It's strange how warm tears are, when your insides feel so lifeless and cold

can people really "love themselves?"

it's something my therapist says often. all my logic and reason says that maybe normies can, but not people who've been broken apart by the tumultuous multitudes of life. that we become neurotic, clingy, and obsessive because we seek the love we should have for ourselves out of other people instead. that there's value inherent, and it should always be recognized and celebrated. that we can then project this self-care out to others, and they'll enjoy your confidence and radiance, and that's how humans bond.

but i can't jive with it. it's not a closed-loop society. i'm always competing with everyone else, i have to be. value is strictly defined. well, you could then argue "well don't play in society! don't participate! down with normies!", which is in itself, something i can agree with. but you're always competing. even here in the (not much anymore) belly of the internet, people's and personas are stratified, it just happens behind closed doors. if you don't want to be lonely, you're always competing with everyone else, across gender lines.

i can't see value in myself. even if i quantify everything, where on paper it may look good, i don't love myself. it's not even hating myself either, nor is it apathy. i barely feel as if i register as existing, not to say living. "pursue your dreams!" they say instead. but now i wake up, dreaming no more. there's little left to dream about.

either someone sees value in you and wants to keep you around or they don't. even if you had value once, you may not have it tomorrow, through your own actions or inaction. so why? to what end or purpose to persist other than momentum? "live in the moment." -- but the moments are fragmented, and instead we're banished to existing in stasis otherwise?

it's getting cold. i don't think humans are meant to be without mutual, unconditional love. not that i'm suicidal either. but rather, that the i'm rotting.

tl;dr how do we ever find value in the self?

i'm not reading all that emo shit

that's why i gave you a tl;dr

can people really "love themselves?"

it's the only thing they love, everyone's fucking faking any outward affection, trash species

can people really "love themselves"?

I think so.

how do we ever find value in the self?

I try to find things I like and try to get better at those things.

outwards is the only direction i can give it.

how do they do so? what is the point at bettering those things when you end up mastering everything over time, and no longer feel the spark to master things for yourself anymore?

can people really "love themselves?"

Yes. But, so long as you do not want to love yourself, you cannot.

that we become neurotic, clingy, and obsessive because we seek the love we should have for ourselves out of other people instead.

I think you missed the mark here. You become neurotic clingy and obsessive out of fear. Fear of failure, fear of losing, fear of being less than. Fear of being unlovable.
Only once you're willing to deal with this fear in its totality, and allow the parts of yourself that you've cut off to come back, will you be able to love yourself. You can't love yourself, because you don't know yourself. And you don't know yourself, because you have hidden a large part of yourself from yourself.
This is the root of all the problems. The symptom of this is that you seek love from the other people as a sort of band-aid.

how do we ever find value in the self?

You don't find value in the self. It's something you build, it's something that must be reclaimed. It's something that's buried under layers of shame, rejection, fear, and all the false identities you've been forced to play. It's hidden under the layers of masks you use to keep yourself from having to acknowledge what's really hidden in the darkness of your own soul. All the chaotic, uncertain, playful, hopeful, sporadic, wild parts of yourself that you cut yourself off from.
To value yourself you must be one with yourself. Which requires you to engage with the parts of yourself that create dreams, and the visons of a better tomorrow.
But.. you have to first confront the fear that prevents you from dreaming of a better tomorrow. The fear that prevents your creativity.
The fear that chains you to an immobile state.

No, but I do think there are exceptions.

Identity is formed through self-perception and feedback from the external world which for most people are in a stable equilibrium. For example take the kid who always exceled in math, by lucky influences or genetics they were good at it at a young age and received feedback from teachers telling them they're good at math which in turn affirma their identity. In time after enough self-tests passed it becomes cemented into their identity, and the kid might proudly boast and be able to scoff off the odd critic who tells them that they're trash or whatever. After all reality in itself is objective: a shared consensus...it doesn't matter if I see a rock or a grinning demon with his face ripped off in front of me if no one else sees it.

For being loved/lovable or whatever for most normies it's not fathomable that they aren't loved since they got it from their parents, family childhood friends etc etc so they can't even begin to challenge the belief otherwise.

