I'm sorry. I haven't been here in a while, and I can't remember how to use the trigger tag. So I can't hide anything. I can only use the icon.

I am very harsh with myself when I make a mistake. I may go easy on myself the first time, or two, but after several tries, I go ballistic and lose my temper. When I have a lot of trouble figuring something out, or something doesn't work out the way I think it should have, I will have a full-on beatdown on myself. I will slap my own face, multiple times. I don't leave any visible sign of injury, no red marks or bruises, but I think even doing it is a problem. I verbally abuse myself along with it, cussing myself out, calling myself names, telling myself I am stupid.

It's not so others will jump in and defend me, because I am always alone when I do this. In the distant past, others have seen me do it, but nobody knows it still happens.

I don't know how to talk myself out of it. I tell myself, angrily in the moment, that this is how my mistakes would have been handled when I was a child, and since nobody ever stepped in to protect me, it must have been the right thing to do. Logically I realize, just because they didn't call it abuse back then, doesn't mean it wasn't abuse. It most certainly was.

I've tried making it a policy never to say to myself what I wouldn't feel comfortable saying to a child. I would never dream of treating anybody else the way I treat myself, nor would I stand by in silence and watch somebody getting treated that way. Nobody deserves it. We all make mistakes. But somehow that doesn't stop me in the heat of the moment. Somewhere in the deepest part of my head, I still have the thought that it's only called abuse when it happens to somebody else. Anything done to me is justifiable.

Help?

Thank you.