Welcome to the board Haley.... It's great that you've gotten some good help and are on the right path

Are you in any sort of therapy?... Cognitive therapy might help you .. I struggle with this at times as well

I try and interrupt the thinking with positive affirmations

I say them out loud and if I need to I'll say them out loud a few times

One thing that helps me is to ask myself would I treat anyone else the shabby way I treat myself.?.. Would I say awful to things to someone else? I wouldn't want to hurt others the way that I've hurt me at times

Working on being a better friend to me helps and also helps my mental health

Big hug.... This is a good board... I'm glad that you've found us.... xo

Hi Haley and welcome. I have a hard time fighting that negative self talk too. For me CBT and DBT don't really work. IFS (Internal Family Systems) seems to be doing the job for me. It sounds new agey but I've made a lot of progress in a short amount of time. But as always YMMV.

Like SunCloudJD I also find that treating myself nicer helps a lot. The way I look at it is if I don't treat myself well then I'm giving people tacit approval to treat me badly as well. And boy did I have enough of that garbage growing up.

I'm thinking seeing a therapist could help. They have a whole bag of tricks they can teach you to use to fight that negative self talk. Like Bruce Lee developed his fighting style, study a lot of things, keep what works, and discard the rest.

I have a friend that is really into IFS and he's stated that it has changed his life....xo

@SunCloudJD I appreciate your response. I have done a lot of work with DBT and learned so many great skills through that, but I just struggle to implement them. I love positive affirmations and I think saying them out loud is a really good idea. It is crazy how awful I speak to myself because I know that I would never speak to anyone else the way that I do to myself. It is sad but so true.
@oldbutwise, I have heard of IFS, but I have never tried it. I am currently seeing a therapist every 2 weeks which is great, but I may look into doing every week. Thanks so much!!

Welcome Hayley! Negative self talk is hard. I have worked on confidence in talk therapy for years. It’s been a journey....

I am vaguely familiar with IFS but I have to be careful with some kinds of therapy. That sort of therapy isn’t recommended for anyone who has had delusions and paranoia, and since I had schizoaffective attributes in my diagnosis process I have to be careful with sort of ‘reimagining’ of things. I had a similar experience in a hospital once, where one of the groups was Drama Therapy and people were acting out situations. My story doesn’t fare well with again that sort of reimagining things and I had to walk out of group and not attend those again.

That’s the thing with all these treatments, just because it works for one person doesn’t mean it does for others. Having said that, I think it’s a journey and to not be discouraged and give up if something (or a med) doesn’t work out. Always keep trying and something will turn around!

@SensitiveHoboLady, Thank you for sharing your experience. I don’t know if I could handle all of that either. I’ve been to different treatment centers with different programs and types of therapy, but I’ve never done that. I’m definitely going to keep pushing through. I’m hopeful I will be able to find something that works for me.

Welcome to DS. I have negative self talk, too. I'm trying to change that but it's hard. Hugs.