I think there's a lot of variety in how you can interpret feedback and most normies fall somewhere in the middle you'll have the typical A student who gets a 90 on an assignment and is "convinced" they are dumb and the knucklehead who fucks once and thinks he's the king of the hill.

If you're like me however with a tremendously fucked up childhood and there is an insurmountable amount of evidence against what you want to believe then unfortunately you're just fucked sadly. If you're a student who failed EVERY SINGLE math assignment from kindergarten to high school then no amount of copium and wishful thinking will convince you that you're a talented mathematican. You would have to be the equivalent of a child closing their eyes and humming to ignore such overwhelming feedback, if that your life than you're probably fucked.

There is an exception to the rule however if you're an pathological narcissist then you have severed the homeostatic loop between identity and feedback and basically become immune to external reality which I think psychoanalysts call a sort of mental solipsism. For example my narc dad can get fired from 5 jobs in a row for underperforming and still genuinely be convinced that he is a "top performer" or fail every course in community college and still be convinced of their academic superiority but unfortunately that's something only delusional people can achieve. I think these people can truly love themselves no matter what since even if everyone around them hates them and overtly calls them a piece of shit they can still convince themselves otherwise since they aren't affected by external feedback. Strangely I envy these types of people, from the outside they are some of the most hated and pitiable people but in sounds really comfy being able to completely sever yourself from reality and sincerely believe in delusion.

Anyways, to answer your question my only advice for you would be to objective assess your life and weigh every piece of evidence you are lovable/unlovable on a scale. Think of every kind act you received and every blessing, every person in your life however meagre it may be and weigh it against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

When all that is done maybe you'll realize that it's not all that bad...I feel alot of failed normies and the like fall into this trap cause being mentally ill is hip and shit. If you tally everything up and have genuinely nothing then unfortunately you're just fucked. At that point no amount of wishful thinking is gonna change your perception of things in the face of such overwhelming evidence. That's just reality at that point. At that point I'd thinking of copes.

i would like to love myself, i've tried. but if i ever look inwards, i can't see anything but waste. there's someone better in every capacity. better looking, better artistic expressions, better hobbies, better life position, better mental health, better confidence. i don't have a fear of being less than, i have a fear of being reminded about it.

i know everything about myself. i'm the only person i can talk to. when other people notice me then i can actually notice myself. without their light, i'm blind.

i don't see how you can "build" a value. the dreams are all expired, you know? because everything was subletted from the main unit: i dream of not being alone. i struggle to see the point in a life i've already completed when the one niggling item leftover is not something you can just "grind away" to get. you can't "build" towards connecting deeply with someone on a soul level.

i think you touch on a lot of it. these are things that are meant to be slowly reinforced by support structures over time in life, so what do you do when all of them get violently removed from the equation? on how long can a paper plane float in the air when there's no more wind? unless you become a full narc abusechad psychopath it seems hard to get enough feedback to heal -- and it's unfair to honestly ask that of any other soul on the planet.

objective assess your life and weigh every piece of evidence you are lovable/unlovable on a scale.

i can measure up everything i've ever done and slice down the paper in one smooth cut: that here i stand, by myself. after all, through it all. someone can burst into my life and i'll be extremely happy, clicking my heels -- but when they're gone, i'm like this again. that, in itself, is a damning statement that i've failed to be a human being.

at some point you even start justifying the bad stuff that happens to you. why would a nice person go through all of this? they definitely wouldn't, right?

i suppose you are right. i can't see anything other than justifying all the bad stuff as being part of my fault, my problem. isn't it important to take accountability? if i was a better person, if i was more stable, if i was more confident, if i was... then would i still be where i am today?

you do have something, but you have to be surrounded by people that are willing to recognize and actively value your worth.

i'm only surrounded by my own voice. my mr hyde. everyone's got something bigger and better to do, really. or some people are under their own troubles and too busy either, to which my heart bleeds.

i can carve a lot of value into others and lift them up so high that they soar. it's so easy to make art when i'm not the canvas. it's easy to paint on me too, so long as it's not my own hands. i believe i have a lot of potential.. which i think is what cuts the deepest. some days i just want to be destroyed too, i guess. that's probably not right to think, but i do.

what compels someone to say something like this in such a thread... i don't get it...

