Angryworld, know what you mean. I've been making an effort to stop the mental abuse I put my own self through, with rumination, put-down thoughts, focusing on the negatives instead of the positives, etc. I can be making good progress, then due to a trigger or event, find myself back in that destructive cycle, and yes, be shocked at the amount of mental abuse I'm causing myself. Almost as if I'm doing the work for my past abusers. Only thing I know to do is practice, keeping at it, repetition, in hopes that more constructive thought patterns will become more of a habit and come more naturally, with the opposite for the bad patterns.