0004 - On "Waiting on Fairy Tale Happy Endings"

Mental Theorycrafting by Shaun

Hi this is Shaun with Mental Theorycrafting. I'm back! I decided to briefly discuss my hiatus and lead into dedicating this particular episode to a meme I saw on an Anxiety forum that read, "hope my story gets a happy ending because I've been through shit I didn't deserve." It got me reflecting on my own experiences of what I felt I did and didn't deserve, and how those layers didn't help serve me for my own personal healing or recovery. It added another layer of denial and resistance that preventing me from being able to properly self love, and in turn, love other. I was able to see these entitlement tendencies that pervaded some of my psyche, that I maladapted to growing up in those sort of hostile environments. I share this episode in an unscripted, raw form and use the meme as a jumping off point to lead into discussing some things I learned about invalidation, and how some invalidating is absolutely required sometimes to shed the old habits or past we no longer want to feel anchored to. But that is not to say that all things should be invalidated as if they are trivial or insignificant. If a rape victim is yearning to be believed because of what was unjustly done do them, it isn't unreasonable to see that invalidating in that way is a form of gaslighting and psychological abuse. However, for other people and in different ways, some invalidating is absolutely necessary in order to grow and find anchoring in hope and gratitude. Your self worth or self concept doesn't have to be so contingent on what you feel is owed or not owed to you, or how you issue out those sentences onto people. Challenge yourself to realize you don't have to wait for a happy ending when you can focus on starting small with figuring out ways to create happy moments without wait and sense of urgency. Not all fairy tales end well, and not everyones story ends happily. So, live it while you can and live for today, while you still can. Thank you for existing and thank you for listening. Also, for those of you who felt this was valuable or you'd like to share your thoughts, feelings or stories, feel free to write me at [e-mail]. Cheers. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mentaltheorycrafting/support