Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov Chapter 4: A Hymn And A Secret (1880)

“So self-sabotage, as the name suggests, are the behaviors that we engage in which both consciously but also unconsciously take good things from ourself. So it might be success, it might be happiness, it might be the very things that we need or that we hope for. And again, we might ask ourselves, why on earth would you do that to yourself? […]

There was a psychoanalyst called Ronald Fairbairn, and in the early 50s, this was something that he wrote about, particularly within a relational context. So he spoke about the internal saboteur, and the internal saboteur is a manifestation of taking something good from ourselves, but it comes from early experiences of being rejected. If we feel rejected, particularly as a child, this can give way to quite unbearable and intolerable feelings of anger, which feel difficult to manage.

So the way that becomes processed is by denying the very need that we have for the other. So any kind of neediness that we then feel within us becomes despised, hated and unacknowledged. And as such, we will then deliberately take good things away from ourselves or avoid engaging in certain relationships because to sit with that need and to be met with rejection feels absolutely annihilating.

So we deny actually having those needs to begin with. So in some way, you then leave yourself feeling safe from being rejected, but you unintentionally then rob yourself of the very thing that you crave.”

— Ryan Bennett-Clarke, Conversations with Annalisa Barbieri: Self-sabotage

we are all “difficult” sometimes. that doesn’t make you a problem or a burden or an inconvenience. it makes you a human being with feelings.

I did the best I could with the amount of time, energy, and knowledge I had in the moment. I am a part of nature; like crashing waves or seasonal fruit trees, I will not be perfectly consistent. I am not failing or falling behind, it makes sense why it didn’t work out. I didn’t have the resources or people that I needed to complete that thing successfully. I will find them. It is everyone’s first time living and we are all learning how to navigate it together. I forgive it all.

Cat Series a series of cats placed on flatbed scanners

Please forgive yourself for all the versions you couldn't become. Forgive yourself for the wrong things you said. Forgive yourself for not knowing what you wish you knew by now. Forgive yourself for the darker and shadowed parts of you, that are still just as beautiful. We have to learn to be able integrate all of the parts of ourselves because they are each in their own ways magnetic and beautiful.

Reminder that you're actually interesting. Your hobbies are interesting, your interests are interesting, you are important and loveable and people appreciate you. You're just a loveable, interesting person.