Being yourself

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I reckon that 'being yourself' - after much self-searching and with an awareness of how you affect other people - is the only way to be. It's the only way to be that I think I can do whilst having a shot at something approximating happiness.

However, I still get niggling doubts all the time about whether it's really a good thing to be myself. These are more feelings and thoughts. It's like an anxiety. 'I can only be myself, but what if I'm not good enough?' is the best way I can put that feeling into words. Sometimes it gets to the point where I just want to hide for a bit.

Everyone has things about themselves which are positive or at least neutral, but society isn't best pleased about them. Can you ever completely ignore society? I don't think you can. I'm starting to realise that I have this disapproving voice in my head all the time.

What brought this on was that I was thinking about my feelings about gender and how society is supposedly cool with people like me, but I don't feel like it is because I feel embarrassed by myself. I don't really think society understands because it's a bit too complex and society is, after all, a load of people thrown together and forced to live together in relative peace and disharmony. Society doesn't have time for the complexities of the soul (I know the word 'soul' isn't accurate, btw,) - things like love and the more profound aspects of identity.

I don't know if the answer to this psychic tension, which I'm sure everyone has, is to be yourself but with as much love and benevolence as you are capable of. Even if that is the answer, it is much easier said than done. I'm finding it's not simply enough to know myself and self-acceptance doesn't come with a click of the fingers. What do you do about it, fellow forumites?

I have thoughts about this.

Sadly for a lot of people self acceptance comes in the form of peer acceptance. I sure a lot of us here have thought about this and I am intrigued to hear what some of the more elegant speakers have to say. For me its a race between self loathing and the drive to change that motivates me. Not much is given to thought of society's expectations till I go too far to an extreme. As for society "supposedly cool with people like me" as long as you don't take them out of there comfort level, If you do they turn to the primitives they hide in side.

Being yourself doesn't work if you hate yourself. When you're constantly at war with your own instincts and feelings, you present a shell of the 'yourself' people keep telling you to be. And while nobody will call you on it or give it a name (self loathing), everyone will know there's something wrong with you and not want to be around you. Don't judge yourself by other people's standards, just your own.

I think everyone hates themselves in a way, no matter how much they try to cover it up with self-acceptance mantras. The thing is, I'm beginning to doubt total self-acceptance is at all common or even real. Where do you draw the line between an average person's self disgust and actual self hatred? I honestly sometimes wonder if the people who more obviously seem to hate themselves are actually just the deeper souls with more self awareness than average. You do see people who've seem to have gone into themselves and come through the worst of it, but I wonder if these enlightened people still think anti-self things. I reckon they probably do.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't work towards self-acceptance, just that it isn't really ever a finished product and that we shouldn't berate other people for not having enough self-love.

I feel I can only be myself when I am alone. When I am by myself, I don't have to censor myself (actually there are things about myself that I don't like to think of, so even by myself, I may not be completely myself). Anyway, I feel more free to be whatever I am when I am alone. For that reason, I have always resisted relationships. I always feared I would have to give up myself if I wanted to be with another person.

I always wear some kind of mask whenever I am around another person. That mask is usually tailored for the person I am dealing with insofar as I avoid discussing certain subjects, or I express attitudes that have been tweaked to appeal to what I think the other person wants to hear. As I have grown older, I have less need of the masks. I am more "myself" with people than I used to be, although I still hide a lot of who I am.

In regard to self hate, it's odd. I have a lot of it. I find myself cringing frequently at things I have done. I obsess over so many major and minor mistakes I have made. I question the validity of my thoughts and actions and I am frequently self critical about some pretty minor issues. And yet, when I look at myself objectively, sure, I'm not perfect, but I'm certainly no worse than most people. And yet I won't give myself a break. And if anything, this has gotten worse as I get older.

So I am less concerned about what people think of me as I get older, but more self critical and unforgiving of myself.

For me its about the ratio of benefits and misadvantages. Being myself when visiting my partners far-away granny every 4 months, brings me only a small benefit for an afternoon, but tons of misadvantages the next months. So not being myself during those visits, has a better ratio for me. ^^

While when it comes to thing that affect my everyday life, trying to act as another person simply endures me and makes me feel exhausted in general. So the benefits of being myself are bigger, then the general misadvantages. I tried before to fit in as much as I can, but in the end I still was the strange weirdo girl, doing mistakes all the time. So why not accept it the way it is, be a little more weird, and therefore far less exhausted all the time.

