Problem: What to do when I feel sorry myself

Problem: Feeling sorry for myself
How often does this occur: Very
Where does this come from: It comes from within me, often times the feelings of feeling sorry for myself can be traced right back to the time when I was a child and I didn't get the things I needed (emotionally) from my mom. Nothing in the present should be causing me to feel sorry for mself.
Why is this a problem: For two main reasons. 1) Many times I find myself feeling sorry for myself when Jennifer is pointing out my bad behavior. This is a problem because when I feel sorry for myself I start to tear up and this does two things. Often, Jennifer has to ask what's wrong with me and this causes her to work hard at a time when she is already stressed. And also, when I do this it takes all the attention from her and shifts it to me and we have to spend time making me feel better instead of making her feel better, which we should be doing since it was my bad behavior that got things going in the first place. Nothing good can come from this situation; Jennifer only gets more triggered and upset, frequently I start babbling and not listening and not helping and many times things quickly spiral. All this can be avoided by not feeling sorry for myself in the first place.

2) Since I suffer from obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, I often freeze up to the point of inactivity and don't "do" anything when I am feeling sorry for myself. I am not spurred to any action. Today for example, as I am creating this post I am not feeling sorry for myself and thus am able to get some good work done. But if I was feeling sorry myself, I would very likely not be doing anything productive. Or I would be over-eating which is another issue that I'll be dealing with in detail here. So--in order to actually be in the productive "Rhino" mindset of doing something, I can't be feeling sorry for myselt.

How to cope: Although this is an ongoing problem, I picked it to be the first post (a sort of test-run) because I have found some pretty decent success in the past few weeks with visualization. Paticularly this.

By visualizing this stop sign, it allows me to quickly head off the "feeling sorry for myself" mentality and re-focus on Jennifer and her issues, which is key. If I am focused and calm even when Jennifer is upset, I can be the good partner I want to be and we can more quickly work through the issue--which is what both of us want!

So, when feeling sorry for myself, just remember:

If I disregard the stop sign, I will end up like this fellow. Don't be like him!