By: our former AMFT, Maddy Pettit
Young adulthood is a time when many enter therapy for the first time. People come in for a variety of reasons- depression, anxiety, relationship difficulties, disordered eating- yet there is a pervasive theme that underlies all of these issues. It’s best summarized by the one line I hear most often in therapy: “I hate myself.”
Low self-worth is a silent epidemic- and it bleeds into everything in our lives. Feeling unworthy limits our ability to foster functional, filling relationships. It creates negative, critical thinking patterns about ourselves and the world around us- which manifest in anxiety and depression. Self-hatred is a fire that fuels maladaptive coping like substance abuse and restrictive eating.
How did we get here?
The unintentional message many of us got growing up from our parents, the media, school and friends was simple: your worth is conditional. As kids, we were praised by our parents when we excelled in sports or got an A in math. Teachers gave us a gold star when we did well on a test and social media rewarded us with likes when we looked beautiful and had friends.
Whether the message was well meaning or not, many of us adopted core beliefs about our own worthiness through the validation of our accomplishments. Many of us have subconscious narratives floating through our heads like, “I’m a good person if I have 15 people in my friend group,” or “I’m smart if I land this competitive internship.” When our inherent value as a person is contingent upon external validation it is like living as a tree without roots. We have no grounding to keep us steady when life throws adversity our way.
What happens in young adulthood?
As young adults move away from home and start a life in a new environment, often, reality sets in. We’re not always thriving. Sometimes we break our legs, lose all our friends and bomb an interview. When these moments happen, the default for most is to fall into a shame spiral. It can feel like a tree collapsing. The dialogue in your head looks something like, “ I can’t believe I bombed this interview, I’m an idiot, I hate myself, I’m a bad person.”
Redefine your worth
In therapy, you would likely work to redefine your worthiness. Perhaps it is more self-serving to define your intelligence as the desire to learn and be inquisitive rather than to always know. Maybe being a good friend can mean having the capacity to care and listen to others, even when the right people are not always around to receive your friendship. When we shift our worth more intrinsically, we deepen our capacity to be shaken by the winds. And we grow roots.
Where will this take me?
It’s easy to think that beating ourselves up gives us the necessary push to achieve great things. “Why would I want to give up this voice in my head if it has gotten me this far?” In actuality, self-hatred is running a marathon without stretching. It’s quick, convenient, and unsustainable. You’ll quit before getting there because you’re burnout, sore and injured.
If you want to run the marathon, and by marathon, I mean accomplish your goals, you have to stretch. Stretching is self-compassion, and it is the only way. This means fostering a new voice inside your head with new narratives; ones that sound more like, “It’s ok that I got rejected from this job, because I’m still good.” With this voice on your side, the world can become your play space to try, fail, succeed, change course, fail and try again. With permission to experiment, you give yourself opportunity. Not just to succeed, but to find exactly what it is you’re looking for.
My favorite articulation of self-compassion is by the poet Mary Oliver. She says:
“You do not have to be good
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert repenting
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
Love what it loves” -Mary Oliver
Confronting and challenging your inner critic in therapy is work that will serve you over the course of your life. It is the premise of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is an approach that all of our therapists at Loyal Blue specialize in. Learn more about our approach here or book a consultation with one of our staff members.
