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I received an award at work but for some reason I hate myself

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Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 16 total)
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  • #147273
    Rebecca
    Participant

    So I received this awesome award at work yesterday.. I was completely surprised, and my boss sneaked around and arranged my whole family to show up at the ceremony. I was shocked! Mostly because it was a surprise but also because deep down I don’t feel like I deserve it. Rationally, I know that it’s a good thing that I received this award, but deep down I hate myself for getting it. I think it is because I am in the spotlight now, and I’m thinking about all the people who are judging me, and I’m making stuff up about what people are thinking… I think there’s a part of me that beats myself up first before anyone can potentially get to me. I think it stems from getting bullied so much as a kid and teenager. I am not really sure, but this is really confusing for me. I want to be happy I received an award but I’m not. If anyone has any advice on how to deal with these feelings I would greatly appreciate it.

    #147275
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Rebecca:

    I agree with you, that you being in the spotlight when receiving the award, is the reason for your distress: your “inner critic”, projected into other people, is bullying you, coming up with all the reasons why your reward needs to be “balanced” with some heavy duty bullying.

    I am very familiar with that inner critic which I also call inner bully. It has rained on my parade many a time. To heal from it, which I am in the process of, it takes, I believe, confronting the real bullies in your life, the one or ones who … sort of, gave birth to your inner bully. It starts there.

    You wrote in previous posts that you were bullied as a kid and teenager: was it by peers in school- or was there bullying at home as well?

    anita

    #147281
    Rebecca
    Participant

    It was mostly from peers in school. It’s funny you bring up confronting them. There was a guy who tormented me in middle school and recently he asked to be my friend on Facebook and sent me a message saying hey how are you? Does he not remember how awful he was to me??? And I guess my mom has always been really critical of me but I feel like I have let that go.. What’s kind of getting to me is that I know of a few people that don’t like me who no doubtedly believe I didn’t deserve the award.. At least I’m assuming that is what they are thinking, because I know they don’t like me…

     

    #147303
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Rebecca:

    I think everyone likes to be liked and no one wants to be disliked. For many, being disliked is not only unpleasant but threatening. It feels dangerous. I think it is so because in the past, having been disliked involved with having been bullied/ abused. This is why I think it is important to confront past bullies/ abusers somehow, in some form.

    If you stood up to that person on Facebook, the one who bullied you in Middle School by responding to his message with: Do you not remember how awful you were to me??? How you bullied me (and you can give him an example)? Then wait for an answer.

    It can help some, standing up to past aggressors. That may very well make you feel stronger and so, less scared of being disliked.

    How was your mother critical of you, if I may ask, and how did you manage to let it go?

    anita

     

    #147315
    Rebecca
    Participant

    Thanks, Anita.

    Well, my mom has always been critical of my weight and appearance. She was also critical of my grades in school and just my personality in general. She has something negative to say about everything I do. She had a bad divorce with my dad so I feel like all she sees in me is my dad so therefore she holds some kind of grudge against me. She wants me to be just like her but I cannot because I am my own person, and she cannot understand that.

    I am not mad at her.. I know she suffered through things/trauma with her own parents and I feel a lot of empathy for her. I know her neurosis is a result of being hurt, and I feel sympathy for her. I know she is not happy with herself and that is why she criticizes others. All that being said, I really have to distance myself from her sometimes. I have let go of trying to win her approval. I see her as a very hurt person who cannot let her past go, and has not learned self love and acceptance.. So I just remind myself of that when she is trying to push my buttons.

    #147323
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Rebecca:

    The fact that your mother suffered before she severely criticized you does not make the damage she has caused you any less than if she has not suffered.

    As a matter of fact, people do not harm others unless they suffered before. Who is the person who has had a safe loving childhood, then to proceed to be severely critical of others, harming others…

    This is why reminding yourself that your mother suffered may very well continue to keep down anger toward her, but it doesn’t promote your own well being. Your well being, I believe, is about holding people responsible for what they do and so that you stop holding yourself responsible for what you are not responsible for, and in so doing, you stop hating yourself (in the title of your thread).

    anita

    #147353
    Rebecca
    Participant

    Yes Anita you may be right about my mom. She has always found a way to guilt trip me or make me feel sorry for her. It’s like we were having an argument a while back, and just as a I felt I could stick up to her and be honest about how I felt about her and the way she treated me growing up, she pulled out something that made me feel like she was too vulnerable to say so much to her. Or maybe part of me wanted to avoid the conflict it would bring up and feared us getting into it to the point we would never talk again.

    One time I did stick up to her and told her I didn’t like her perfectionistic style of parenting and she got really upset and denied everything. She said that I should be lucky she wasn’t a drug addict or alcoholic like my dad. She has never validated my feelings about anything.

    So I do see a pattern with her.. but I think I am really struggling right now to just accept myself and feel confident in myself and I don’t know if confronting all my past bullies would set me free. After all the people who have bullied me in my life, my inner bully has always been my biggest bully.. i don’t know if I should just tell it to shut up or what. I have been taught to accept and love all the parts of me.. but it is hard. Especially when you have a inner bully.

