Anyone ridiculously hard on yourself?

So T said I take things out on myself. Which is true. She says it is from my childhood---I think that is just the common scapegoat personally. But I am really hard on myself. Growing up my parents were hard on us children because they wanted us to be perfect but I took it three hundred percent farther and sometimes it interferes with my life. (Yes I realize I just said my parents were hard on us after saying that it is a common scapegoat, I just don't feel like blaming my parents for my shortcomings.)

Yesterday I had sent the owner of my workplace a Starbucks card. She said, "Kit, why do you do this? Thank you." So because she asked why did I do this instead of just saying thank you, I freaked out and was ridiculously hard on myself. I beat myself up emotionally over it. Thinking I was stupid and lame for trying to do something nice. I kind of had to take a step back and say, "Whoa, Kit, all you did was do something nice, why are you beating yourself up?" That helped somewhat but not entirely. Today I am finding that I am ultra sensitive to criticism or anything even resembling criticism.


Does anyone else do this? How to stop doing this?

Me too. For me when I make a mistake I can beat myself up over it for YEARS... like in 1995 a teacher offered me a hug after a bad experience, I misread the gesture and shook her hand. She was visibly puzzled. I STILL feel horrible! She was trying to comfort me, so what if I missed the cue as long as I was OK!
Then some is like your example but people have taken it the wrong way and lashed out. One night at work a co workers credit card got shut off (possible identity theft). She had never been a nice person but she needed gas to get home and I didn’t know if she had dinner (she was closing). I handed her $20 without thinking about it just to know she would be OK. She was worried about paying me back but I told her I would feel better knowing she could eat if she needed to and got home safe. She went off on me and then wrote a three page complaint for my work record about insensitively flaunting my wealth.
Life does that to us sadly.

Yes I am very hard on myself. My T gave me a gift that is meant to help me with self compassion. I hope I can do better.

That's nice of your T.

I hope I can do better too.

I'm sorry to hear about your coworker @Omers some people......

It can be very annoying to receive "gifts" out of the blue from a co-worker. Particularly if it happens a lot. Think about why you are really doing it. It puts a burden on the recipient - what do you expect out of it? Do you want to be seen as nice? Are you doing it to others because you would like it to be done to you? Are you doing to take care of yourself in some way rather than the recipient? Did you ask the recipient first before assuming it would be welcome? I would not like it if a friend gave me stuff unsolicited - let alone if a co-worker did. Plus too nice can be seen as a way to control the other. I am not saying this is necessarily true for you, or consciously so, and there is a balance -but just trying to explain why someone might not like or want a gift from a co-worker.

The therapists did tell me I was too hard on myself -but not because of gift giving. She also said something about an over active super ego -whatever the hell that means. I did not take anything the woman said like that to heart.

I think you can probably get yourself onto a path of being kinder to yourself without having to look at the roots of why you are that way in the first place. I like Kristin Neff's self-compassion stuff. She has a book and a bunch of articles and probably a whole media empire by now (TED talk here). I bet there are tons of other things that have been helpful for people.

I have been really hard on myself for as long as I can remember. A teacher told me in seventh grade that I was going to give myself an ulcer if I didn't calm down (but no real guidance on how to do that). I didn't start to look at my perfectionism until the end of college, and I didn't really figure out how to start being kinder to myself until fairly recently. DBT, mindfulness, and self-compassion have all helped with this (along with looking more clearly at my past history).

I know that tune. My internal critic is extremely harsh. It's a recurring theme in my work with R.

yep, that's me. I would have gone through the same thought spiral as you describe if someone was to ask me why I had bought them a gift card. That spiral leads me to doing things like creating a rule to not buy gifts for other people ever.

One of the breakthroughs came when I realized that that my inner aggressor was a part of me that identifies and channels the aggressor from my childhood. I don't have to be him or let my inner aggressor run the show or act out against myself. I'm still trying to figure out how to use the positives that part brings without the negatives because that part does bring positives to my life/behaviors.

My T works very hard with me on recognizing and praising moments when I am acting kindly to myself. It's slow and hard work.

Oh yes. I am very hard on myself. I have to be very mindful about it and try to stop doing it.

To stopdog's point, I guess it could be annoying to others to receive unsolicited gifts (but then, aren't most gifts unsolicited?). What is that saying, no good deed goes unpunished.


That was just one example, a recent one, of the way I responded to myself. I sent the gift card because we have been going through a major slump in business. I know that the owner of the business struggles with depression and we have bonded a bit over that fact. I wanted her to know that I was with her and on her team and supporting her through this difficult stage in the business cycle, as I addressed in the note with my gift card. I just wanted her to not be depressed. No other known motive on my end.

