I am starting to comprehend more and more – even just for myself – how labelling is self destructive.
When I label myself in negative ways – I am feeding my self harming habits….continuing the abuse started within my childhood.
But…..even when I label myself in positive ways – it either ends up causing shame…..or is not entirely honest.
When I label myself saying ‘I am a survivor…not a victim’……this implies to me I ‘have’ to be strong. Society shames victims of abuse for not being strong, not getting over it, stop having ‘victim mentality’ etc…
So this subconscious voice telling me that I ‘must’ be a ‘strong survivor’ – causes issues when I am not strong.
Over the last 2 years – I have been far from what others would define as strong. Some may even label it ‘victim mentality’ – which is highly un-empathic, and very shaming. Considering all I have been through – it would be very wrong to label me in these negative ways, but people have. So, when I have felt suicidal, when I have barely been making it through the day….knowing this is considered ‘weak’ – has shamed me further.
This is why I do not like the term ’empowered’. Because when I am really struggling, I feel far from ’empowered’ and again – this creates shame.
I’ve also read, this leads to more suicides, because people can’t handle the shame of not being ‘strong enough’ feeling like they are ‘acting like a victim’ and not acting ’empowered’.
This makes perfect sense to me and being a ‘bigger picture’ person and seeing how this is affecting others, deeply concerns me.
I have labelled myself an empath….and I do have the capacity for being empathic – even for highly abusive people. But. I’m not empathic all the time. When I’m not empathic about something, I beat myself up and feel like I have failed. When in all reality, I don’t need to be empathic all the time. It’s exhausting. Continue reading
You must be logged in to post a comment.