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30 Apr 2025 05:55 PM
30 Apr 2025 05:55 PM
Hi, just venting lol. Advice would be welcome 🙂
I am an 18 year old girl, and am struggling with undiagnosed stuff. And people have gone "oh it's undiagnosed how do you know", and to that I have to be honest, it's a gut feeling that something isn't right. I have done research to back it up, it isn't just winging it, but it does feel like something isn't quite clicking in my head. These things include ADHD, autism, anxiety and depression. I haven't told many people, because when I opened up to my sister about it, she said I didn't have these things because I "didn't act like her, and she had it". Ps, she doesn't.
For a few years now, I have hated myself. Hate the way I look, talk, walk, everything. I thought it was a teen thing, and I would get over it. But it kept getting worse and worse. And I kept it all bottled up, thinking it would make it better. For years I was the "happy girl, who had the perfect happy life", and I hated keeping up the mask. What made it worse was I had a best friend who was everything I wasn't (well, I thought she was). She was hot, had the perfect body, lots of friends, and guys would stare slack-jawed as she walked past. This friend would make passing remarks to me like "I feel like if guys dated you, it would be for your personality over your looks" or "you know how you said you were working out? Maybe focus on your thighs more, guys love that". It hurt more than I let on.
And it still happens now. I am still friends with this girl. I don't know why, even though she makes me cry myself to sleep sometimes, I can't seem to leave.
There is still more to this nightmare of a story, so I'll probably make a part 2 later (this is straight up becoming reddit lmao).
01 May 2025 12:02 PM
01 May 2025 12:02 PM
Hi @Ember19, welcome to the forum.
Oh, those feelings of hating ourselves and masking just because we feel we need to to get anyone to even talk to us are hard. Maybe their a teen thing for some people, but it took until my 50s to learn to see that I am far better than what I'd been telling myself for so long. And that simple (but difficult) revelation is a big change. Don't get me wrong, it's still a daily struggle, but i question it a lot now and don't just take those doubts and negative thoughts as fact anymore. Because i now question it, i've realised that I don't want people around me that make me feel like I need to be someone else or that I need to put in all of the efforts to keep communication going, or even that they never really offer any support. For me, it was about seeing myself as someone who deserves better and that i'd accepted less for so long.
Like I said it took until about early last year to start to figure this out. So I find it impressive, and a really good sign, that you're starting to questions these things at 18! When I as 18, i was clueless and saw it all as just me being weak, no self confidence, and unworthy. It just felt like unquestionable fact. So well done for posting your feelings and thoughts. It's always so difficult to start doing that. Like I said, the face you have done it so young, speaks volumes about your strength and self-awareness.
This friend of yours certainly has a very back handed way of giving advice and compliments. 😀 Although she does seem to admit that she has no personality anyone would like. Some people just really lack that empathy and sensitivity to even see how things hey say can hurt other people. They're so wrapped up in their own point of view, things they see as positives aren't generally taken the same way and they just don't have the ability to recognize this. It doesn't mean their bad people, or bad friends... just a little self absorbed. Part of starting to learn that we are far better than we see ourselves is having boundaries about what we accept from other people. Telling people them is hard enough, enforcing them is even harder. But its a skill like anything else... it takes time to build.
So maybe have a word with this friend and tell her how her comments made you feel. I've learnt that worrying about things we can't control is only setting ourselves up for a lot of frustration, and eventually depression and anxiety. Life becomes much easier when we try to control the things we can control. Like we can't control what people say to us or think of us, but we can control how we respond. So telling someone if they have upset us is a start. Then if they keep doing it, we can't control that, but we can decide to tell the person that we just don't want to have that in our lives or we can just walk away, or we can put their head in the kitty litter! Don't do that last one, people really don't like it and get quite angry! 😂
Just be the best Ember you can be, if that's not good enough for someone, there's plenty of people for who it will be. Find those people. Those people are friends to have.
01 May 2025 06:42 PM
01 May 2025 06:42 PM
01 May 2025 09:19 PM
01 May 2025 09:19 PM
I wanted to share something that might be helpful for you, and it might give you some answers.
I have shared a section of the topic discussed in this episode and included the link to access all the information.
As a part of this pride system, Horney introduces self-hate and self-contempt. As she states, “pride and self-hate belong inseparably together; they are two expressions of one process” (Horney, page 109). Pride in the ideal self leads to hatred of the true self. The expression of the neurotic process involves both. As Horney states, “the glorified self becomes not only a phantom to be pursued; it also becomes a measuring rod with which to measure his actual being” (Horney, page 110). This leads to self-hate and self-contempt.
