Can someone help you if you don't even help yourself?

[manuel_moe_g]

Was feeling terrible about how many people let me down when i was so young and suffering terribly.

But i keep coming back to the fact that i didn't even help myself.

What do you guys think of this dilemma?

[oak]

You did the best with what you had.

Some, who were in as difficult straits as you didn’t make it.

That you made it is a testament of some worth.

(Sorry Manuel Moe! I am beyond exhausted. Forgive my rambling.)

[Beany Boo]

The hardest thing to do when you’re relentlessly overwhelmed, is be gentle with yourself. The hardest to do and the most powerful.

The irresistible temptation is to dump on yourself and others. It takes practice not to.

[manuel_moe_g]

Thanks for reading, Oak and Beany.

I guess the takeaway (for now) is to try and help everyone who is suffering, even those who are not helping themselves, but don't be broken-hearted when it doesn't quite work out with those who are not helping themselves.

I <think> I would have appreciated any help when I was young and suffering terribly, but who knows. It is hard. I really didn't help myself at all until my 25th year, when it all came crashing down for me, and I was finally ready to make changes. Helping myself is what precipitated the positive changes in my life.

Please take care, friends.

[Beany Boo]

If you need help now MM just say.

You don’t need to be a ‘good boy’ or a ‘good robot’. You don’t have to pose it as a philosophical question; as the price for others’ attention.

If you feel overwhelmed and don’t have language around the need in question. Or you fear that those that didn’t listen then, won’t listen now.

Just whimper ‘… help…’

I’ll have a ball park appreciation of what you mean. I am familiar with that feeling. And this is a good place to practice.

[manuel_moe_g]

Hi Beany,

I think this is just one of those depressing philosophical questions my mind thinks up to torment me.

Or maybe not, it really does pain me now that when I was younger and suffering terribly there was no help from anybody.

But then, how could they even help? It is impossible to help somebody who doesn't even help themselves, seems like. And I definitely did not do even the most basic of self-help techniques, my ego was so strong, my foolish pride was so strong, back then.

It is half a philosophical curiosity, half a real source of pain today.

Today is my therapy day, of course i will bring up with my therapist.

Thanks for listening, Beany. I don't even know what I want right now, with asking this line of questioning.

[manuel_moe_g]

therapy session is over, a lot to report, the basic idea is to invite the teenage me into the session each week, and for now to do a daily exercise with the teenage me.

moving from hating the teenage me, blaming him for all that pain, moving to being a loving adult who loves and accepts that teenage Manuel.

so funny, his teenage mind, completely taken over with black and white thinking, if not a success then a failure, if not good then evil, if not right then wrong.

talk to you guys soon, there was a lot to unpack from this therapy session

[manuel_moe_g]

My therapist says that right now my teenage self and my current self are "enmeshed", meaning his pain from the past feels like urgent pain to me now.

I will try to move toward not being "enmeshed" with my teenage self, move toward my current self treating my teenage self exactly as a loving adult would.

Right now i blame him completely for the immense pain he himself suffered. This is just too cruel.