Self-Compassion Is Not Our Native Tongue

"Fluency" takes time, practice, patience.

NATALIE FURDEK, M.ED., LPC

In my last post, I talked about a study that has shown a link between self-compassion and unmasking. But how do we learn to be self-compassionate? Especially those of us steeped in ableist conditioning across a lifetime of unrecognized neurodivergence?

Well, obviously therapy is a wonderful place to start! But not everyone can afford therapy, not everyone needs therapy, and not everyone wants therapy. So, hopefully I can pass along some helpful information here with these folks in mind.

First, there are several reasons self-compassion is so difficult to master, especially for AuDHD people. But let’s start with the reason that isn’t even specific to us: conditioning. Very few of us learn in childhood how to be friendly with ourselves. We’re taught to “push ourselves,” to “strive to be our best,” to be “successful,” to have “perfect attendance,” to be thinner, stronger, prettier, smarter… And we’re rewarded by society when we achieve these things, repeatedly from early childhood through to the moment you’re reading these words. And that’s IF you had a decent childhood! If there was abuse, it’s even harder.

The self-esteem movement is one of those conditioning forces and it gets a lot of criticism for varied reasons. But the real trouble with only developing self-esteem is that it really only has your back when you’re doing well. When we struggle, or when we’re hurting, or especially when we “fail” at something or do something wrong, self-esteem is silent, perhaps even leaving room for old depressive thoughts to attack us.

What we need in these moments is self-compassion, but we don’t have the language for it at the ready!

Add to this the specific things auDHDers deal with such as executive functioning. Executive functioning is an umbrella term and only certain things under that umbrella are associated with ADHD. Others in the list are lesser known (because they don’t stop you answering your emails lol) but can still be affected when we’re tired or burned out or overwhelmed. The ability to think about our thinking - to “hear” what is happening in our mind and interact with it - is one of those other executive functions; and it’s called metacognition. AuDHDers often find themselves a long way into a rumination before they even realize it because of this issue.

Therapy can teach us to start paying attention to what’s happening in our mind and to begin to “stick up for ourselves” in there when we catch toxic or abusive language. We can learn to translate what’s being said into a more compassionate language. It’s about answering thoughts like “Ugh I’m so stupid!” like a really good friend might.

For example, I spent so many years being depressed before I learned I was autistic, that I can still sometimes still hear old depressive thoughts if something goes wrong in my day. It doesn’t happen often anymore, but when it does, I just stop what I’m doing and remind myself “we” (my brain and I) don’t do name calling anymore or turn on ourselves like that. I can still acknowledge I don’t feel good about whatever made me have the thoughts in the first place, but I don’t have to a bully in my own mind. We’ve had enough bullying by now, don’t you think?

But did you catch that? Even someone who talks about mental health all day long with clients still has to translate their own negative thoughts at times!

It is like self-compassion is a second language for us. If you speak more than one language, you know how long it can take before one has “naturally occurring” thoughts in that second language. It takes years! And it takes immersion in that language, meaning that a person must live for a time speaking only that language without their native tongue, in most cases. And even then, most thoughts will still be in that person’s first language. This is what I explain to clients when they become frustrated that their negative thoughts keep popping up, especially in the worst of times.

Many people describe self-compassion as a “practice”, and we should take that to heart. It’s going to take some time and repetition, and we can practice in a lot of different ways. Some therapists give the advice to “practice affirmations” and while there’s some value in this because affirmations teach us the language of self-compassion, affirmations are really just the “flash cards” in this language development - the vocabulary maybe.

The biggest mental health gains come when we learn to catch that old toxic language in our mind in difficult moments, as hard as that is. When we use those words of self-compassion “in real time” and remind ourselves to soften just a little with ourselves when we are hurting, we begin to change the nature of the relationship we have with ourselves, and this is healing! Even if the only thing we can muster in a moment is a little softness about how hard it is to soften in the first place.

If we can slowly learn to “stay on our side” and not turn on ourselves in our mind, we’ve got a good chance of beating depression, but the bigger outcome is that we can finally befriend ourselves more deeply. Self-compassion doesn’t mean not holding yourself accountable or telling yourself the truth. It just means that we’ve learned to do those things in the way a good and honest friend might.