I also dont mind that much anymore. Before I felt totally ashamed and it bothered me, if I realized, that people recognized that I am not normal/weird. But now I dont see it as an horrible problem anymore. I dont mind if they recognize me as not normal. Thats no bad thing, and its not hurting anyone. I dont need to be ashamed of that. As well that I live in an country area, so sooner or later people know you. My "bank-assistant" was a bit weirded the first time he met me in "real". So before we always had Email contact, and that the same person writing very professional Email was in "real" social contact, that weird, seemed irritate him at our first meeting, but now hes ok with it. Same with the post guy, or the ladies in the supermarket I normally buy my stuff, ... After contact with me a few times, they know that I may be a bit weird, and specially that I am a moron about facial expression and that stuff, but that I am able to understand "normal". So I have become normal to them, and they dont feel uncommon with me.

When I leave my area, to do visits in capital cities, where I dont know people it affects me much more. So some people "just run their program", others seem to get instantly annoyed of me after exchanging some words, others start talking to me as if I was 8 ... in an friendly or unfriendly way. Or when visiting shops I often instantly have the shop-detective behind me, specially when its about better shops. I avoid shopping as much as possible, and have as well no sense for fashion, but when needing wintershoes, or a bag for working on construction sites, or buying some music CDs from my favorite bands, or look a bit around in computer stores in the games section, I instantly have them sneaking behind me. It gives me the impression, that I seem to wear a big sign on my back "I am disabled. So I cant have the possibility to buy me good new wintershoes, or a damn 13 EUR music CD." My company did one time renew a "delicatesse" marcet, and after my normal big-style measuring visit, there were a few works done from our workers. So I came again, when the market was already opened to visitors. When I left the store again, I was stopped by one of the workers, and accused of having stolen goods. I explained them that I only visited the market for measuring a small section, that was done shortly before they opened, showed them my measuring gears, the market-building plans I had, my company card, also opened freely my working bag to them, showing that there wasnt anything in it. Still the one that stopped me, insisted on me having hidden something, and wanted me to wait for the police. His coworkers, that I think wanted to get rid of the attention this made for the other customers, told him to let go of it, and he did so, but still giving me the feeling, that he was assured, that I would have stolen something. The thing that really depressed me, that the area where I was measuring was a small corner, where only damn noodles were offered. So no 180$ alcohol, or south Italian raw ham meat, or truffles, but silly noodle packages. (Original Italian noodles, but still damn noodles.)

So normally, if I am outside "my area" I dont bother that much for people. So people getting automaticly aggressive or annoyed "when being forced" to have contact with disabled are invited to kiss my backside. People treating me like a kid are ok, as long as they do it that "friendly granny" style, at least they try to behave positive. But from now and then you simply meet really horrible sucker, being convinced that because of your disability, you have to be automatically an bad, unsocial being, that people have to be suspicious about. That are the few days, I cry about being the way I am.

Surely self-hate is born out of not fully understanding oneself, or failing to meet a certain arbitrary expectation?

I am myself around very few people,just family the only friend that I have.
I feel like one of those sea creatures that pulls into a shell but comes out when left alone.

It's born out of internalising the arbitrary expectation even if you do understand yourself. I don't know if anyone can fully understand themselves, either.

I'm thinking that you have to accept that it will always be there on some level, rather than trying to purge it and then feeling worse when you fail.

Especially when you self-analyse, the truth about who you are changes. Truth itself is not a constant.

People who more obviously self-hate may sound quite confident and meaningful when they're describing negative things, but at the same time their negativity shuns them from other truths. They may be "deep" in other words, but not necessarily right. Or they're only aware with the truths that *they* want to see that fits in with their general disapproval of themselves and/or the world.

Last edited by smudge on 16 Oct 2013, 9:58 am, edited 1 time in total.

I'd argue that, if something changes, then it is not a constant - so it cannot be true, in the fullest sense of the word.

The truth changes...

Last edited by smudge on 16 Oct 2013, 9:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

How can it be? If so, it must only be transitory perception. Now, I'm not dismissing this as being useful, but it hardly makes it an absolute.

In my experience your true self is only something you yourself and very few people can accept and love. You aren't going to be fully appreciated and accepted as who you are by most people you come to know and like/love, if at all. It's very likely that even your own lover will want you to change who you are to adapt to many of their personal beliefs or they will love and accept you less.

The side of you that we all see here on WP (dont know if that 'the real you' or not) works for me.

You are very strong, and positive presence here on WP.

Whoever you are being on wrong planet- keep on being that person.