Figure out what makes you happy,

doing mundane things with someone you're intimately close to. hence why i'm here at the race line. that's all that's left.

chuckled

can i borrow the time machine you just stepped out from

cool selfie but we don't really use hashtags here

why would you need value, how is love greater than any other drive be it hate, greed, or desperation?
If no one sees value in me why would i care, they neither know me nor would they see anything in me for i am not for them.
We have such ideas because we can embody the real deal, but love is like stretching your toes, such a simple human thing that i think it's overvalued. Why be "pro-social", why live your life under the structure of what you're meant to be while you've been denied it all your live?
Of course i wouldn't feel self love, there's nothing to love, no experience there, nothing learnt, just a void of self.
Maybe i need something other than love.

i can't see anything other than justifying all the bad stuff as being part of my fault, my problem.

some things can be your fault, some others can't. but, even if they are, you are doing your best. there's nothing more frustrating than doing your best, just for everything to fail. please know that while this can happen, you still gave your best and that's enough!

isn't it important to take accountability? if i was a better person, if i was more stable, if i was more confident, if i was...

it is important. and you're recognizing a key point in yourself, which i am going to compliment; you are very self aware. despite hating yourself, you can recognize your flaws. maybe you can't recognize your strengths, but you can still recognize there are some things you would like to change. this is a good sign, OP. you could always be better; even the best can be better. but, like i said, you're trying. give yourself some patience; not love right away, but patience. nobody is born knowing how to act...

i'm only surrounded by my own voice

you're still in time to change that. what kind of people would you like to surround you? first, ask yourself what kind of relationships would you like to have. are you a person that would hold others very close? would you like them to acknowledge you? talk to you once every month? check up on you daily? what are you willing to give in a friendship? i'm sure you have many things to give too, OP.

i can carve a lot of value into others and lift them up so high that they soar

just like you can do that, you can find others to do that for you!

I really don't like advice like this. To draw an analogy imagine a lost old woman wandering the streets of New York City asking strangers how to get to Los Angeles..and someone tells her to "Go West". Not incorrect and perhaps even from a place of compassion but all in all pretty worthless and completely ignorant of the context and situation. Better but still pretty worthless advice would be telling her to take the bus. Googling the exact station and route and sitting down with her for 30 mins to plan a route would be even better, and the best albeit unrealistic option would actually going with her and guiding her step-by-step...but as OP said it's a bit silly to expect someone to put that much effort. The important thing to understand here is that the average person would be confused or perhaps even be contemptuous about the lack of basic knowledge on how travelling works, maybe even assume her to have it. Maybe if it wasn't an old woman and a young man instead people would treat them entirely different since they are expected to be less helpless...

Generic advice that handed out by normies undunates reddit and suffers from the exact problem, they aren't wrong but just vacuous. And the recipient of the advice usually isn't on the same wavelength as them, what comes so easy to most normies might not be so trivial and I find that most people simply don't understand that. Most people simply can't comprehend how different most people's experiences are and project themselves onto every person they talk to...which is fair I suppose. Some expectation of universality are to be expected if you want to facilitate basic communication...after all if you're in America it's not unreasonable to assume a random stranger on the street understands english...which is all the more alienating and painful when you realize most people aren't on the same frequency as you...

To add I dunno if anyone can relate but in my opinion that's the most painful part of being mentally ill and having an abusive/anomalous childhood...the more I grow up the more I realize how fundamentally different my mind works compared to most other people, how different my reality is to theirs, it's so agonizingly alienating when you first realize that most people don't even live on the same mental plane of existence as you and have been projecting their own mind onto yours. Like playing a video game with friends and struggling for years and years with everyone thinking you're retarded and bad at the game only to realize ypu have a broken controller all along. The worst part is that so many of them will be completely ignorant of this and just project their feelings superiority onto you when it wasn't really fair at all.

