Wanna be good at something. Or at least good for something.

[Shadowrider]

I am ashamed of being so worthless and having not achieved anything else than being pro at showing self-dangerous behaviour practically every day.

I know it's very important to have something to be good at, but this self-hatred makes it impossible to concentrate on anything else than being furiously enraged and insanely angry with myself. For what I am. I think I have committed a serie of hate crime against myself - and this does not exactly make it easier to achieve anything. All my plans and ambitions are... just plans. I don't like it this way b/c it makes me even more suicidal.

Does anyone experience something like this?

How do you deal with self-hatred?

How do you cope with this "I don't deserve it, it does not even worth the try" thing?

How do you cope with the need to prove - and you know you will never prove enough, even if you are already tired and exhausted?

 

[Red]

I hate to answer a question with a question but the one that plagues me after reading this is "why do you expect so much from yourself?"

I ask this because many of us who feel this way turn out to have internalised things that really aren't our fault; some have been constantly criticised by friends and family members over the course of years, or have gotten entrenched in a toxic workplace. It can sometimes feel that we are not living up to others' expectations of us and eventually we feel displeasure with ourselves as the others did.

Ultimately though, wherever it comes from, the best advice I have for you is to be kind to yourself! Are you one of these who is never endingly patient and kind to others but treat yourself like crap, or do you not suffer fools gladly? If it's the former then applying the leeway and tolerance you give and show to others toward yourself! If it's the latter then maybe a little extra kindness all round is needed?

We all have failed dreams and ambitions and many of us feel like failures, especially those of us who have found ourselves here. It's not particularly uncommon to miss the projections we set out for ourselves. But there are many measures of success, and although you feel that you haven't achieved much in this life, there might be things you're not considering…

If life has been a struggle, think of all you've overcome. If you feel you've wasted time, it could just be the kick up the butt you need to get a move on. If you feel that you're not good at anything you try, you may not have found your speciality yet - you can still keep trying different things until you do.

You've probably grown and progressed in many ways but are so hard on yourself that you refuse to see them - if you're this prone to introspection then you must surely have been tweaking your personality and traits for years, getting better at things here and there as you learn from your mistakes and evolve, how ever subtly, over time.

This is what I do when I feel like I'm not progressing in my life: write down 5 things that you are better at now compared to, say, 5 years ago. 10 if you like. It can be anything; from being more patient with slow people at the supermarket, to eating less sugar or quitting smoking or being able to cook something you couldn't before. Anything.

When the big wins aren't coming, it's all about the small wins. They're what keep me going. The last 5 years has gotten worse for me in many ways; I was working and have since been unable to, I'm involuntarily less mobile than then, and I often feel useless these days when I was an active and productive member of my household before. But in that time, I've become more tolerant of others' disabilities, and more understanding people with chronic illness. I've become kinder and more patient in general, and am more likely to help others in need than I perhaps was before with my busy life. I spend more time listening to other people talking about their lives and put more effort into making family meals and tending the garden (leading to much satisfaction in a job well done!).

I hope it works for you too! It's this that gives me the courage to try stuff that leads to bigger achievements; taking confidence from those little improvements to make the big ones. I AM capable, despite all these setbacks, there IS forward momentum, no matter how small.

Don't expect too much from yourself!

 

[timf]

You might consider working on a skill that is more practical than life defining. A potter once said (talking about his artistry) that if you do something 20 to 30 thousand times, you get pretty good at it. You might consider undertaking something with the expectation that it will take 20-30k times to get good.

Parallel to undertaking a skill building program, you may wish to visit the reflexive self attacking. You may have come to have some mechanism that derives produces pleasure from such actions. Trying to unravel this mechanism may run into difficulty if it threatens that which gives a payoff.

One way to attempt to rewire a reflex is to run thought through a truth filter. For example if you have a thought reflex that says, "I'm no good", you can examine it and ask, "no good at what". By attempting to define and categorize, one can diffuse the intensity of such thoughts.

One can imagine thousands of categories such as whistling, social banter, story telling, swimming, knowledge of the Crimean War, holding your breath, parallel parking, etc. By the time one attempts to measure exactly how "good" you are in each category almost anyone will have lost interest.

Most of us settle for a "personal best" in a particular category. For example, I am not a great speller. I have seen the kids who prepare to be the best in spelling and I do not wish to put that muich effort into making my spelling better. However, there are some words that used to give me a lot of trouble that over the years I have gotten better at remembering. On the grand scale it is not much, but I can get a small amount of satisfaction that I have had some improvement.

You can also question the very concept of "deserve". The word implies a sort of debt or right. Any people on the island of Krakatoa in August of 1883 probably didn't "deserve" to have their entire island explode, but things happen. As long as you are alive, it might make sense to optimize things so that you grow in understanding and discover ways for enjoyment and satisfaction.

If the limits you experience derive from parental expectations, you might work to supersede those mechanisms with ones of your own creation.

 

[CFLoser]

I felt this a lot when I was younger, and even up until I was 20 (which was last year).

We all know that the feelings of self-hatred, feeling like you don't deserve it, combined with the aching desire to prove yourself is a really bad combo. Really all of these are bad on their own but together it's very bad.

However, I think the only thing you can do is continue to work at whatever you want to be good at (only one thing) consistently. You are going to fail and fuck up a lot, but as long as you keep getting back on the horse eventually you will improve. Not only at whatever you want to be good at, but all the negative feelings surrounding getting good at something.

Is really all I can say. I felt really similar to you trying to learn languages, getting incredibly jealous over anyone I perceived better than me, constantly taking long breaks and not improving. But the more time you spend building up that improvement lifetime the more the feelings go away. In fact I'd even say the constant fuck ups (in terms of not improving) directly contribute to getting over that issue.

Obviously it sucks to constantly fail or be lazy for whatever reason, but the flip side is actually incredibly positive as you start to build up a resistance to the shitty feelings around being good at something, and self worth.

 

[Shadowrider]

Thank you for everyone! Trying to take your great and sensible answers into consideration, just this goddamned weather is too warm and I think most parts of my brain has evaporated.

 

[Flippy]

What would you like to be good at Shadowrider? Is there anything at all you've pictured yourself doing, even in your wildest dreams where you felt if you could do that, you would feel fulfilled and happy with who you are and with life? It doesn't have to be super ambitious :-)