Antidotes to Self-blame and Self-pity
Though our general mentality is to always be correct and perfect, naturally in various fronts we fail to be so. Most often than not, we introspect and accept what we are doing right and what we aren’t. By doing so, we acknowledge our strengths and weaknesses as well. But some of us cannot accept and acknowledge our perfections and imperfections owing to various reasons. During those times, we often tend to blame ourselves for whatever is happening in our lives even though the reason may not be so.
Childhood lessons like being kind, empathetic and loving towards others, shapes the thinking patterns of some of us. This high moralistic thinking pattern of some people can make them believe that they are the only reason for their or others’ suffering, whenever something goes wrong. When children are constantly being blamed during their developmental stages, children start believing that they are not good enough and that they always only make mistakes. When that child further grows into an adult, he/she always thinks that they are at fault and the self-blame continues. They end up turning into people pleasers with very low self-esteem and chronic sufferers.
Self-blame is but an emotional abuse on oneself. Failure to show kindness towards ourselves halts us from making any kind of progress at all. These individuals, who are prone to self-blame, consider themselves to be imperfect. Failure to embrace and accept their imperfection as to who they are makes it impossible for them to understand the fact that they too deserve the same love and affection as much as anyone else does. This self-blame, other than stunting the growth also drags us into the dreadful pit of low self-esteem. If we were to observe, many of the abusive relationships that we know, continue because of one of the partner may be self-blaming for all the toxicity in that relationship and by doing that the relationship persists.
This is one side of the coin which plays a poisonous and detrimental role in the progress of our life. The other side of the coin is self-sympathy (or) self-pity.
A person with self-pity will always consider themselves to be a victim. They always seek sympathy from others. If they do not get sympathy, they brood again and sympathize themselves further. This vicious cycle continues. Though they have many merits, they do not consider and acknowledge them. Rather they allow the self-pity to take over their wisdom and avoid all the hardships.
This sort of thinking makes them fail in living the life to its fullest. They feel that they cannot win over their so-called miseries. So they want to undergo all the pain just by pitying themselves. They never assess their capacity to deal with the problem over their miseries. Their thoughts, perceptions and skills are never measured properly by themselves.
Hence they cannot understand how well-equipped they are to fight with the miseries they are undergoing. As the merits and skills they have are not being utilized because of self-pity, they also fade away with time. They are the only people who are putting them down and they fail to realize that.
Though self-pity and self- blame are completely different, they can be considered as two sides of a coin called ‘stunting the growth of an individual in leading a happy life.’ But by taking up certain measures one can antidote the poisonous effects of self-pity and self-blame.
- Firstly, identify the red flags in your thinking which are pulling you down. They are nothing but the recurring negative thoughts which are not allowing you to look at yourself as you are. Once you identify the pattern in your thinking and the way you perceive yourself, half of the task is over.
- Without camouflaging, accept and acknowledge the strengths and weaknesses in your personality. Accepting and acknowledging your positives and negatives is always beneficial for personal growth.
- Self –acceptance helps us in understanding ourselves. If we perceive ourselves as we are, there won’t be any blame or pity from our end on ourselves. We are humans and we can’t be 100% perfect and that is completely okay. So, imperfections, however horrible, are ok. Once you reach this stage, there is acceptance and where there is acceptance there is room for improvement. So, you grow out of those imperfections as well.
- Utilize all the resources available at your disposal to get better with full conviction and sincerity.
- Have a bit of gratitude towards yourself, tell yourself even if mechanically at the beginning, that you are doing your best and that you will overcome your demons. By doing this we stop considering ourselves as a victim.
- Rather than blaming or brooding over miseries, it is better to be compassionate towards ourselves. At the end of the day, all we have is ourselves and nobody else. So, a little bit of self-care and self-love, putting our needs ahead of our loved ones’, isn’t being selfish.
There is a lot of dialogue going around on the Internet currently where experienced Mental Health Professionals tend to point out that the younger generations need a lot of help with these issues but I strongly believe, the elders need the same kind of assistance. It is just that the younger generations are accountable to us at some or the other point for their actions or inactions while the elders aren’t, owing to the patriarchy. So, the elders’ actions and inactions which are themselves at times driven by some unresolved mental issues like self-blame and self-pity go unnoticed and even if noticed, they go unaccounted for owing to the way the society is structured currently.
So, irrespective of age-groups, we all need to overcome our patterns that are leading us into the pit of self-blame and self-pity. We all need to treat ourselves to the love and care that we so desperately try to shower on whom we love.Stay mentally healthy always 🙂
If you have any issues that you feel like speaking to a mental health professional, you can contact me on drkavithanarayandas@gmail.com
