You punish yourself because you equate treatment to internal value.

I just had a thought. The reason why so many women feel like they’re unworthy in some form (ugly, dumb, unloveable, etc.) is because they equate treatment to value.

Let me explain. If a woman is treated badly, she is conditioned by society (and other forms of continuous reinforcement) to believe that poor treatment is a reflection of her innate value. If you were abused, you somehow “weren’t good enough”. If you were treated badly, it’s because you didn’t have enough worth to be deserving of good treatment.

Some women use this false correlation between treatment and value to punish themselves. They think: “Well since X treated me poorly, I’m obviously not worth it, so let me treat myself the way I’ve been taught that a ‘worthless’ person should be treated—with punishment.”

We punish ourselves in different forms: emotional eating, not taking care of ourselves, not following through on our goals, feeling addicted to toxic relationships (even though we rationally know better), not advocating for ourselves, not saying no…the list goes on. By punishing ourselves, we effectively recreate what the abuse has trained us to believe as true, even though it’s all been one big lie: “Poor treatment only happens to the unworthy, therefore I am unworthy. Unworthy people must be punished. ~proceeds to self-sabotage in preferred medium~” .

It’s circular logic, but it’s how many previous victims subconsciously think. “I was punished because I was unworthy, I am unworthy because I have been punished. Therefore, I must punish myself to continue my deeply engrained belief of unworthiness.”

Self-sabotage is effectively a way to self-fulfill the prophecy of our unworthiness, even if we’re no longer around our abusers. “Well I fucked up by doing X form of sabotage, so maybe they were right, I am unworthy.” This thought leads into more feelings of unworthiness, which leads to more self-flagellation. The more we hurt ourselves, the less value we think we have, the more likely we are to engage in more damaging behaviors and relationships.

In so many words, we treat ~ourselves~ poorly because we believe that poor treatment correlates to poor value. We shit on ourselves to reaffirm our core beliefs of unworthiness. It’s sad, but it’s real. We become our own worst enemies in order to relive the bad treatment that we received from others.

The saddest part though, is the fact that there was never any correlation between poor treatment and low innate value at all. We’ve always been more than enough, in fact, that might have actually been the incentive behind our abuse- our natural gifts were a potential threat to the abuser’s power. We were shit on because we made them insecure with our own natural power. They felt unworthy, and they couldn’t handle being next to someone who was worthy. It’s a way to reclaim lost power without actually improving themselves.

Imagine that. The real reason you were shit on was because you were too good this entire time, and it made your abusers feel threatened and caused them to vomit their self-hate onto you. Often times, the poor treatment you receive is actually a testimony of the fact that you always had more value than you ever knew. Insecure people will only tear down those that are above them.

But the most fucked up part to me isn’t just the projection itself and the poor treatment, it’s the fact that most women internalize it as an identity badge. “He did me dirty, so I suck.” instead of “He did me dirty because my value made him feel threatened and he needed to put me down to feel better by comparison.” She will never realize the latter until she knows one thing and one thing only— abusers are master liars and master projectors.

The only way to break the cycle of unworthiness is to treat ourselves with kindness, every day, even after our mistakes. We cannot equate treatment to worth, and we cannot make the mistake of thinking that punishment is what we deserve if we let ourselves down in some way.

We’ve been punishing ourselves this whole time over NOTHING. Nothing was ever wrong with us, yet we treat ourselves poorly (through negative internal dialogue and/or actual physical means) because we thought that there was. We really thought that something was wrong with US. Imagine a diamond throwing itself in the trash because someone couldn’t appreciate their value. It sounds dumb, but so many of us do this every day. We believe that worthy people aren’t treated badly, so we jump to false conclusions and might even actually engage in low-value behaviors as a result.

We punished ourselves in real ways because of false beliefs. We turn into our own worst abusers.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where some of the best women actually get the shittiest treatment. So the best women believe that they’re the worst women, and accept behavior that they think is in accordance with that belief. The amount of potential these beliefs have ruined is breaking my heart.

You can’t convince me that there isn’t a special space in hell for abusers. Fuck insecure people who ruin other people’s perception of self. That is all.