A Stupid Self-Compassion Life Hack

blorbo from my brain

There’s a technique, for people who are too hard on themselves, where they imagine what some compassionate and loving person would say to them about their problems: God, their grandma, their dog, their future self. It’s difficult to be kind to yourself, but it’s easier to imagine someone else being kind to you.

Unfortunately, I’m an atheist who has shitty family members, doesn’t like pets, and is pretty sure their future self would also think they suck. So this technique did not work well for me until I discovered the stupidest lifehack.

I imagine, if my life were a piece of media, what the fans would say about me.

Not just any fans, mind you. I’m talking the most unhinged villain-apologist, Draco-Malfoy-is-my-little-meow-meow, Kylo-Ren-did-nothing-wrong Tumblr girlies. The guys who won’t even open up an AO3 tag for less than six unforgivable war crimes. The people who write fluffy Morgoth/Sauron coffeeshop AUs.

So when I’m being down on myself I imagine Tumblr posts like so:

Ozy wants to improve the world so much, and they’re failing badly, and it hurts them so much that they’re failing. And they can’t even fairly say that they tried and failed, because the thing that’s not working is their ability to keep trying. They’re just sitting there trying as hard as they can to be able to try. 😭 😭 😭 I love them so much

uuuuuugh I hate Ozy antis. They’re not ‘‘‘‘‘‘‘manipulative.’’’’’’ They learned when they were a kid that, if they asked for what they needed, they would get in trouble. The only way they had of getting what they needed was being loudly miserable and hoping someone noticed. Of course they’re going to do that when they’re an adult! And you can clearly see they’re trying to do better.

oh God this latest episode is breaking my heart… what Ozy feels makes so much sense from their perspective, and what [redacted] feels also makes so much sense from their perspective… TALK TO EACH OTHER

Ozy wrote two blog posts today… IMPOSSIBLY strong and brave. your fave could never

“Ozy is a crappy effective altruist” actually I think you will find Ozy is the best effective altruist. to me

This works particularly well because, for a couple years there, my life resembled a hurt/comfort fanfic written by a fourteen-year-old who had only skimmed the Wikipedia page on migraines and missed some key information about how they were supposed to work. Imagining the “oh no! poor Ozy! you’re so mean! update soon, I have to find out if they’re okay!” comments was a great comfort.

If I’m like “but what if I really am terrible?” I simply remind myself that, however much I suck, I am a better person than Darth Vader, so if the fandom can do a sympathetic read on Darth Vader they can surely do a sympathetic read on me. I don’t alieve in unconditional love from any human, animal, deity, or universe, but even I can’t deny the unconditional love of fangirls.

Also, imagining the Tumblr fandom for your life is an inherently very silly thing to do. And if there’s one thing I need when I’m caught up in a melodramatic storm of self-pity and self-hatred, it’s to laugh at myself.

I suspect this won’t work if you aren’t in fandom yourself and don’t have a good model of villain apologist fangirls. But if you are in fandom, and you struggle with offering yourself compassion, try it out.