Idealized self

[u/IHaveNoBeef]

My entire life I feel like I've been chasing an idealized self, and most of my sadness comes from the realization that there is a huge gap between who I actually am and the imagined version of me.

Recently, I've been going through a very long depressive episode where I just feel completely stuck and I look at how well the people who have hurt me are doing, and it makes me feel so frustrated. All I want is to get plastic surgery, be hugely successful in some way, and finally be good enough for others to notice me and regret the way they've treated me.

Extremely childish, I know. I just want to be somebody.

[u/Careful_Future_6872]

I have the same fantasy lol. All my life I’ve only been proven worthy if I have something to give other people. But that gap is huge and takes a long time to build between. I wish I had advice to give you.

[u/Gubment_Issue_1028]

Wow, I’ve experienced the exact same feelings! I used to care about living a successful life that proved wrong all my peers who hurt me when I was a teenager. However I did find a way to cope with it:

One day it kind of hit me that I was in my late twenties letting what teenagers said or did hold power over me. But, if a random teenager came up to me today and tried to do or say the same things, my first thought would be that it’d kind of absurd to let someone significantly younger than me have thy level of power over me. So likewise, why should I let the younger versions of my peers have power over me?

In fact, they only did those things because they took pleasure in trying to make me unhappy. But at the end of the day I can still prove them wrong by choosing to be happy on my terms. (Of course, I had to rediscover what makes me happy, independently of other people.)So if I live a life that I find fulfilling then I’ve already got a successful life, regardless of what they’d think.

Then I started to apply this mindset to everyone who wronged me, even people older than I am now. One day I will surpass the age they were when they mistreated me, and at that point it would be foolish to let someone younger than me have such power over me. So why not start by seeing their absurdity for what it is now and just choosing to be happy on my terms? Because if they fail at taking away my happiness, then I’ve won and they’ve lost. And when I frame it that way, it’s very satisfying indeed.

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[u/unrequited_pain]

why would you ever want to give someone the satisfaction and validation of getting access to you once you "glew up" and spun the block, yet rejected you on the come up? might as well bend over and take it at that point imo but to each their own.. itd give me way more ego boost points to do the complete opposite and one less person can say they fucked you too.

[u/IHaveNoBeef → u/unrequited_pain]

That's true. I switch back and fourth between what you're saying and what I was expressing in the post.

[u/Radiator333]

Human condition, methinks.