner monologue has a positive spin, and if anything we might even say that's a positive way to live. They might not even be aware of their own inner monologue, but why would they be, they feel generally good about themselves.
I suppose it's hard to imagine what it's like if those self-talk messages are mostly negative, and have gone on for as long as one remembers.
As much as it would be nice to say a few encouraging words and poof, the negative messages would be gone, it just doesn't work. A few positives now may be highly appreciated, but it doesn't change that if someone's core sense of self is damaged, that doesn't go away. It can be covered up for a time, distractions, moments of feeling good, etc., but it's still there.
Being truly loved helps, but the worry there is that we will sabotage it. I think many of us still need help to essentially start over. Tough to do and probably even then someone with a cluster B personality is always going to have a perspective that is different than someone who had a relatively normal, positive, upbringing.
Well, also our definitions of love are distorted so kind words don't even feel like a loving thing. Anyone with a PD has been trained to keep attempting to meet certain conditions that feel like love, but then it's about those conditions and not about the real people with real feelings, and the conditions are temporary so we are constantly patching up a sinking ship.
Yes we will sabotage true love because we either don't recognize it or it doesn't even feel like love. After all, people are not psychic, feelings have to get communicated somehow, whether thru words or actions, or they just don't amount to anything. So idk if it's that we need a LOT of affirmation that we are loved, but, we need the right kinds of affirmation.
I actually see it in terms of our energy, which is kind of like supply. Until we become healthy and interdependent we are constantly asking people to give us their energy somehow, but we spend more energy asking than we get back when it works. If we learn to believe that we don't have to modify our behavior to get people's energy, then we will start to feel loved for traits of ourselves instead of specific conditions that our whole self once existed in.
I guess the most disappointing thing about being truly loved is understanding that nobody is loved by one other person for 100% of who and what they are. That is the kind of love we can never make up for. But, I guess that between lots of different people, all or most of our different traits can be loved.
Not gonna lie, I still dream of and yearn for that 100% love though. Like, someone so perfect for me that we were just born to love each other. But, probably the best we can ever hope for is like, an 80% true love, which is much more reliable than a 100% imaginary one.
Uh, I hope that makes sense.. lol. I also still don't totally know what I'm saying because IDK what my self is truly like yet. It definitely is hard when you have a PD and you're used to defining yourself by things that aren't really about who you are, it takes a lot of time and hard work to let go of those things and just see your boring, plain old human self beneath it all.