Gilda

No. I was not generalizing from myself to everyone. I find that tactic to be very poor reasoning and have said so on many occasions. I was generalizing regarding women with a poor self image. This generalization was not intended to be an absolute statement either.

I'm glad you're able to do that. Not everybody is, and to make that claim is to do exactly what you just accused me of doing, applying how you function to everyone.

Dr. King was a great man of extraordinary resolve. The person who is his equal is very rare indeed. I certainly don’t come anywhere close, and I’m pretty sure that he wasn’t a woman with a poor self image.

I’m fine with it the way I wrote it.

My point was that concepts, once internalized through constant repetition and exposure, are not easily dismissed. When faced with a reinforcing statement, such statements will be accepted. The grass is green. I assume you agree with this statement. Why is this? You internalized the concept at a young age through constant exposure and direct instruction. The statement agrees with your concept of “green”. When a statement agrees with an internalized concept, it is accepted as true. For a person with an existing poor self concept, statements agreeing with that self concept are going to generally be accepted as true, and those that contradict it will be actively resisted. Note, this is not a conscious choice, but a subconscious psychological process. It’s what keeps people believing things that can be objectively proven false even in the face of overwhelming evidence. The pop psychology term for this is cognitive dissonance, and it is a very powerful psychological process.

Again, I was not generalizing from myself to everyone, nor did I claim or imply that it was impossible.

I don’t want to reach the point where I can completely disregard outside critical comments. They help me to find ways in which to improve myself. Improve in how well I process them, yes, of course. This is the reason I am in therapy. Achieve perfection? Of course not. I don’t believe that’s possible.

It’s good to see that you concede that some people do not have ability to not let something bother them. However, I’d say that sometimes insecurity can stem from a realistic evaluation of available information. If I were playing chess against Vaselin Topalev, Judit Polgar, Garry Kasparov, or my sister, insecurity regarding my ability to do well wouldn’t be the least bit unreasonable.

A healthy view isn’t disregarding entirely outside judgments, it’s being able to balance them reasonably against self assessment.

Nor does it mean that it’s a good solution for anybody else.

Of course. I am involved in a treatment program utilizing cognitive/behavioral therapy in conjunction with medication. This is a method that is a rational, research-based approach.

Glad I could help.

No, it isn’t easy, not for everyone.

I would not want to ignore all judgments. Some are accurate and useful. Some are nonsense. The key is not in ignoring them, but in weighing them reasonably. Young people are shamed for stealing or hurting others. They’re taught pride at overcoming obstacles. These are good things, external judgments that are hopefully internalized at an early age and acted on for a lifetime. Others are complete and utter nonsense, such as the idea that there is anything wrong with homosexuality.

People with severe self-image problems and related psychological disorders are in a position where that opportunity for balancing judgments or potential judgments doesn’t occur, or is dysfuntional. The emotional reaction occurs unbidden, the judgments, internal and external, are accepted as real when they occur. The emotional reaction is so powerful that there is little to no opportunity to judge it reasonably.

This takes a complex problem and simplifies it to the point of absurdity.

People with self-image problems and related disorders do see such judgments as relevant, and learning to balance what is and is not reasonable is not an easy or straightforward process. Those feelings are real and powerful, sometimes overwhelmingly so.

When someone has certain psychological problems, wherever the problem originally comes from--childhood trauma, stress, chemical imbalance--if they go on long enough, the problem becomes physical, throwing the neurochemical processes of the brain out of whack. This is a physical neurochemical problem that cannot be easily treated by “Don’t let it bother you.”

I didn’t say “factually true”.

That picture is pretty close to how I look currently. My hair is a bit longer, but otherwise, that’s me.

Here’s the problem. You seem to accept that people accept some outside information and qualitative judgments, but reject others. I agree on this point. What you seem to be missing is that in people with sever self image problems and related disorders, the process by which one understands which judgments should be accepted and rejected is broken. Unhealthy ones are accepted and healthy ones rejected because the mechanism for sorting them isn’t working correctly.

I do believe I’m skinny and flat chested--that is part of my core concept of myself. I believe this is a reasonable judgment based on external evidence, based on the way women with my body type are generally described by others, but where that image comes from really isn‘t relevant because it is one that I accept implicitly. When you say you disagree with this, I accept that as your judgment but do not internalize it because it does not match how I see myself, and thus, it’s unreasonable to me. When someone makes a statement that agrees with that self image, I accept it because it agrees with how I see myself. Looked at logically, I find my view of my physical appearance as more reasonable than yours and think it’s more in line with how society views women who look like me.

Let’s take another example, one that I recognize is entirely unreasonable, but is nevertheless irresistibly powerful. I cannot ride on an elevator alone with any man save my brother. It doesn’t matter who, and it doesn’t matter how rationally and reasonably I recognize the lack of danger, the part of my psyche that tells me that this is dangerous, that intense fear reaction is so powerful that it does not matter that the fear is unreasonable and illogical and that I know now, and afterwards, and perhaps even at the time that it occurs that it is unreasonable and illogical to be afraid of this situation, it feels true, and that feeling is so overwhelming that it obscures access to reason. The idea that this man is dangerous to me is both unreasonable and true at the same time.

Really? Do you really believe that a feeling of helplessness, of having no power to alter or improve your situation is liberating?

I’ve come to terms with my physical appearance. I’m skinny, flat-chested, and generally lacking the curves most people seem to find attractive in a woman. I accept this, and I’m fortunate that it’s mostly irrelevant to my life how attractive I am. It matters very little in my job, and not at all to my family, and has some very nice benefits in that it prevents men from hitting on me very often. This is not in any way a self esteem problem. But it still hurts a little when someone takes the time and effort to point it out, not because it’s true, but because it means that the person thinks so little of me that he/she thinks it’s ok to belittle me.

I recognize that my social phobia, depression, and limited social skills greatly interfere with my social functioning. People with a poor self image need to work on it.

Saying, “Don’t let it bother you” isn’t enough. Rationally deciding which judgments to accept and reject doesn’t work when the part that decides such things is broken, when there is a physical neurochemical problem, and/or when the emotional response is so powerful that it overwhelms rational judgments.

This is a complex problem. The solution you suggest may work for some. Others have a more severe problem whose solution isn’t as easy as a comforting cliché.

Gilda

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I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert