I so get this reaction. What's up with this anyways hey? From the outside it doesn't make much sense. From the inside it is the reality. It might be a good one for the T. Why can't we acknowledge our own successes and why when someone else does do we feel upset and angry?

My first and most embarrassing thought is that if I am well I will drop off people's radar and no one will care about me anymore. That seems to me to be a child response suggesting my issues of abandonment are still active.

Another thought is that I am afraid I will disappoint them next time and that their acknowledgement is premature. It puts added pressure on me to please them. It makes me angry because it feels like my life story. Stiffle and perform. Keep everyone happy. Hide my truth. They don't get it and if I don't perform they will think less of me. Just smile and say thank you and stiffle the pain some more.

Still another thought is that I don't deserve praise for not behaving badly when deep down the only thing I really want to do or that I think can make me feel better involves behaving badly. Getting praised for good behaviour makes it that much harder to justify the bad behaviour that I am still so attached to. I am angry they are trying to take my unhealthy coping mechanism away from me.

And still another is that they just don't get how hard this is and one success does not a recovery make. Stop pressuring me!! Stop trying to make me feel good about myself. Stop thinking I am doing fine. I am not fine! I am not functioning. I will never be okay.

Whichever way I look at it I think my thoughts are coming from a victim mentality. The hurt child. The abandoned child. The rejected lover. The unappreciated friend. And on and on. I also think that I am just so much most familiar with the victim me that I feel protective of her.

Recognizing this much has been helping me question my initial reactions. To ask myself about the hidden feelings underneath the expressed feelings and attempt to deal with them directly. To find out what it is I really want to say but can't and alternately choose to behave badly.

Maybe it is also a question of believing in myself enough to say 'hey, that's right. I did good. It wasn't easy. It fact it was the hardest thing I ever did but I did it. One baby step at a time. I can acknowledge my own accomplishments, see my own successes without it costing me anything now or in the future. Its now I celebrate while tomorrow takes care of itself. No pressure.'

Your reaction to your friends support struck home with me so I thought I would babble about it for a bit to see if it struck any cords of truth with you too jexa. Maybe it can stir up some thinking for you to see better the roots of your own responses.

Getting to a place where our love for ourselves is greater than our self loathing seems to me the ultimate goal for all of us coping with mental illness issues. Self love is the source of power that helps us to overcome all the programming and the patterned behaviours that have torn us down over time.

It may sound too easy to say that declaring self love can change your world but I do believe it can. I have been practising it more diligently lately and I credit the declarations for feeling more positive about my recovery these days. I credit them for giving me the strength to look behind my reactions to see the root of what I feel. Once I know the root I am better armed to respond in a healing way rather then a hurtful way.

You are loved and loveable Jexa. You can declare it without evidence. You can declare it without pressure to perform. You can declare it because love is good. Love is pure. Love is true. Love is honest. Love is patient and love is kind. Love is healing. Love is a gift we can give to ourself without any conditions or expectations. Its a free gift that keeps on giving. I don't need to feel it at first but if I declare it enough I will bask in its sweetness and live in its glow and in time I feel its power, its authority and its tender gentle healing.

Sorry if I am just rambling off course here. I am in one of those high on life moments where the hope is kicking me to believe we can all make it to our destination. It had me meditating on the word love this morning and consequently I am just full of it now.

Sending buckets of love and bushels of hugs your way. Wishing you well.