My advice would be to stick to talking with people on the same "frequency" as you. Reddit tier advice is repetitive and helpful and comes from a place of social obligation more than anything, and from people for some reason feel the need to weigh in and give advice even if they have nothing in common with the recipient or anything of worth to say.

Similarily I think generic therapy (CBT) is worthless to most people with serious personalith disorders. I would look into specialists and special treatments tailored for you I know for cluster B DBT helped alot of people though not me personally (BPDemon), if you have OCD then exposure therapy has like an 99.5% success rate and so on.

But most importantly don't concern yourself with the worthless advice of those who have nothing in common with you. If you do that you'll spend eternity doubting your own inability to live up to generic expectations, wondering forever why you can't beat your friend on a broken controller. Try to accept that you are and probably will be forever a bit fucked up.

You do have inherent value in your sentence. It's a spark that can breed a flame. Have you ever seen flames flicker the same? No, there too many variables for a human brain to ever observe any substantial duplication in its lifetime. So are you, a unique combination that that can make a unique flame of passion. Anyone can be competitive in creation. The burden of your sentence is a ballast, a weight equivalent to its imaginative power. The "tortured artist" axiom has a grain of truth inside it. You must find a dream for yourself. Look back on your past, draw from your regrets, desires, and put action to them. It will be uniquely yours, but others with some, but not all shared experiences, will understand and see the value that only you could create, be it a story, a work of art, a toy, a tool, a song, a change in the status quo, a preservation of something dying, fading, or being killed, hell anon, it's a such a broad category that once you look, you should be able to see that you already provided value to me with the resonance of the post you have created here. I value it for being a point from which to provide a consolidated summation of my thoughts on your post. A grain of sand that can grow into a treasured pearl. Fret not that all will be forgotten in time, instead, take wonder and solace that you are filling the niche that someone who was needed has left and that someone will fill the niche for those who need you when time comes for you and the memories of your creations. It would be an awfully boring, bland, crowded world if it did not clean itself through the eons, wouldn't it?

Hold your head high and sunlight may warm your face when the clouds clear in the natural perpetual cycle we flow through.

what is the point at bettering those things when you end up mastering everything over time

No, you don't. You need to make the conscious decision to improve especially as you get better.

and no longer feel the spark to master things for yourself anymore

I don't always have it to begin with. It comes and goes, when it comes I put in maximum effort and ride that high as high and far as I can. When goes I simply try not to self destruct and eliminate all the good I did.

I find value in myself because I put other people down. The fact that I have the ability to hurt someone so effectively means I am a higher being. I am an apex predator of the mind. Just look what I did to you. I fucking destroyed you and stole your identity and forced you into anonimity. I am the most based chad on here. None of you can compete.

because i've lived by hate, greed, and desperation. they've all left me hollow, where drops of love make me feel replenished. i think you need it just as much as i do.

you still gave your best and that's enough!

is it, if the grains of sand slip through your fingertips regardless?

strengths are dogged persistence, but that's not really a "positive" in such a place. connections can't be forced, that's equivalent to pushing rope.

what kind of people would you like to surround you?

someone i can speak with intimately on a daily basis, even if only for short bursts. i would clutch so tight as to keep away the wind and the rain, but that in itself is a binding and a cage people do not enjoy. i have anything and everything to offer, up to and including the shirt on my back. but all the things i offer yet are not enough to keep this spinning top in motion, it falls over eventually. or perhaps rather, i am imbalanced, and to keep me spinning is too much work. being high maintenance is gross.

but thank you for the encouragement. thank you, i do mean it.

i do feel the wavelength aspect. as if my brain is misfiring each second word. if i don't say much, it's only a quirk, and people don't shirk. but my soliloquy are faulty, my songs are cacophany. i'm not sure how exposure therapy can fix the OCD that i have particularly. i'm not generally anxious in social situations, but i'm a mess around a person i'm trying to connect to. that's not changed, not after all this time.

that is a beautiful post that you have wrote, however the deadlock is when my dream is to perform all these aspects of creation with another person by my side. to have a muse. i can perform all those tasks, i can write a book and i can compose a song, but if it is solely for my own ears then the motivation evaporates and disintegrates. to live for myself is no longer satisfactory. also re:

unrelated note, why did i pattern recognize this lol

is it, if the grains of sand slip through your fingertips regardless?

