I'm going to write this now while I'm in a semi-decent mood. My mood's kind of low today, and it may be because lack of sun or I'm just not excited to be back where all my stressors are.
Since at least high school, I've had confidence issues. I've internalized some things I probably shouldn't have let get to me and it's affecting me even now. Some things are:
- My grades are who I am
- Intelligence is all I have
- My opinions are worthless
- I need validation in order to be someone
- I need to do something significant and spectacular with my life
The top two come from things I heard from my family and school. The third is from my interactions with friends and at school. The fourth is kind of derived from school, and the fifth definitely is. Basically, school's kind of toxic for me. I became a high achiever and expected a lot of myself, and became severely disappointed when I couldn't go through with it or couldn't do it as well as the next student. This was killer in math and science, two subjects I was awful at. I somehow got through science with A's and B's. Math... I got C's. This caused me to hate myself more in high school because I thought I wasn't smart enough.
I've been seeing some facebook posts linking to pages about how to know you've lived a good life or something like that. And I've been reading them. And in a good mood, I know I am lucky. I am living a good life. Yet sometimes the little tiny things get me down. Like all of the above. Like how I'm not pretty enough and so I can't empathize with my friends who have stories of men hitting on them or getting something for free. Like how I'm not skinny enough so I go through intense periods of calorie restriction and near fasting and then binge eat because I start getting headaches and my dizziness (already really bad) becomes worse. Like how I'm not happy enough because I may have Seasonal Affective Disorder, which makes living in Utah really, really hard.
In attempts to make myself feel better, I try to find all the inspirational things I can and collect it. Put it in plain view for myself to see. Sometimes it works. Other times, it makes me feel worse. I'm going to go through each thing point by point and let you know how I try to deal with it.
1. My grades are who I am
Okay, this is kind of hard to get over. But I remind myself that past college, no one's going to give a shit I've got a 3.96. They're going to care about who I am and what I did. It's the "what I did" that's causing me more anxiety. And I've been telling myself, "I'm genuine. I'm real. People will see that," as a way to make up for the fact I may not have a lot for "what I did." In college, I don't have time for the "what I did" category to expand- at least, officially. Partially because I know I get stressed easily. I likely won't have time or money to do internships. I won't have time or money to do study abroads. I mean, hey, if an internship happens, I'm going to jump on it. Likely only if it's paid. But I've got things that I may not be able to put into a resume that I can talk about. Like my independent travels to Japan. My ability to teach myself things. That's something I'm proud of. I can teach myself things.
2. Intelligence is all I have
I am not just my smarts. I am kind but firm, compassionate but blunt. Insightful into the way the world works. Resourceful and able to pick up on things quickly. I just have to remember all of this when I'm down. There's more to me than just intelligence. "Intelligence" in my current use of the word is how well I can do in school. Basically, "school smarts." It's good to be intelligent, but not "school smarts intelligence."
3. My opinions are worthless
I've been shut down by so many people and ignored so many times that I've learned to be quiet. I never learned to fight for my opinion. Never learned how to debate properly. I don't even like picking from two options because it's giving my opinion on something. But there are people who care about and listen to what I think. I know for a fact I have one person who will listen to me and if he doesn't agree he will let me know in a way that doesn't frighten me. No "you are wrong." No raised voice. No "you are stupid." I just have to start getting my opinion out there while being backed by this person and become more confident. This will take time. But I'm going to do it.
4. I need validation in order to be someone/I need to do something spectacular with my life
Confession time: I went to go see The Fault in Our Stars in the movie theater and laughed at the movie and the people watching it. Laughed because it didn't seem realistic. Laughed because the characters didn't make sense to me. Laughed because the people watching it were making funny noises that I'm sure were the precursory noises to crying and why were they crying? But there's one line that Hazel said that almost made me cry. Not because it was some sappy confession. Because I was Augustus Waters in that moment and I needed to hear what Hazel said. She said (paraphrasing), "Why are you so set on being remembered by everybody? Isn't it enough to be remembered by someone who loves you so completely that they won't forget you? Who cares if you aren't remembered later on down the line? Isn't being loved by a few people so completely instead of by a lot of people partially more important?"
My school's honors college has a thing about telling us we need to do something important. if it's not outrightly telling us we need to do internships and take all these honors courses and do research blah blah blah, it's being implied. And I get stressed out because I DON'T see myself doing these things that easily. A lot of the opportunities are aimed- practically being shoved at- those who are engineering majors, computer science majors, or science majors. Basically, something hard science-y. Something that everyone says "will get you jobs out of college!" Whereas I haven't really heard of opportunities for people like me, who are fine arts majors or humanities majors, etc. I'm a Japanese/Linguistics double major. There are opportunities for research in Linguistics. I'm very interested in how to teach people language and how people acquire language, though, and the last time I checked, there wasn't much research being done at my university.
I don't need to be recognized for all that I do by the people I help. That's nice acknowledgement, yeah, but isn't it better to feel better for myself? I'm not saying I'm going to forgo acknowledgement completely. I need some "hey you do well!" thing that isn't sent out to a huge group of people. I like things personal and tailored to a small group of individuals. But I should stop hanging on it like a lifeline. I do not need validation by random people to be someone. What my family and friends acknowledge is enough. I had a talk with another friend (not the same from above), and he told me to be confident in what I do. Other people can see what I do and they won't necessarily vocalize it all the time. He said that he believes in me. Keep in mind, we aren't particularly chatty friends. I don't keep up with him all the time. I probably haven't talked to him much since middle school. But he sees that I operate differently- which isn't bad- and he believes in my ability, even if it is in a way vastly different than the way the world seems to operate.
5. Not pretty enough/calorie restriction
I've been convinced since high school that I'm not pretty. I don't have a face people like to look at. This is shallow. I have my own inner beauty and the people who go solely off of looks are not people who are worth my time. I've only recently gotten rid of the complex that I wasn't pretty because "I never used makeup." I really didn't. Only for really special occasions did I use make-up, and that was somewhat grudgingly. I can still sympathize with my friends who get hit on. But I haven't been in their position- yet. And I hope I don't. Before, I hoped it was because I was too ugly to be there. But I only recently change it to "I hope it's because of the way I carry myself. With a sure step and a gaze held level instead of at the ground, with thrown back shoulders and a way of exuding confidence."
The "not pretty" complex also led to me hating how my body looked. This only started last year, where I began to skip meals and eat less food as well as exercise more in an effort to lose weight so I could be skinny and pretty. then I'd binge on food, feel awful and gross, and go back to restricting calories. But I learned that by restricting calories, your body kicks into starvation mode- metabolism slows down and it's HARDER for you to lose weight. I still have problems with it. I think a large problem with it was I didn't know how much I was eating. I got MyFitnessPal for the iPhone and now I can see how much I've been eating. I'm not using it for calorie restriction- now that I know how much I need to eat and how much I've eaten and how much I need to go. If I use it in a healthy way, I should be fine. And I shouldn't be disappointed when the number on the scale doesn't change that much. I do swim and run. I'm going to have muscle. So if I lose weight and then gain it back it's probably because of losing fat and gaining muscle.
So that's my long thing evaluating my self-confidence and how I hope to change things in the future.
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