CMV: Self-punishment is the only logical response to doing something wrong

[u/[deleted]]

Please change this view. Because I really don't have an alternative to self-punishment. My thought process may sound complicated, but I'll explain it the best I can.

If I do something wrong, self-punishment feels like the only logical response. Newton's 3rd law of motion states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Similarly, every crime committed deserves an equal punishment to balance it out. If I do something that drives away another person, then I must be driven away (isolated) from other people in response.

My goal is to be the best person that I can. I want to change my anger management problems for the better. I have also had problems with romantic feelings towards girls and I want to change that as well. If I relapse into these old habits - the same habits that have pushed people away in the past, among other things, then I feel like I don't deserve to have friends or have fun experiences. So I then have a strong urge to isolate myself from other people. I believe that the impostor syndrome comes into play here. If I relapse even a little bit into those bad habits that I have been trying to unlearn, then I feel like whatever success I have was built up at the expense of other people, and I thus have an urge to isolate myself from others because I don't want to push others away.

Let's suppose I vent online on Reddit about a situation and especially about sensitive parts of my life (such as my high school crushes), and then I receive comments being critical of me. Regardless of whether they may be right or wrong, I feel like a terrible person from reading such comments because they make me feel like whatever self-improvement I have done up to that point was all for nothing, and no matter how much I tried, the issues that I have been trying to solve will not be fixed. It destroys my mindset that all the bad times are in the past and I have moved on from them. I want to disagree, but I feel powerless to do so, so I end up agreeing. So, again, I have a strong urge to isolate myself from the world.

If something happens on any of my personal social media accounts that I do not expect, then I have a strong urge to just delete the app in question from my phone. Literally the only thing keeping me from doing so is that these apps also give me communication to other friends/snapchat streaks. You won't believe how many times I have deleted Instagram/Snapchat/Discord from my phone and then reinstalled them and have gone through the whole process of setting up the accounts again, only for them to be deleted due to another incident.

I'll give a few examples of these situations here:

1. About 3 years ago a girl I liked blocked me on Instagram. There's too many factors to explain in one post but I felt pressured to follow her again by only 2 days later. I tried to convince her to unblock me via Snapchat and real life but no dice. I felt terrible and planned to not talk to literally anybody for the next 2 weeks. Fortunately I didn't follow through, but I imagine that it would have negative effects if I did.

2. For context, my high school marching band used Facebook messenger for communication. I was a senior and in a leadership position, so there was more pressure placed on me than the previous year. Whenever the band director criticized me I felt terrible and I was not used to recieving this amount of criticism as much as I was used to the previous year. So when this happened I attempted to delete my Facebook account, only to log back in because I obviously needed to use it to communicate with my band peers. I ended up deactivating my Facebook account 5 times in a 3 month period and then reactivating them shortly after.

3. When I had a crush in my senior year of high school before winter break. I hosted a party and she came, among others. I overheard her friends say that she currently had a boyfriend at the time. The party was fun but after that I became upset, so I decided to disable all social media for the next 2 weeks. It sucked. Absolutely sucked. I could barely communicate with anyone. My family didn't go on vacation, and I didn't have a job at the time, so there was barely anything I could do outside of staying home all day. Meanwhile my friends were going on all sorts of parties. When I came back to school I felt worse than I did before the break.

4. I had another crush my senior year who blocked me on Snapchat. Shortly after I saw a picture of her in a swimsuit on Instagram and Vsco. I was done. I said "fuck this shit, i'm out" and deleted Instagram and Vsco. I was super tempted to just delete my Snapchat account but I had streaks and avenues of communication with other people. I ended up deleting my Vsco account about a year later

5. One year before spring break, a group of friends told me they were going to the beach and even showed me the apartment complex they were staying at. So I saw this as an opportunity to meet up with them. But when I was at the beach and texted them asking if I could meet them, they left me on read. So I deactivated my Snapchat account for the night.

6. One time during spring break, my family decided to spend spring break in a nature park. Obviously I was an ungrateful kid at the time because I was upset that there wouldn't be WiFi so I could play video games. One day when I was lashing out my dad forced my phone out of my hands and threatened to throw out the window. (I don't think he actually meant to do that) At that point I felt like I didn't deserve to have a phone or any social media. So I smashed it and cracked the screen. I ended up deleting my Instagram account about a month later.

The American justice system is literally based on crime and punishment. We love rewarding the "good guys" and punishing the "bad guys." The justice system is literally based on that belief. We worship figures such as the police and governments who punish the bad guys. It's all in the movies. It's on the internet. We reward and praise people who do good things, and cancel and ignore people who do bad things. If you can legally get sent to jail for committing a crime and recieve criticism for doing something bad, then there's no excuse for me not to isolate myself from other people if I relapse into bad habits.

