Have you ever said to yourself something like:
‘Why am I so stupid!’ ‘I'm just a trouble to others!’ ‘I deserve to be punished!’ ......
We are good at punishing ourselves for our own mistakes or the mistakes of others, and sometimes we don't even need any justification.
People often say that life is too bad for me, but in fact, it is we who are too bad for ourselves.
Are you a person who punishes yourself a lot?
I. What Is Self-punishment?
Self-punishment is the most vicious and harsh punishment in the world because it is something we inflict on ourselves. It can be made in many ways:
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Irrational Self-blame (Negative Self Talk)
When we don't do well in an exam, fail in an interview, or make a mistake at work, people who are used to self-punishment don't think about what the cause of this setback really is. They will think that it is their own fault, that they are useless, and will even say to themselves, ‘What else can you do! What's the value of your life!’;
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Abusive Relationship
Some people always fall in love with someone they will never get, or a ‘scummy guy/girl’ in the popular sense, which may also be a means of self-punishment. People who are used to self-punishment believe that they are worthless and deserve to be treated and hurt by the person they love. Some of them may even hope to be abused in a relationship because it fits their expectations of themselves.
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Self-harm, Self-abuse (Self Injury)
Self-injury is also a form of self-punishment that makes a person feel alive, but sometimes it can get so out of control that they may hate themselves enough to die. Also, self-punishment may be behind some seemingly positive behaviours.
Many people lose weight by eating grass and exercising a lot, by making themselves stick to a rule of how many days they can't eat sweets, and then punishing themselves by running 10 kilometres if they do. Some people study and work hard at night to compensate for the guilt they feel during the day when they nearly did nothing. Often, self-punishment is even unconscious, with people interpreting accidents as karma and punishment for wrongdoing.
Just as people can always find excuses for punishing others, they can always find reasons for punishing themselves. Moderate punishment within reason is positive in that it allows us to correct our behaviour, learn from our mistakes and not do things that go against the norm. It does bring some sense of relief and justice for a short period of time.
But long-term, chronic self-punishment has the potential to cause serious damage to mental health. Self-harm is a key feature of borderline personality disorder and is also associated with other mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Survivors of disasters, wars, or malignant events often have thoughts such as ‘Why did I survive?’ and ‘If only I had done ... , maybe more people would have survived’. Some of them are unable to forgive themselves for the rest of their lives and suffer from conscience and memories torture every day.
Researchers have called this moral masochism, and have found that they are prone to later engage in self-injurious behaviours as a way to punish themselves and intentionally ‘making life difficult’ for themselves.
II. What Is Behind Self-punishment?
The core emotions experienced in self-punishment are guilt and shame.
Guilt is directed at others: they have caused harm to others, they should be responsible for the misfortune of others; while shame is directed at themselves: I am a bad person.
It is also because the guilt and shame of self-punishers are the ones that convince them that they are the source of all their mistakes and misfortunes, so they are often unable to accept the comfort of others.
When working collectively, sometimes the whole task is postponed or fails because of a mistake in one part of your responsibility. At this point, no matter how the other teammates/colleagues comfort you: ‘It's okay, it's not your fault.’ ,you just can't forgive yourself and keep recalling your faults over and over again. Even the comfort of others will make you blame yourself even more.
III. Why Are You So Tight on Yourself?
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I Deserve to Be Punished
One of the basic assumptions of psychology is that people are motivated to keep feeling good and to reduce bad inner experiences.
However, for some people with low self-esteem, they are much less motivated to want to fix a bad mood and may even intentionally do things to maintain a negative experience (Joanne et.al., 2009).
If a person believes that they are ‘unlovable’, they may apologise by actively avoiding others, declining invitations, or even deliberately making a fool of themselves, even if no one has ever said so to him or her. Because that's how they think they deserve to be treated.
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Punishment Makes Me Progress
Some people use punishment as a way to push themselves to improve. In some religions, physical pain is a means of eliminating inner delusions.
The classic experiment by Brock (2011) and others also showed that after subjects recalled stories about moral violations, they would put their hands in ice water longer (which would bring some degree of pain).
The pain and punishment reduced the guilt they felt afterwards and made them feel like a better person.
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Punish Others by Punishing Yourself
Sometimes people punish themselves with the ultimate goal of making others suffer more.
I know a girl who tried to kill herself many times in high school, slitting her wrists, but she told me, ‘My parents pushed me every day and never gave me freedom. Every time I ‘tried to kill myself’ my parents were a little more lenient with me.’ She didn't really want to ‘kill herself,’ but just wanted to get back at her parents by ‘killing my parents' daughter’.
Punishing others the way you punish yourself is like a person crying out silently, ‘Look at me! Look at me now, look at what you have done to me.’
IV. How to Stop Self-punishment?
Self-punishment is likely to be deeply rooted in one's own behavioural patterns. It's not enough to say, ‘Be kind to yourself’ on the surface; sometimes it's even counterproductive. Because in the eyes of a self-punishing person, ‘being kind to yourself’ is unforgivable, and forgiveness is indulgence, so how can you be kind to yourself?
So, the logic seems fluent: if we can build confidence, accept ourselves, and start being nice to ourselves, we can stop self-punishment. But this is nothing more than a circular argument. The actual problem is much more complex, and it's not enough to stop self-punishment and address low self-esteem.
The point is that when we feel hurtful, we need to find a new way to relieve that hurt other than self-punishment. For example, relying on the comfort of others and learning to internalise that comfort to gradually become able to self soothing.
Finally, I would like to share with you one of the most touching and inspiring scenes from My Mad Fat Diary:
After many sessions of counselling, Rae sees no progress, and still describes herself as a ‘horrible mad person’.
She cries out in despair to her counsellor: ‘Every time I come to therapy, you say I need to know how to love myself and be better to myself! For months now, you've been like a repeater! But you never told me how to start loving myself and when!’
The counsellor says: ‘Okay, then we'll start now.’ He starts by asking Rae to close her eyes and asks, ‘What do you hate about yourself?’
Rae cries and replies, ‘I'm fat. I'm ugly. I always ruin everything.’
‘Try to recall how long have you hated yourself like this?’
‘I don't know, probably since I was 9 or 10.’
‘Sounds like that's an opinion you formed a long time ago.’ He then asked Rae to imagine herself at 10 years old, with her sitting right in front of her.
‘Now, say to this child: You're fat. You're ugly. You are useless. You're worthless. You're a burden to people.’
Rae couldn't say it, she thought it was cruel.
But the counsellor said, ‘ You've already done that, and that's what you're doing to yourself every day.’
Imagine yourself as a child, an awkward little child, sitting face-to-face to you right now, looking at you, how are you going to bear to say those words?
If you don't want to hurt that little kid, then please don't hurt yourself either.
So, when you want to say something harsh to yourself or punish yourself, think about what you would say to that little kid, and that's what exactly you need to say to yourself.
If you can't manage to accept and comfort yourself for a while, that's okay. It may be possible to establish a new, safe counselling relationship, and in that supportive relationship, begin the first steps towards change.
‘The real violence, the violence I realised was unforgivable, is the violence that we do to ourselves, when we're too afraid to be who we really are."---Sense 8