Other ways I am too hard on myself. I had made a small mistake at work and the controller/CFO fixed it for me in the accounting program. Then she sent me an email explaining what she did and had me look at the invoice so I could see how to split the transaction properly. It was not a big deal. The controller/CFO was NOT mad at me (yes I asked) but I took myself to task about it. I wouldn't do that to someone else. I would be gracious and generous with them regarding a mistake they made if I were the one that caught it. But with myself I take myself to task and beat myself up emotionally (used to physically but haven't done that in a while).


I just think I need to stop being needlessly hard on myself and be more toward myself how I am with others. Because I am a lot nicer to other people than I am to myself. I should be at least equally nice to myself. I'm noticing more and more that I am being too hard on myself for no good reason.

Honestly, it sounds like a sweet gesture based on how you describe it...possible she was just having a day or in a mood.


I've definitely noticed I'm much more able to be kind with others and their failings than myself--would go so far as to say I'm even extremely empathic with others, but my knee jerk reaction is to be critical internally.


Can be helpful, assuming you notice it mid-stride, to stop the thinking and attempt to course correct. Would look something like, "hey, I'm being overly critical of myself again...how would I respond if someone told me a story of them doing what I just did?" and then attempt to engage myself in that way instead of the criticism. Can be slow work at first, but does get easier with practice.

The recipient did say thank you but asked why you keep doing it which is the part that sent you into the spiral - I am suggesting you look at why deeper. Is it part of your culture at work that people send each other gift cards? If so - then not weird. If not - then could be a little odd.

Thanks @largess12 I think T would tell me to use that CBT technique of picturing a stop sign when my thoughts get all out of control critical on myself. I can't say I love CBT but I am able to do that particular technique. But I've found, it's not enough to stop something, I have to replace it with something. I can't quite see myself replacing my thoughts with loving, caring thoughts, but maybe I can at least replace them with more rational, measured thoughts? Hmm.

Oh, I see. Actually it was the first time I had gotten her anything other than food or coffee, which I've only done once for each in the span of a year.


Our workplace does lots of little things like Donut Fridays where we get Donuts (or we used to before most of us are furloughed on Fridays) and lunch and dessert days where we get lunch and dessert.


We get gift cards at Thanksgiving to purchase turkeys and stuff with. And our birthdays get celebrated. We've gotten lots of free PPE since this COVID started. We get free shirts frequently.


Hmmm. Let me think. There's been some other free stuff. Squishy stress relievers. Highlighters. Hand sanitizer. Bagels and juice. Lots of food. Free coffee everyday. Etc. Just usually the employees are on the receiving end of it.


In this case I gave the gift upward to the owner so that can sometimes be complicated. Also some people are more comfortable doing the giving than the receiving. I'm okay with either personally. If someone wants to give me a gift card I'd be like, thanks! Particularly since it was $25. It's not like I spent $100 or something.


We don't have a gift policy at work for coworkers, just from vendors and customers. Can't be money. Can't be a big monetary value but less than $50 is okay. So I think I took that to mean we can also give each other gifts as long as we don't go overboard.

It’s possible that your boss was just caught off guard and didn’t know what to say in the moment. And those were the words that tumbled out of her mouth. It doesn’t mean that’s how she feels deep down inside. Words don’t always match our feelings. And I think it’s human nature to be too tough on ourselves.

Thanks @InnerPeace111

Up until this year I was viciously hard on myself. Have done a lot of work in therapy and am currently stable on meds, so this year I decided to stop being so hard on myself. Interestingly, when I stopped judging myself harshly I also stopped criticizing others.

I watched my mother die earlier than she should have because her life was so difficult, she was cruel to herself and often to others, and she never worked to change. When she died she was mentally and emotionally miserable. Never made peace with herself. I don't want to end my life like that.

Funny how I have forgiven almost everything that everyone has ever done to me, except for myself

That's me too, super hard on myself. I am STILL beating myself up because of one particular thing back 8 or so years ago, mistake I caused us to make that had huge consequences financially. Even though it's all worked out for the best, I still get mad at myself every time I think about it. I beat myself up about EVERYthing. Even after 8+ years of therapy I can't not do it. Just this afternoon - I worked 2 hours of OT today and finished just under the required emails per hour for top bonus, and started saying I hate myself bla bla bla but heard myself and stopped it. I have to be so very vigilant or if I'm not I don't notice and I lose myself in it. For pete's sake, I'm a week or so in to working a higher level of messages, and have not even had the training yet - so of course I'm going to be slower!! I'm trying to feel good about the fact that they trust me to work them before the training - instead of beating myself up - but I keep beating myself up anyway. Ugh.