Link – Humility and Mental Health

This could apply to many things in our society right now, but I’m interested in its mental health aspects, especially as a survivor.

“Arrogant persons not only believes they are always right, but also believe their religious, political or ethnic groups are right, while often harboring a deeply held conviction that those outside their group are wrong. This need to be right invariably engenders personal and cultural strife. If you have the attitude that you’re right and others are wrong this will provoke conflict, since those who you deem wrong will be offended and become defensive. Humility does not provoke conflict, but rather cooperation. Arrogance breeds arrogance, while humility breeds humility and leads to constructive communication, understanding and peace.”

I don’t think anyone would consider child abuse survivors super arrogant, but I wonder if we likewise do not have much humility either. I say this because humility requires knowing something that I think survivors struggle with, which is understanding our place in the world. I’ve often said that abuse disrupts childhood development such that we don’t really understand ourselves and our place in the world. We were too busy surviving.

I want to hypothesize that to gain humility, you have to know yourself, and that’s going to be difficult for survivors, which makes it difficult for us to have success in any kind of relationship, or interaction with the rest of the world.

As this article points out, it is in our best interest to develop humility by first learning about ourselves and gaining a realistic view of ourselves. To do that, start with understanding what happened to you and how it is impacting you now. Then, start working on a plan to know yourself and what you want.

It will take time, effort, frustration, pain, and many other things as well, but it can be done, and it is worth it.

https://blogs.psychcentral.com/psychoanalysis-now/2019/03/humility-and-mental-health/