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The scared little girl part of me is still huddling in the corner, but I'm doing my best to comfort her.
It helps that I've banished that other relentlessly negative voice, the one that kept telling me that I was worthless and a failure. (Not an actual voice, mind you! It wasn't that bad.) The one who didn't want to see the blue skies and only felt the cold. The one that found fault in everything.
Someone held up a mirror to me, figuratively speaking, and I realized that this voice, especially on the occasions that it made itself known to those around me, only managed to further dampen the mood. That it puts those around me in an impossible position, because how do you respond to someone who keeps - sometimes mock-serious - painting everything in the darkest colours? If you tell someone that they're wrong about these things, they don't feel better, but, well, wrong. And that exacerbates the negativity. After a while, it turns out to be contagious. And it becomes a spiral.
So, no more putting myself down. Even when I drop the salad bowl with left-over lettuce on the floor. Hey, the bowl didn't break and it doesn't mean that I'm a stupid and bad person. Just a little distracted at that particular moment.
It helps that I've banished that other relentlessly negative voice, the one that kept telling me that I was worthless and a failure. (Not an actual voice, mind you! It wasn't that bad.) The one who didn't want to see the blue skies and only felt the cold. The one that found fault in everything.
Someone held up a mirror to me, figuratively speaking, and I realized that this voice, especially on the occasions that it made itself known to those around me, only managed to further dampen the mood. That it puts those around me in an impossible position, because how do you respond to someone who keeps - sometimes mock-serious - painting everything in the darkest colours? If you tell someone that they're wrong about these things, they don't feel better, but, well, wrong. And that exacerbates the negativity. After a while, it turns out to be contagious. And it becomes a spiral.
So, no more putting myself down. Even when I drop the salad bowl with left-over lettuce on the floor. Hey, the bowl didn't break and it doesn't mean that I'm a stupid and bad person. Just a little distracted at that particular moment.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-20 02:44 pm (UTC)Thank you.