Saturday morning cartoons. This was a sacred ritual that we looked forward to every weekend.

The fact that you made this post shows you are not a bad person. It shows you care about yourself to set a standard and measure yourself against it. You are just like everyone else in that regard and that is pretty special.

I say you are not bad. I say you are amazing. To quote: “What a piece of work is a man, How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, In form and moving how express and admirable, In action how like an Angel, In apprehension how like a god, The beauty of the world, The paragon of animals.“

Now that is a pretty high bar. We strive for it and we measure ourselves against it. Does the fact we do not achieve it makes us bad? No, it makes us human.

This is what is called a shame spiral. How do you get out of it? As this reply said give yourself a pass. Being able to identify negative self-talk is the first step to being able to lift yourself out of it. For me learning to identify and exit the spiral of shame has had a huge positive effect on my mental health and made existence more tolerable.