Text/Old K
In recent years, we often hear a word called "PUA", about the word originally originated from abroad, in fact, its full name is "Pick-up Artist" (pick-up artist), and later introduced to China and became synonymous with emotional suppression and mental control of others.
PUA can actually exist in any relationship, such as in intimate relationships, where one party makes the other party "willingly" satisfy their endless selfish desires through various means to achieve the goal.
In addition to the existence of PUA with external relations, there is also a "PUA" of the self, so what is "self PUA"?
I personally feel that this definition on the Internet is more in line with:
Apply the techniques of PUA to oneself, by denying oneself and destroying one's self-confidence, thereby achieving emotional control over oneself.
To put it more colloquially, self-loathing and self-deprecation.
The word about PUA on the Internet has been used badly, but the topic of "how to stop self-PUA" on Weibo has reached 580 million views and 97,000 discussions, which reflects a phenomenon in which people are suffering from internal friction and self-denial.
The relationship between depression and self-denial
We all know that there is no such thing as a "perfect person" in this world, but in the heart of a depressed person, they need to constantly become better, as if they are ashamed of themselves if they do not force themselves to die.
When I work with my clients, whether they say it explicitly or implicitly, I often feel that they have a core understanding of "I'm not good enough", and even if they have achieved worldly success, they still can't feel good.
American clinical psychotherapist Efron believes that everyone can humiliate themselves, and some appropriate sense of shame can help us reflect and adjust our behavior.
But if shame is allowed to disparage the true self too much, one may suffer from what psychologist Pauline Clance calls "impersonator syndrome."
This inner sense of scarcity makes them hate themselves, so in the hearts of depressed people, they often find that it is not the people on the outside who feel that they are not good enough, but that they themselves feel that they are not good enough.
The essence of this self-loathing is a kind of "self-attack", and people who often attack themselves will develop depression.
Aggression is a core concept in psychoanalysis.
Freud said that if one cannot symbolically and reasonably express one's aggression, psychological problems arise.
So no matter what kind of depression test question will contain the option of "self-deprecation", so why do depressed people have the problem of self-deprecation? Let's talk about that next.
Why do people frequently puA on themselves
A common routine of PUA is to constantly point out your flaws and make you self-doubt.
People who have self-PUA are particularly concerned about what others think of themselves, and these people often ignore the external evaluation of their own good side, and often resent and agree with the parts of others who evaluate them badly.
This is related to the early parenting environment, we found that those children who often deny themselves, when they were young, they were often denied by their parents or early parents, remember that some time ago there was a TV series "In the Name of the Family" in which Qi Mingyue was raised by the negation of her mother, no matter how good she was, how hard she worked, but in the eyes of her mother, she was always inferior to "someone else's child".
She was the class president in high school, and she ranked second in the exam, which was great.
But her mother always hated that she was the second oldest, not as good as the first place.
After work, her scum friend Li Jianjian became a wood carving artist, and her mother hated that she was not as artistically talented as Li Jianjian.
We know that parents' intention is to make their children better, but they don't see that behind their actions is full of control.
Since the child is always loyal to the parents, the child's constant denial of himself is actually a manifestation of pleasing and pandering to the parents.
In Don't Control Me with Love, Patrice Evans writes that controllers often use rebuttals to oppose other people's views, emotions, and beliefs, making the controlled feel, "You're wrong."
What the controller fears most is that the controlled person has a tendency to be independent, afraid that they want to "be themselves."
After being treated like this, they will have self-criticism in their hearts, and this feeling will continue into adulthood, so you find that these people will never be satisfied enough when they grow up, "addicted" to self-denial, and even when others degrade themselves, they will not think that there is a problem with people outside, they will only feel that everything is their own problem, and slowly fall into a new round of self-denial again.
Therefore, people who have studied psychology know that many external relationships are reproductions of internal relationships, and a person who is often PUA in external relations is actually PUA himself in his heart, which is complementary to each other.
How to get rid of self PUA?
The first step in addressing the constant self-deprecation and denial of oneself is always "awareness."
You have to be aware of all the feelings that are happening in your heart, and when you start to find that no matter what you do, you can't satisfy yourself, that's when the self-PUA begins, and that's when you realize that it exists, which is the first step.
The second step is to start changing your inner cognitive system.
For example, you have to go from the perception that "I have to be a perfect person" to "I am an ordinary person, and being an ordinary person can be less perfect."
There is also the need to realize that whether you are forcing yourself to meet the expectations of others, or whether you really want to do this well, this is very important, because people who have been self-PUA for a long time cannot distinguish which are their own needs and which are the needs of others.
The third step is to learn to love yourself unconditionally.
"Hello, Li Huanying" has a scene that makes me particularly moved, when Li Huanying became a mother, whenever her daughter Jia Xiaoling and her friends fight, cause trouble or take the first place in the bottom of the exam, she always laughs and tells her daughter that it is okay.
Even after her daughter's fake admission letter was exposed, she did not accuse Jia Ling. Jia Ling said guiltily: "I will definitely have a chance in the future", and her mother replied without hesitation: "That's for sure!" "Words and eyes are full of love and trust for her daughter.
Her love for her children never changes because of whether the children are obedient or not, and whether their grades are excellent. As the young mother said, "My future daughter, I will just make her healthy and happy." ”
Then love yourself is the same, you have to admit that you have limitations, you can work hard, but you no longer harshly blame yourself for all kinds of failures, the failure of many things is not necessarily your own responsibility, even if you are responsible, you will encourage yourself to make up for it next time, rather than blindly harsh on yourself.
You can accept everything about yourself, of course, it is really not easy to do this, to do this you can go back to the past with your parents as an adult, discuss and understand together, if you have this condition, congratulations, very happy, to a large extent can repair part of the past trauma.
In addition, you can also look for some healing relationships, they will accept you unconditionally, then this will also help you accept yourself to a certain extent, while staying away from or rejecting those who often deny you.
Finally, if you have the conditions, you can also find a reliable counselor to discuss your past with you, in the counseling relationship, the counselor will give you nourishment, so that you can slowly get rid of self-denial.
Finally, I would like to say that getting rid of self-PUA is not something that can be done overnight, so you have to be patient, any improvement and change in personality is not smooth sailing, good luck.