“Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.” ~ @ debihope (Twitter January 2010).
The quote above is one of the things I kept before I left Twitter (X) and other social networking platforms in 2018. It is a great statement that speaks of an aspect of self-help therapy that most people do not want to acknowledge – the effect that other people have on your psychological health.
Sometimes it is glaringly obvious when others are (emotionally/mentally) mistreating you even if it is disguised via sentiments expressed as the following quotes: “I was only kidding”; “I say these things because I care about you”; “You are not capable of taking care of yourself”, and so on.
However, there are more subtle ways of making you feel lousy which involves the pretense, or facade of ‘niceness’ or caring when they are wishing you the worst – this is happening at the energetic/mental/subconscious level. That is, the one that is sending you bad vibes knows what they are doing but your only clue is the way that you feel mentally/emotionally. You may even feel this in your body via muscular tension, heartburn, the hairs standing up on the back of your neck, etc.
If these things happen habitually with certain people, you will notice a discernible detrimental difference in your mood during or after you connect with them – this is a clear sign that they are enacting some type of silent sabotage on you.
Unless you enjoy being sabotaged, you should probably move on from such people.
Helen