it is, because the grains of sand could've gone down with no effort. some grains of sand will stand on your fingertips, even if you couldn't save it all; and now you know hands aren't enough to hold sand, you need another way to approach the problem.

strengths are dogged persistence, but that's not really a "positive" in such a place. connections can't be forced, that's equivalent to pushing rope.

that's not always true. perseverance is a strength, but not all strengths are based on perseverance. some come even from the nature of your heart. perseverance doesn't necessarily make of you a kind person; if you pretend to be something you aren't for long enough, you will resent yourself. i hope you get the point.

someone i can speak with intimately on a daily basis, even if only for short bursts. i would clutch so tight as to keep away the wind and the rain

that doesn't sound too bad, actually. i usually cling to people in a very tight way, i try to give them encouragement on a daily basis. what i don't enjoy is people being judgemental. i think, one of the worst things a person can do is judge others right away. we have no perfect picture of what's going on behind the screen, and some people are eager to find whatever flaws in your character there might be. besides that, if you truly have a nice heart, then binding yourself to other people shouldn't be all that bad.

all the things i offer yet are not enough to keep this spinning top in motion

this is because you're willing to give everything, while not being open to receive much. or so i have learned from your posts; it's almost as if you forced yourself into a supporting position in everyone else's life. give yourself a chance, OP. i don't think you're all that bad.

but thank you for the encouragement. thank you, i do mean it.

i thank you for being nice. i'm almost sure you're a very kind person.

but not people who've been broken apart by the tumultuous multitudes of life. that we become neurotic, clingy, and obsessive because we seek the love we should have for ourselves out of other people instead.

Fucking retarded. Literally just change your mind and love yourself. It's that easy.
You have a thought that's like

I hate myself I'm worthless boohoohoo

Just change it to like

I love myself! I'm cool and my shit is awesome, dude!

It's literally that fucking easy, people who can't do this are legitimately peanut-brained, like stop being a little faggot

i'm not sure how exposure therapy can fix the OCD that i have particularly. i'm not generally anxious in social situations, but i'm a mess around a person i'm trying to connect to. that's not changed, not after all this time.

In all seriousness ircc the modern treatments for OCD especially ACT have like a 70% remission rate after a year it has been one of the biggest strides in clinical psychology in the last few years or so I have a close friend who had severe OCD (plus autism) who got significantly better after treatment I don't particularly know how OCD works, it's all rather alien to me as you sort seem to have your brains wired and scrambled in a fundamentally different way from me...but the empirical data for treatment put you in good prospects.

That is, assuming that you dislike your intrusive thoughts and patterns of thought, compulsions etc. I'm sure some of them don't mind them at all and simply want to be understood and accepted for who they are.

you're cooked. that's why.

if you pretend to be something you aren't for long enough, you will resent yourself. i hope you get the point.

i am unsure if you're being on the nose about masks or not or whether you're just coincidentally correct in this observation. as nice as my heart may be, it can be a blanket that smothers other people's flame. "nice" can be a misnomer for emotionally controlling, too. so i think i need to quarantine myself from people.

this is because you're willing to give everything, while not being open to receive much. or so i have learned from your posts; it's almost as if you forced yourself into a supporting position in everyone else's life. give yourself a chance, OP. i don't think you're all that bad.

i'm an actor for a role i didn't audition. i play it well, so i'm happy to step on stage for people for whom i care deeply. but ultimately, actors are only meant to play a character, not to break character. i would be willing to receive so much, from someone who did so with the caring intent. but i think in doing so is in itself asking too much, it's selfish to ask for others to try fix you, it's equivalent to emotional blackmail. so instead, we be happy, or pretend to be happy. so that people stay around.

ah yes, why didn't i think of that! just flip the brain switch. whoops.

that's a good question, whether it should be fixed. i think so, yes -- it ruins my relationships. maybe i should inquire about it. my brain is really wired in a messed up way, my pattern recognition goes into overdrive and i spend almost each waking moment constantly repeating everything ever in my head. then i'll see anything tangentially related to strong memories and it'll send a jolt down my entire system that leads to obsessive thoughts. it feels hopeless, sometimes. i'd've hoped someone would accept this and still find lots in me to love, but i fear it only strikes fear into others.

