extremely extremely tiring to be around people who just vehemently hate themselves. nobody benefits from you acting like this. cruelty to the self is still cruelty. if i was at an art gallery admiring a piece by van gogh or in a library reading a beautiful poem and you walked up to me and went Ewww thats so bad... you think its good? youre wrong its really bad :/ you would be a certified piece of fucking shit it is not different just bc its your creation instead of someone else's. if a stranger walked up to me and started ranting about how they thought my friend was annoying and ugly i would punch them in the gut. it is not different just because you are saying this about yourself. nobody wants to hear it

fucking say something true and beautiful for once im sick of it. you know

paraphrasing my tags from another reblog chain here but this does not come from a place of ignorance. i am intimately familiar with self hatred and the mindset that leads people to talk like this and the REASON i stopped acting like a jackass and spouting this shit 24/7 is because i realized that it was not just about me. it was hurting other people. and i made the concious decision to stop doing that and to begin the proccess of training myself out of those thought patterns and out of saying that stuff. im not telling you to Just Stop but i am saying you CAN. you are not a slave to your mental illness you have agency over your life and your behaviors - your mental illness may make it more difficult to do certain things but that doesnt mean you dont have a responsibility to TRY if it's hurting other people.

One of the things that drives me away from a relationship most is if I give the other. person a compliment and they reject it. 

“You’re so handsome.” “No I’m not.” 

I see it and feel it the exact same way as if I said “What a beautiful sunset” and someone said “No it’s not, it’s ugly.” I was in a place of joy and you just injected something very unpleasant and life-denying into that space and that hurts.

I am here appreciating the world. You, as a human being, are part of that world. You’re a natural phenomenon and people have a right to find you beautiful and good and worthy. That is an expression of THEIR joy and enjoyment of the world. They are not incorrect. 

They are expressing their aliveness and ability to perceive, they are right in the heart of what makes it worthwhile and joyful to be alive, and you should not come to that special place within someone you love and tell them it’s wrong to feel the way they feel.

I totally get that it may sound fake and ridiculous to you when someone compliments you, and it’s ok to acknowledge that. “I know you mean it when you say it, but my brain won’t let me believe it right now. But thank you. I will keep trying.” 

But ultimately, the goal is to get to a place where you can just say “thank you.” 

I have said this so many times, but if you have a hard time accepting compliments, I have a hack that helped me. I still sometimes struggle (mostly if someone is being nice about my looks) but this helps so much: if you cannot make yourself say thank you to a compliment, instead of rejecting it, find a way to comment on it. If someone says "I love this art you made," try saying something about the process: "I tried something new with the pose!" Or "I learned so much working on this one!" If they say something like "you're so smart" and you can't say thank you, try something like "I really enjoy these kinds of puzzles" or "I've been working on thinking critically about stuff like this" or "I am really interested in this topic!"

99 times out of 100 this is going to pass as a thank you, and it's easier to say, and as a bonus, it's a kind of yes-and that can help the conversation going. Next time someone says you look pretty and you can't say thank you, be enthusiastic about the new thing you're doing with your hair. Next time someone loves your cooking, be excited about having found such a cool recipe or having had an opportunity to modify it in a cool way.

You can do it. You'll start saying thank you, and you'll learn to see what other people see that make them say nice things about you, by training yourself to think about it.