First, really like your post! I’ve done online emotional support for some years, and I could clearly see how people end up in these self-blame and self-punishment loops with little to no improvement. Someone called it “shoulding oneself in the foot.” The common denominator is people trying to argue with the past, and to change the past, or to punish themselves (or others) for the past transgressions, whether “real” or not. What gets lost is trying to affect the present with the goal to improve the potential future. Arguably, self-blame is an easy and tempting way out, as it lets one avoid acting in the present, and just keep the self-punishment going. It also saps the energy out of you, creating a vicious circle hard to break out of. If you try to point out the loop, and ask if they are interesting in working on improving the future, they (we) tend to find/invent/create a lot of reasons why self-judgment, self-blame and self-punishment is the only way to go.
First, really like your post! I’ve done online emotional support for some years, and I could clearly see how people end up in these self-blame and self-punishment loops with little to no improvement. Someone called it “shoulding oneself in the foot.” The common denominator is people trying to argue with the past, and to change the past, or to punish themselves (or others) for the past transgressions, whether “real” or not. What gets lost is trying to affect the present with the goal to improve the potential future. Arguably, self-blame is an easy and tempting way out, as it lets one avoid acting in the present, and just keep the self-punishment going. It also saps the energy out of you, creating a vicious circle hard to break out of. If you try to point out the loop, and ask if they are interesting in working on improving the future, they (we) tend to find/invent/create a lot of reasons why self-judgment, self-blame and self-punishment is the only way to go.
This is much nicer than the phrase I’ve heard, which is “shoulding all over yourself”