     

    #147365
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Rebecca:

    You wrote about your mother: “my mom has always been critical of my weight and appearance. She was also critical of my grades in school and just my personality in general. She has something negative to say about everything I do… She has always found a way to guilt trip me or make me feel sorry for her…She has never validated my feelings about anything.”-

    Your mother is your real life, original bully. Your Inner Bully is the mental representative of your mother. The other bullies came later into your life, in and out, while the only real life bully that has been persistently bullying you from the beginning to this very day is your mother.

    If you had an accepting, loving mother, you wouldn’t have an Inner Bully. There wouldn’t be a “reason (you) hate yourself.

    Take the empathy you have for your mother and direct it at yourself. As long as your empathy is directed at your real-life, original (and ongoing) bully, you cannot heal.

    The reason you hate yourself is because you believe you deserve her criticism, that you are unacceptable. Consider the possibility (and reality, I believe), that she criticized you not because you were unacceptable, that there was something wrong with you, but because there is something wrong with her.

    Post anytime.

    anita

    #147393
    Rebecca
    Participant

    Thanks Anita. That makes a lot of sense.. I also think I minimize my mom’s actions. Like she said, at least she wasn’t a drug addict or alcoholic. At least she didn’t beat me. I guess I tell myself “what are you complaining about?” But it’s a big deal and she has had a lot of power over my life in the past. I wish I had stuck up to her when I had the chance. She was asking me why I had so many issues and I wanted to say “because of you” but I didn’t and I wish I had…

    The fact that my mom was at the awards ceremony probably didn’t help my anxiety either. I think I wouldve been less anxious if just my boyfriend shows up.

    Anyways.. thank you I appreciate you saying all that.

    #147433
    valerie
    Participant

    I have the same problem. If I receive any positive recognition, I brush it off. I can’t feel any joy or sense of accomplishment from it. But I whip myself into fretting and insomnia if I perceive that I did something wrong.

    I never thought that I was recreating the conditions of my critical parents. So my need for love is tied in with feeling as if I need to bully myself.

    This was manageable until I had a very, very bad year last year. I had just struggled to move to a new city for family reasons, the most expensive city in the country. During my first month there, my (separated) husband was arrested with my children present, he spent the next three months in jail, I started a new job and another part time teaching job, I had to move again in order to keep my dog, my mother found out she had terminal cancer, and I was hired onto the project from hell at work…the kind of project that unbeknownst to me the two previous people in the position had walked off of.

    I managed to pull through it, with some memory loss and difficulty processing thoughts which lasted for an additional year and a half. But another side effect I struggle with is a profound deepening of this feeling insecure in a very, very fundamental way.

     

    #147435
    valerie
    Participant

    I have the same problem. If I receive any positive recognition, I brush it off. I can’t feel any joy or sense of accomplishment from it. But I whip myself into fretting and insomnia if I perceive that I did something wrong.

    I never thought that I was recreating the conditions of my critical parents until I read this thread. So my need for love is tied in with feeling as if I need to bully myself.

    This was manageable until I had a very, very bad year last year. I had just struggled to move to a new city for family reasons, the most expensive city in the country. During my first month there, my (separated) husband was arrested with my children present, he spent the next three months in jail, I started a new job and another part time teaching job, I had to move again in order to keep my dog, my mother found out she had terminal cancer, and I was hired onto the project from hell at work…the kind of project that unbeknownst to me the two previous people in the position had walked off of.

    I managed to pull through it, with some memory loss and difficulty processing thoughts which lasted for an additional year and a half. But another side effect I struggle with is a profound deepening of this feeling insecure in a very, very fundamental way.

     

    #147487
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Rebecca:

    If you would like to answer, please do: what is the nature of your current relationship with our mother, how often, what kind of conversations, how does she criticize you currently (what does she say and how), how does she dismiss your feelings, make it all about her, etc. And how do you feel when in contact with her?

    anita

    #147495
    Rebecca
    Participant

    She will ask me to do favors for her all the time and if I say no I can’t she will guilt trip me and try to make me feel like I never do anything for her or don’t care enough about her. Like “oh your sister would have done this for me.”

    I had an eating disorder growing up (no surprise right?) And she STILL makes comments about my weight.. like “are you pregnant?” And Ill say mom please don’t comment about my weight and she’ll get all huffy and turn it around on me and say “I just can’t say anything to you without you getting offended!”

    Most recently.. maybe a month ago.. We were having an argument… and somewhere down the line she threw into the argument “well I was sexually abused by my grandfather and I turned out okay. What’s your excuse?” And I was like WHAT? Because she has never told me about her sexual abuse.. It’s like she just wanted to win this argument we were having. And I so badly wanted to tell her “growing up with you” but I didn’t.

    She loves to give me advice about work because her career is the most important thing to her. And I feel like work advice is the most motherly thing she gives me.

    Advice about anything else I can’t listen to because she will go on and on about how things are my fault.

    #147497
    Rebecca
    Participant

    Valerie,

    Do you believe your inner bully is a result of your critical parents now?

    #147551
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Rebecca:

    Your mother is still abusive to you.

    Did you ever think about cutting all contact with her? What do you think and feel about this option, an option that is available to you as the adult person that you are?

    anita

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