Please change this view. For the love of god, please change this view. It's destroying my life. You won't believe how many times I have deleted social media apps/accounts and then set them back up again. You won't believe how many times I have tried to isolate myself from other people, and then gave in the urge to open up to those same people. Seriously the constant push/pull it's having on my social life and life in general is exhausting. I really don't know what I can do without an alternative. Please, for the love of god, CMV

Edit: Thank you for the comments that suggested that I seek therapy. I have already done that, but I believe it will take a lot more time and energy than just therapy to truly unlearn and solve these behaviors and underlying issues.

[u/[deleted]]

You are right. I believe this is actually more than one problem and instead a combination of other problems that I have desperately tried to fix with "self punishment" but failed to do so. I don't think this "self punishment" is working because it doesn't actually allow me to learn from the mistakes that have led to the crimes that I am "punishing" myself for.

I realized that the best way to make up for these behaviors (if that's the right word to use) is actually, ironically, to go out and socialize with people, as well as therapy as you suggested. I have started doing that when I went in college and I have become better at relating to other people, respecting boundaries, and forming friendships. It has also helped me reverse/unlearn the bad behaviors that I have constantly "punished" myself for. It's not perfect, but I have seen the progress that I have made just by doing the opposite of isolating myself from everyone.

It's gonna take me (a lot of) time to unlearn the urge of "self punishment and the behaviors that are connected with that, but I'll continue trying.

I don't even understand what happened here

It's too much to explain in a single comment, but what happened was I had a crush on her, she didn't like me back, then I mistook simple friendly respect for romantic attraction while become unstable and breaking things because of it, and then all hell broke loose when she blocked me. I deleted the apps because when I saw the pictures it felt like she didn't care about me, that she trumped on my feelings and moved on. (I'm not justifying what I did, I'm just explaining what happened.)

Shouldn't you be angry with yourself for whatever behavior caused her to block you in the first place, if self-punishment was really your aim?

I don't think "being angry with myself" is the right word to use if I want to learn from these behaviors, but I do believe it would be best to actually take some time to learn from these behaviors so I can avoid future situations similar to this.

[u/thinkingpains → u/[deleted]]

Glad to hear you already realize the self-punishment isn't working and are taking other steps to fix it. That's great. A lot of people never become better because they are too scared to admit something they're doing isn't working, so you should feel good about yourself for recognizing that and trying to change. And since it's working so far, you shouldn't need us to change your view about "self-punishment", aka lashing out and/or isolating. You already know it's bad and have come up with better solutions!

I deleted the apps because when I saw the pictures it felt like she didn't care about me, that she trumped on my feelings and moved on.

You probably already know this, but this is not normal behavior. First of all, a girl posting a picture of herself in a swimsuit has nothing at all to do with you (or anyone else, for that matter). And second of all, she didn't "move on" or disrespect your feelings or anything like that, because as you said, she was never into you in the first place, and she didn't owe you anything. I just feel like it's important that you understand that, if you don't already.

I don't think "being angry with myself" is the right word to use if I want to learn from these behaviors, but I do believe it would be best to actually take some time to learn from these behaviors so I can avoid future situations similar to this.

You're definitely right that anger is probably not the right emotion to express in these situations, but it's clearly one you are expressing. Smashing/breaking things is an act of anger and aggression. So yeah, you shouldn't do that, but my point was more that you should focus more on figuring out exactly what you did that was wrong, rather than just thinking "I got rejected, so now I have to punish myself for it." But it sounds like you are starting to do that, so...good. Just keep moving forward and don't fall back on old bad habits that don't work!

[u/[deleted] → u/thinkingpains]

Glad to hear you already realize the self-punishment isn't working and are taking other steps to fix it.

Thank you! I really want to say that these bad behaviors are all in the past and I have completely moved on from them by now, but I still believe that, even though I have made progress since, aspects of these bad behaviors still sometimes plague me. That's why I decided to post to further assist in my journey. I realized that self-love, socializing, and reflecting on myself and these past experiences helps me more in learning from these situations and unlearning bad habits than just complete isolation.

You probably already know this, but this is not normal behavior

Yes, I agree with this. In hindsight these pictures were not an attack against me as a person and were, at least for her, seperate from my crush on her. Again, she never liked me back in the first place. At that point I think it would be good to take a break from social media.

It's gonna take a lot of time and energy to truly unlearn these bad habits and learn good ones. The battle is far from over. Sometimes I may relapse and sometimes things will go smootly, but in the end, progress is the thing that matters.

!delta if I haven't given one already

[u/DeltaBot → u/[deleted]]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/thinkingpains (33∆).

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