These are strategies employed by the pride system to help keep down the real self throughout these pursuits of glory and perfection. In order to distance the idealized, false self even more from the true self, self-hate and self-contempt continuously fight to devalue the real self; “There is the unique, ideal person; and there is an omnipresent stranger (the actual self), always interfering, disturbing, embarrassing” (Horney, page 111). The more that hatred and contempt for this self grows, the more disdain and repulsion there is for the true self. This drives that desire for the false self even more, adding to the cycle of neurosis and stunting the growth that would lead to self-actualization. It breeds war within the self.
The concept of self-hate (along with pride) is what helps determine the shoulds as discussed in early chapters of the book. The more the individual dislikes themselves, the more they believe they “should” be something or someone else. However, the individual may also want to protect themselves from their own self-hatred by trying to soothe anxieties, blame others, or take it out on others. This can occur “when a person is on the verge of realizing, unconsciously, that he cannot possibly measure up to his particular shoulds” (Horney, page 121). It becomes a form of defense against the anxiety of accepting the reality of their true self.
In addition to trying to avoid their own anxiety of acknowledging and accepting their true self, an individual may also feel anxious and therefore opposed to others seeing their true self. This can become a form of externalizing or projecting an individual's own insecurities. That is to say, they may “externalize the self-accusations [they] may feel that everybody is imputing ulterior motives to everything [they do]” (Horney, page 129). The insecurity grows to a point that the self-hatred they feel becomes assigned to an external hatred from those around them. The hatred is projected to those around them, where it may feel less internally conflictual.
Related to self-hate comes the concept of self-contempt: “undermining self-confidence” (Horney, page 132). This is the need to compare oneself. In every situation, they look at those around them and think that those individuals are somehow better than they are or have an advantage. While a neurotic individual believes they should be better than everyone else, they may not always see themselves that way. Additionally, they become vulnerable to the criticisms of others because of the anxiety that these criticisms create. This can eventually lead to the feeling that the individual themselves is at fault and therefore worthy of the abuses of those around them. Because they rely on external validation of their greatness, they will internalize these criticisms as wholly true. They are unable to reflect on these criticisms, to consider whether they are valid and consistent with their sense of self. Instead, they are accepted as wholly true of the self.
Overall, the concepts of self-hatred and self-contempt drive the desire for the ideal self (and its validation) while introducing the insecurities and self doubts that the individual must also face and overcome. The consequence of this can be summarized with the comment that “when he makes a pact with the devil, who promises him glory, he has to go to hell—to the hell within himself” (Horney, page 154).
I have other information and advice I can share if you want me to share my pearls of wisdom. 😁
P 🤗
01 May 2025 10:43 PM
01 May 2025 10:43 PM
I'm sorry you're friend reacted so poorly. I get that she's dealing with a lot of her own stuff, but I hope that she will.soon see that you were just trying to be open and honest with her. That's not any easy thing to do, and you don't deserve to be made to feel bad for doing it. If she can see past her own perspective then she will see that she has such a great friend right in front of her who will support her. But she also needs to see that it's a two way street. Hopefully she can by the time you talk to her again.
Try not to be too scared to talk to your parents. I'm sure they want the best for you and will want to help you through anything. Unfortunately I never had children of my own, but if I did, I would do anything to support and help them if they were struggling with anything. Trust them. Unless they give you reasons not to. It sounds like you have a lot of strength and you're beginning to see it and use it. You also seem very smart, so trust yourself. Trust your instincts. And don't let anyone make you feel bad about yourself.
04 May 2025 09:53 PM
04 May 2025 09:53 PM
Hey
I’m almost 18 and I am struggling with a similar thing
i do so much research and I know my thoughts aren’t normal and I relate to so many people who talk about their experiences with autism, depression, ocd, etc
like people have dismissed me saying I’m undiagnosed. But I know that I have ocd. I know my thoughts aren’t normal. I don’t know how to describe it but I know what I’m experiencing.
I know the importance of diagnosis but I also know what I’m feeling despite the fact that I’m undiagnosed.
Just wanted to say I know what you mean
04 May 2025 10:02 PM
04 May 2025 10:02 PM
Hey @mae2 ,
I wanted to pop in to say hi and that I can see you are going through a lot at the moment.
I know you said you are nearly 18, but unfortunately, these forums are only for those who are 18 and over due to the content of some of these posts.
We'd encourage you to visit Reach Out Forums for young people up to the age of 25.
When you turn 18, feel free to visit us again.
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