Self-Rejection and Dissociative Identity Disorder
We all feel a sense of rejection of ourselves from time to time. We briefly see ourselves as imperfect and reject how we live in light of how we wish to be. That’s healthy.
However, often, people who live with the chaos of dissociative identity disorder (DID) use self-rejection as a weapon, carrying on the disastrous abuse they incurred while young.
This article will focus on self-rejection and how we can mitigate its impact on our lives during our healing.
What is Self-Rejection?
Self-rejection is an emotional model that happens when people prevent themselves from acting because they fear failure or rejection from others. As a coping mechanism, self-rejection causes us to undermine our worth so that we can avoid being rejected by others.
Below are just a few examples of self-rejection.
- You do not apply for a job that you feel would be perfect for you because you are sure you will not get it and experience humiliation.
- Telling yourself that you should not say or do something that would enhance your life for fear of experiencing negativity.
- Resigning or not pursuing your dreams.
Remain in unhealthy intimate relationships or jobs, not wanting to experience the discomfort of growth.
Self-rejection has far-reaching implications for those who practice it, affecting their self-esteem, relationships, and well-being. Self-rejection often leads to people-pleasing behaviors (fawning) or to acting in such a way as to provoke someone else to reject them, thus fulfilling their prophecy of what will happen.
What are the Symptoms and Causes of Self-Rejection?
While every person is different, there are many signs that you are rejecting yourself.
- Overboard shyness and passivity and not wanting to initiate a relationship.
- Problems with self-image mean you cannot accept your physical appearance.
- Experience difficulty in receiving the love of others.
- Finding it challenging to love others.
- Constantly feeling inadequate and inferior.
- Feeling angry with stored irritation causes you to become overbearing and pushy.
- Deeply felt patterns of unworthiness.
- Lack of self-love, using perfectionism to cover how you truly feel about yourself.
- Addictions that are apparent and hidden.
- Depression
- Self-isolation
You can see how self-rejection profoundly and negatively affects your life and those around you.
Overcoming the Self-Rejection of DID
The opposite of self-rejection is self-acceptance, which means pursuing your potential despite any limitations you may have. It also means becoming the person you know you are deep down where it counts and working actively to improve yourself.
To overcome self-rejection, it is critical to first learn to recognize self-defeating actions and thoughts and actively work to improve yourself.
Dissociation is a form of self-rejection; we tend to hide away in our minds rather than be aware and act to protect ourselves. For instance, when faced with a chance to earn a college degree, I delayed applying because of my dissociation (self-rejection). I believed I was protecting myself from failure when, in reality, I had turned down an excellent chance for advancement.
By dissociating from our lives, we leave enormous potential behind, choosing instead to remain trapped in our negativity and low self-worth.
Ending Our Time Together
While reading this piece, as I was writing it, I realized I have some residual self-rejection. I tend to be terrified of forming new relationships, especially intimate ones. I also shy away from those who proclaim their love for me, allowing their words to roll off my back like water on a duck’s back.
Since traumatic occurrences mainly cause self-rejection, we have experienced in childhood, the same animal from which dissociative identity disorder is spawned.
Although I am ill, I, for one, am going to change my attitude and start looking at who I am and why I feel the need to self-reject. When I find a reason or cause, I’ll actively work on changing my attitude so that I can move on in peace, allowing myself to love others and for them to love me.
“You are a whispering diamond, turning in the sun, articulating the one thing the sky wants to say, in a million different ways.” – Curtis Tyrone Jones.
“It’s about my own self-concept. Can I accept that I am worth looking for? Here lies the core of my spiritual struggle: the struggle against self-rejection, self-contempt, and self-loathing. It is a very fierce battle because the world and its demons conspire to make me think of myself as worthless, useless, and negligible. As long as I am kept “small,” I can easily be seduced to buy things, meet people, or go places that promise a radical change in self-concept, even though they cannot bring this about. But every time I allow myself to be thus manipulated or seduced, I will have still more reasons for putting myself down and seeing myself as the unwanted child.” – Henri J.M. Nouwen.
Thank you, Shirley for this piece! It is such a thick and heavy layer that holds all my parts together. For me, I realized that self-rejection is the glue that keeps my system together. Some parts loose their roles without it! So I decided to think of every part and aspect of myself as a team and to address them as such. Even the self-rejecting ones. This was the first step towards dealing with self-rejection. Now I conceive of every moment in my life as a manifestation of team work. This morning, as I woke up, and I saw the mess in my room, I was able to perceive that each element of the mess also held a lot of sorrow and grief for my losses. So I learned that my self-rejection is also an uninformed way to deal with loss. That seems really important and I will explore now how I can deepen into what these losses mean to my whole team. I am happy to see that your illness still leaves room for you to pursue your purpose in the form of these letters! Wishing you all the self-love possible!
Very good article Shirley. Thank you for sharing.