that's a good question, whether it should be fixed. i think so, yes -- it ruins my relationships. maybe i should inquire about it. my brain is really wired in a messed up way, my pattern recognition goes into overdrive and i spend almost each waking moment constantly repeating everything ever in my head. then i'll see anything tangentially related to strong memories and it'll send a jolt down my entire system that leads to obsessive thoughts. it feels hopeless, sometimes. i'd've hoped someone would accept this and still find lots in me to love, but i fear it only strikes fear into others.

Yeah it's probably worth looking into although from my observation it's better if your intrusive thoughts are based in emotions and limerence and whatnot since most emotional responses are based on no logic and just raw intuition anyways basically a neurological version of chatgpt/a LLM no cultural standard or universality whatsoever. It's pretty hard to tell if someone has OCD of that type when their obsessions are emotional.

I think people are more off-put by the compulsive types and obsessions that are based in more logical things like refusing to walk through doors of certain colour or associating numbers with things like 47 being divine or some shit my friend had the latter and he mentioned it was hellish, confusing and illogical. Random obsessions that bear no semblance to order.

as nice as my heart may be, it can be a blanket that smothers other people's flame. "nice" can be a misnomer for emotionally controlling, too. so i think i need to quarantine myself from people.

no, this is not the way you do it. you're not going to learn how to be around people if you don't do it. practice doesn't make perfect, but it undoubtedly makes better. start slow; learn about the person you're talking to. be patient, give them space, make sure you understand what is their heart like. you don't know the extent of their flame, and you don't know if they're cold enough to need a blanket. sometimes, it's better to not give a blanket at all. two flames, from a distance, can coexist in a rather pleasant manner.

i'm an actor for a role i didn't audition. i play it well, so i'm happy to step on stage for people for whom i care deeply. but ultimately, actors are only meant to play a character, not to break character.

if you never break a character, then you are not an actor, you're the character itself. trust me in this one, OP. i'm begging you to trust me right now; i've been hurt many times for being something equivalent to what you have just described. happy people, people that seemingly got their stuff together, are often used by others for their own benefit. the blanket you're talking about, it's not with the intent of giving warmth, but a sign of you yourself needing someone to give you a blanket back. and that's not blackmailing, it's actually the opposite; being honest about your needs has never been an euphemism for blackmailing. you're asking for basic human interaction, that from the looks of it, has been denied to you for too long.

Love is an action, just do it instead of believing in meme words like obsession, neuroticism and normies

themselves?

People can love their selves sorry for the interjection. That is a reflection of me by myself and the experiences I have gained alongside that do not mean anything from that I DO LOVE myself. The expansion is merely an expansion. To question if me alone have the ability to love and care for me alone is different maybe there are things I need to be whole but to I love me because you love me is not the summation of the task

other people instead."

To say you didn't deserve to be loved is terrible. The larger orders that encooass us having the ability to express the desire to be loved and I mean in a thuggi Indian way- someone loves us on this realm within this physicality that protects your body to allow your soul to experience. The street lights look beautiful tonight more than others. There is inherent value in an existiance that acts in accordance with the rules and law of MAN.

Jive with it."

I'm sorry if I made you feel put off.

i have to be."

If I made you question your worths and value. I wish it was a way I could vaporize all the bad things away and it could just be happy people being happy with each other. Regardless of our circumstances. I think it would be altruistic.

value is strictly defined."

Strictly defined is an oxymoron we make those definition as strict or as loose as we want to define strictness
Get used to saying BABY DOESNT COMPETE.! Maybe it's more about stepping backwards and accepting the idea of being monkey slave as a MONKEY and not a MAN ? When we close these doors and YOU can feel as expressive as you are then maybe it wouldn't be a need for everything and everyone else. Maybe we really need that vaporizer. I think it might look like a lava moat.
*without this is a very long post.

bro your chatbot is broken

you dont
and thats okay