It makes me beat up myself even more. For instance, I was listening to a podcast called the Mental Illness Happy Hour. In a recent episode the host Paul had a therapist on as a guest. When giving listeners general tips to improve their mental health, Paul and the therapists agreed that 'one should get rid of toxic people.'

This hurt me because I know that my mental health rubbish has turned ME into somewhat of a toxic person. I also felt that it was harsh to dismiss people as toxic! (My mother drummed it into me that I was a 'bad child', so...)

And this is only one of many self-helpisms that are unhelpful to me. Here are three others:

* Just be yourself (who am I?)

* You can't love anyone unless you love yourself (so I am undeserving of love -- i.e the reason for living -- until I conquer the life-long ordeal of my self-hatred?)

* If you want to get better, you have to want it first (oh, god. To go through the constant internal anguish over wanting to get better but not knowing how, only to get this advice thrown at you when you fail)

I know that there is truth to most of the self-help stuff out there, but I can't process it as anything else than a tiger parent's insistence that 'I'm not trying hard enough.' 


