Self Destruction: How it starts to take you over and consume you

You must have heard about the concept of self love; how important it is to love yourself and the abundance of happiness it can bring you. People will tell you to embrace your true self even with every possible flaw. But the problem here is that it’s not easy to do so, especially when you don’t know or don’t want to know whether you’re on the right path or the opposite- Self destruction.

Self destruction can be your bad habits, negative attitude or wrong set of values. Every time you welcome something with these aforementioned adjectives, you’re probably encompassing yourself with negativity and taking step towards sabotaging yourself. The harm can be physical or emotional or even both, if not controlled. The question now is how it starts or what begets this behavior into you?

• Negative Values

No, we’re not talking about -2 or -3. The thing we’re talking here is actually the basket of emotions you own. It involves the ‘too much’ factor. When the emotions inside you overpower your brain, it can be unhealthy. Just like the Mother Nature demands balance, so does your own spiritual nature.

When you start to cage yourself into too many emotions, it can result into draining you out. What happens is that you take a lot of burden on yourself from every room you got. It can be the fear of losing or disappointing someone, it can be your anger driven by your own complexities or the jealousy which might be radiating hatred now. It can be any of your emotion that has started to bundle up.

Things at times can be overwhelming but if it’s happening every day, if it’s taking half of your time to sit at a corner and just think about all of it then you’re only creating a new room for your self-harm.

• Mental Health Disorders

Depression, anxiety, eating disorder… Well you name it and as the name itself suggests, it’s obviously wrecking the nerves inside your head. Majority of people don’t even realize that mental health is actually a thing which has power over your life. People tend to ignore it by describing such problems as a “phase of life”. If you’re using this technique too, then you should stop and actually do something about it.

These disorders start from your daily hassles—When Kamya auntie’s daughter was slicker and petite in comparison to you, there you lost your self-esteem and grasped the desire to become someone like her who can be praised and loved by everyone effortlessly. You won’t even know and the inferiority complex you developed would turn your life upside down by shaping itself into Anxiety.

This is how you get yourself into the rabbit hole. All those small instances which you probably thought of as nothing can have a great impact on your mind. Then the things you do, intentionally or unintentionally to eradicate these feelings, that is how you basically start sabotaging yourself and before you know it, the hole already has had consumed you.

Some of the self-destructive things that people confuse with relieving:

• Cigarettes, alcohol or drugs:

People with most hurtful breakups know it all. The idea of lessening the pain of your broken heart here is obviously by destroying other organs (please note the sarcasm). Not only them but peopled who encounter financial burden, peer and social pressure, mental or sexual abuse, trauma and so on, they also tend to take support of alcohol, cigarettes or drugs by over consuming these. The list is actually long. The categories travel between the various pressures you get from the society and the desires you derive yourself from the society. You start with these things to not only show off but with a hope too that it will certainly take your mind off from all the worries you possess.

But, the question you need to ask yourself is “Till how long?” It might be helpful for that moment when you consume but will it be worth it in the long run?

• Dependency:

Your overflowing emotions seek for support. The only thing you desire at times is happiness; even it is at superficial level or for a short moment. There you start hunting someone who can hold on to your emotions not you.

Dependency is always a two way street. One part is you who are depending and the other is the entity on which you’re dependent. Your way of depending can either be physically where you use your sexual desires to not only get pleasure but to refrain yourself from feeling certain sentiments, or emotionally where you just want to freely express your sentiments without even caring if it’s happening both sides. A rebound relationship can be taken as an example. When the person is clearly not over their past lover but take the path anyway just to reach the idea of perfect romance and happiness. Things like this only unleash toxicity with time, harming both the parties.

• Procrastination:

It has become a cool and trendy concept these days, where people express about the happiness they get from absolutely doing nothing. Well to an extent, that can work too but the problem starts when you make it as your comfort zone and then deny coming out of it. You let your frustration or anxiety take control over your capabilities and decide to laze off but without even knowing it can become a habit which can kill your productivity and creativity level.

• Self-Harm (Physically): 

It is when you deliberately want to harm yourself. You reward yourself with pain in order to put a veil on pre-existing deep rooted pain. Self harm can be done by any means and up to any extent, be it putting a small scratch on your body or attempting suicide.

Taking everything into account, you can find a thousand ways to destroy yourself and nobody will stop you. But it takes only one moment of courage and a little realization to give your life a meaning which it deserves.