Stop being so hard on myself

I don’t know what it was about last week, if it was a combination of events swirling around my own life or if it was simply the age of the internet reminding me that such things are possible, but I looked up the girl I’ve referred to under this Thing for a while. I sent her a message to make sure it was her, then essentially explained my over-developed sense of guilt before apologizing for my 23 year old transgressions.

She had barely remembered anything and spent most of her response telling me about how happy she is and reminding me that I should stop feeling guilty.

It’s amazing what purging yourself of something you’ve always known you needed to say can do to one’s sense of balance and well-being.

I attribute most of my beating myself up to mild OCD (very mild)...when I am under intense stress, my mind wanders to transgressions I committed before I knew better. However, I didn’t know I do more in the way of self-abuse when under normal circumstances.

I had a lovely breakfast with my Dad before flying back to Boston and his single most significant piece of advice over a long, fantastic conversation was “You’ve got to stop beating yourself up, Lan.” ...what?

I’ve thought about it much more since…and of course he’s right. I do beat myself up and constantly. This whole time, this whole debacle with work, I’ve imagined there must be some reason for it, something I’m doing or not doing or some way I can fix it or at least something I could do to make it better. There’s not. I’ve been unhappy in Boston, lonely, out of place, and blaming only myself for it. I’m in the city I’ve dreamed about, why would I be unhappy? What am I doing wrong? Et cetera.

I’ve been beating myself up this whole time, for all manner of things over which I may or may not have control. Why do I do this? And more importantly, how do I find the balance between letting things lie and taking the important ones into my hands?

Taking a close look at myself as I’ve been able to do with no real job lately, I think I’ve begun to understand that the things I tend to obsess over are the result of a lgegitimate tendency toward something like Obsessive Disorder. I understand that my grandmother was severely and textbook OCD and my Dad has tiny shades of the compulsive side, but as I look at my thoughts and their cycles, I realize that when I’m stressed, unhappy, or severly frustrated, I tend to cycle around the obsessive part of the coin.

It’s not that I can’t forgive myself or that I refuse to or think I’m somehow unworthy. Everyone does things they’re not proud of and yes, I have regrets and yes, I wish I could change them, but the point is, I can’t. And I can’t hate myself for them either.

It’s an ongoing thing and I’m working on it, but I think a small breakthrough in reasoning is definitely a step in the right direction.

I am very, very hard on myself. I berate myself constantly for not understanding how my actions may affect people or for moments in my life where I acted without thinking. I berate myself for things I did at 4 years of age.

I cannot pass off a simple transgression as a simple transgression; instead, I tend to beat myself up for not having more forethought or for not having already understood what I’d need to learn. Essentially, I expect myself to have already learned lessons I’d have no way of learning without first making a mistake.

I screw up. It’s not a surprise. What I need to do, however, is to forgive myself. I need to let go of whatever sick pride holds onto the idea that people are much more deeply affected by my actions than they likely are. I need to realize that the past is ensconced firmly within the past, that I cannot change the things I wish I could and that the person I am now is not the person I was then.

I need to take myself less seriously, to stop being so bloody hard on myself. Of course, I need to live conscientiously and well, but I will screw up. I just need to try to hurt only myself when I do screw up and I need to forgive myself when I do.