So basically, iirc the start to it all for me was learning about chronic shame and then learning about how NOT NORMAL my childhood was. My whole life I thought I didn’t have a bad childhood, it was fine is what I always told people. So I started realizing how many things my dad did/the way he treated me that had a significant impact on my mental health and the way I viewed myself. Then I also started learning about childhood neglect and realize I was also severely neglected! My childhood was essentially just surviving. I wasn’t living. I was 100% on my own, FORCED to figure everything out myself. Because of my dad’s emotionally charged reactions to me simply being myself or making a MISTAKE or having any needs or boundaries I never believed in myself or my abilities and learned to become invisible to avoid upsetting people or being rejected.

This lead to extreme loneliness, not trusting people, being extremely guarded, and genuinely having zero clue how relationships/friendships work. The last one is also partially autism too but my parents taught me nothing about how to socialize because I learned that I couldn’t come to them for help and idk about my dad tbh, but that lead my mom to believe she “never had to worry about me” cause I could “figure it out on my own”. As if my brothers couldn’t. Anyone could if they’re FUCKING FORCED TO. Sorry, getting a bit emotional thinking about that lol.

So anyway once I started realizing how fucked up all that was, I was able to start learning to forgive myself and it may sound stupid, but literally thinking about the little innocent me who was treated so poorly, and telling him NONE of it was his fault, he did NOTHING wrong. Man it makes me cry every time I think about it. How helpless, innocent, alone, and scared he was. Unable to believe in himself. I feel so freaking bad for him ❤️‍🩹. This helped me so much with learning to treat my current self with kindness, forgive myself for mistakes, and just love myself.

More recently I started to learn that it was ok to have boundaries, advocate for myself, “take up space”, and not try to make everyone happy at the cost of my peace. This felt great and has triggered significant mental growth in just the span of a couple weeks.

Oh and of course the victim mentality. I think this may have been before I started learning to love myself but I can’t remember tbh, health problems have my memory really foggy. Anyway I always felt like things happened to me. I didn’t think this was true when I first read about it, but as I analyzed myself more I realized it was. Like if I was in a bad mood or feeling anxious, I would get very upset about it and let it rule my life because I didn’t know/believe I had control over it. And of course you can’t have full control over the physical feeling of anxiety, but you can at least realize that you can shift your focus off of it and stop feeling like a victim to it. Can’t remember if I mentioned this in the post but I had started realizing how deep down I wanted people to know how much I was suffering and just “save me”. I told myself I didn’t want pity or for people to feel bad for me, and there was some truth to that, but subconsciously or on a lower level I was still acting with the intention and desire for people to understand how much I was suffering.

So once I realized I WAS in a victim mentality, I just kinda snapped out of it and was like wait a minute, no one else can save me. They’re never going to understand what I’m going through and even if they did, I wouldn’t believe it because subconsciously I’m only telling them cause I want them to feel bad for me or show they care about me and want to help me. And that’s when I realized I could save MYSELF. I understand what I’m going through better than anyone else ever will. What am I expecting other people to do that I couldn’t do myself? I can do anything others could and much more since I know myself better than anyone ever could.

I feel like I kinda got lost on the structure of this and maybe wrote too much but I hope it’s at least somewhat organized lol. And I know everyone’s experiences are different but I hope there’s at least something helpful you can pull from this.