tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post689370145144357019..comments2024-03-29T01:07:30.224-07:00Comments on Had Enough Therapy?: Positive Reframing or Negative ValidationStuart Schneidermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12784043736879991769noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-12827711111774326772014-06-27T17:51:44.325-07:002014-06-27T17:51:44.325-07:00I've never clearly understood the division of ...I've never clearly understood the division of low and high self-esteem. If you talk to me about things I feel confident about, I'm sure I have high self esteem, and if you talk to me about things I'm insecure about, I'm sure I have low self esteem. Can both self-assessments be right?<br /><br />I remember talking to a homeless man once, and his life sounded chaotic, and I said I like my life 90% stable, and 10% unpredictable, and he said he felt the opposite. Perhaps he had higher self esteem than me, to be able to handle unpredictable situations?<br /><br />If "positive framing" works for me, whether my own, or by someone else, it means basically I can be distracted away from something that makes me feel weak and powerless towards something I feel powerful. <br /><br />I suck at speaking any foreign languages, but I'm still good at math, right, and I don't have to daily interact with people who can't speak English. But my "low self-esteem" in language might make me hopeless if I lived somewhere that almost no one spoke English, and I had to feel stupid all the time to say the simplest of things.<br /><br />So from my personal lessons, I don't feel I have a lot to help others with low self-esteem or offer support. I can listen, I can ask questions, and I can offer perspective that isn't positive or negative framing, but merely a more detached outlook.<br /><br />I also know what I "suck" at, which is taking a personal point of view, if someone wants to complain to me about how mean someone else was to them, I don't immediately take the side of the "victim", or at least I'm first of all curious why the other person acted as they did. So I ask questions, and they are not validating the person's feelings.<br /><br />Do I have high self-esteem when I consider it my duty to understand someone else before I judge them? Maybe I do? Or maybe its just a way to avoid wrongful blaming that wrecks relationships unnecessarily.<br /><br />I'm not sure if I ever said something on the lines of "It would suck to be you", but probably close, and yet, for many people (including myself), there is a sense of passivity, and there are predicaments that have solutions that reduce stress and misery, and so if someone has some responsibility for their misery, has action they can take and refuse, then maybe some sort of "tough love" advice isn't bad. And when given to me, I usually accept it, whether I'm ready to act, it reminds me I'm not powerless, and I can change something when I'm ready.Ares Olympushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09726811306826601686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-7110708656653709962014-06-27T15:21:01.649-07:002014-06-27T15:21:01.649-07:00I've lived w/Depression & Self Hatred all ...I've lived w/Depression & Self Hatred all my life. I now attribute that to Genetics & crazed, physical & emotionally sadistic parents. I blamed myself myself until recently, at 68.<br /><br />I'm lucky. I wasn't permanently maimed or killed (a realistic possibility). I managed to work, and work well, w/a few gaps.<br /><br />I got ""Snap Out Of It!!" lectures all the time. Even in the hospital. I believed them, the Fucking Bastards.<br /><br />For writers, at least US & Brit writers, mental illness seems to go w/the territory.<br /><br />I count my blessings. Most people worldwide have it worse. -- Rich Lara Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com