When you just can’t accept what people tell you but still sorta agree

[srebak]

It’s just like the title says; this is a thread dedicated to talking about the certain things that we have been told about ourselves that we just can’t bring ourselves to accept, no matter how much we might see the truth behind them from a logical point of view. This just seems like something that might be helpful if given the chance.


I’ll go first, although, I should probably get one bit of context out of the way. You see, for quite some time now, even before I finally moved out and into my own house, I have been seeing a doctor who has been prescribing me some medication in order to help with an OCD problem of mine and, in recent days, to help me go to bed a lot sooner. I have been trying to take them on time when I can, especially since I cannot deal with the withdrawal symptoms of when I go too long without taking them, but after my most recent doctor’s appointment and after a long time of forgetting to do so, I finally just recently alerted my mother, my only real way to actually get to my doctor and to get my medications, of the fact that there was a problem with my current prescribed medicine. You see, there was a certain type of medicine that I had originally thought that I was supposed to stop taking after it ran out, in lieu of being prescribed with another similar medicine, but I was recently told to start taking it again and when my mother and i went to the pharmacy to collect that refill, I later discovered that the medicine that we were able to get was just another bottle of a medicine that I already had. I kept on putting it off at first, mostly because I either just forgot to mention it or because my mother and I were going through one of our occasional spats over something and I just didn’t want to speak to her or because I was distracted by things like Thanksgiving and the like. But, about a day and a half ago, I finally told her about it, and today, she finally came over to try and sort things out in this regard.

However, in addition to obvious issues of her getting upset about how I manage the way I deal with empty medicine bottles or how I tend to try and describe the type of medicine that I need by what it looks like, since I find it hard to remember the exact names of their brands, or how if I don’t take care of an issue outside with my dog and he gets sick and dies, I will not get another dog with her help, since she won’t be a party to dog murder, or how if I don’t remember to bring her the bills that come to my house so she can pay them, she just won’t do anything about it when the power and the like goes off, or how I don’t tell the truth when I go see the doctor, which is something I have been trying not to do, or how she didn’t come over to get in a fight with me and how she doesn’t like to get in a fight with a man of my age, she was also rather quick to point out the following things about me

1. I am not on an equal footing with her because she is my mother and because she plays a very large role in my way of life even within my own house, since a person who you take care of is not your equal

2. My logic for why I do things is flawed

3. I don’t really listen to what she has to say and only just wait for my own moments to talk so that I can repeat my own reasonings behind certain things over and over again (I am just trying to make sure that my own points and reasoning get across)

4. That I think that I am always right

5. That I am hurting her in some way, with the way that I do things


I am pretty sure that there was something else, but, that’s about all that I can remember off the top of my head. Bottom line is, I can think of a few ways why those statements aren’t true but, at the same time, I can’t help but see the logic in some of them and that is something I will not bring myself to admit, not completely.

Also, side note, not long afterwards, my mother also responded to an earlier text message that I sent her in regards to some internal physical affairs that I was going through at the time. However, this time around when she spoke, she was showing a bit of concern and genuinely sounded like she wanted to help out. The same held truth when she sent me a follow-up text message as well.

Anyone else have something they want to say or comment on?

 

[Divine Retribution]

Admitting that you're wrong is quite often the most difficult thing for a lot of people to do. I know, because I was (and still arguably am in many ways) one of those people. I did, said, thought, and believed things that, when I remember them, I wish I could go back in time and smack myself for. A big part of this was pure hubris. I would never have admitted it at the time, at least not as plainly as I'm admitting it now, but I was an incredibly arrogant person. I believed I was right almost by default in any given issue, and I didn't really listen to the things other people said; at least, not truly. I heard them but I didn't really process them. I didn't think about what they really meant, or why they thought that way.

Admitting that fact and beginning to change it was probably one of the most difficult things I've ever done. I had based so much of my own self-worth, so much of who I am, around a precept that was rotten to the core, and tearing it down and rebuilding was not an easy process, nor did it happen overnight. In fact, I wouldn't even say it's complete. But I genuinely believe I am better off for it. I am not a perfect person. I never will be. But I am a better person now than I was then, and I believe I'm improving rather than declining.

I tell you this because it seems like you are in a similar position to where I was a few years ago. People are telling you things about yourself that you don't want to hear. You're rationalizing to yourself why they aren't true, but at the same time there's something that fundamentally is true about them that you just can't rationalize away.

I'm not sure what advice I can really give you. I'm not sure what advice I could have given myself several years ago that past me would have actually listened to. The best advice I can give is to sit down and really challenge your core ideas of who and what you are as a person. Are you, perhaps, a little quick to conclude that you are right in a given issue? Do you really consider the other person's opinions all that much, or do you do the intellectual equivalent of a skim reading and then proceed to rationalize why you're right? Examine the things you do and say as if someone else was doing and saying them. What would you think in that case? Is there something about yourself that you would like to change?

If you can identify the problem, the next step is solving it. I'm still going through the process myself. It's a gradual process and it takes time, but you can never complete a journey that you don't start, so do yourself a favor and start now.

Anyways, that's just my perspective. Maybe you're going through something entirely different, in which case my advice isn't of much help to you. But I encourage you to at least think about it, just in case you really are stuck in a similar mindset to my own past mindset. I believe it is absolutely something you can grow past.