Stay with me, I’m going somewhere with this…but it is a ramble and I will jump from subject to subject, and it goes to a negative place before hopefully ending positive (I haven’t finished yet, so I reserve the right…)
At the moment, I’m really struggling, both physically and emotionally. Struggling to the point where I’m even suffering physically from the effect of these emotions,and I no longer know if many of my symptoms are “real” or an anxiety symptom. At the moment, as an example, the lower left side of my abdomen is vibrating on and off. It’s such a weird feeling, and I have no idea if it’s a serious issue or my nervous system in a flutter. I’ve become a hypochondriac, who’s unable to trust what her body is telling her on any level and that’s a scary position to be in. I’m at the doctor’s a lot recently, and I’m worried that real illnesses are being lost in the ones that I’m accidentally overanalysing. The lump that my physio found near my neck, and said I should probably get it looked at, would normally be a pretty easy thing for me to deal with, but at the moment it’s not.
There are so many thoughts in my head about it.
“OH GOD IT’S CANCER, YOU ARE DYING” screams the voice panic that unfortunately takes up too much room in my head.
“FOR THE LOVE OF… It’s just a bump of fat or something” says the more sensible me, “when you next go to the doctor get her to look at it, and it’ll likely be nothing”.
“Ignore it, it’s nothing, and your doctor already thinks you’re imagining stuff, so it won’t be taken seriously anyway” says the frustrated voice
“Ignore it, it’s something and you’d don’t want to know the consequences” says the scared voice, the voice that influences my decisions to choose flight over fight all day, any day.
The worst voice of all says “It doesn’t matter what it is, fat, cyst or cancer, you’ve got yourself into this mess, with your unhealthy ways, you deserve this fear/suffering/sadness”, this is the voice that reverberates so often in everything I do, not just my health. It appears in my interactions with people, it talks to me when I look in the mirror. This voice pops up so often, the one that tells me that I’m choosing/doing the wrong thing, the one that tells me that I need to be miserable, that tells me I need to feel guilty, the one that tells me that I’m bad and I deserve to feel that way.
I just called it the worst voice, but it actually has a twin - an equally terrible voice that’s less about what I deserve and how I just will never measure up in the first place. This is the voice that when I look at photos or in the mirror, whispers in my brain “you may as well be fat, because at least that makes your ugliness obvious, otherwise I’d have to point out that your nose is too wide compared to your mouth, note that your eyes are set differently, and one often looks near closed in photos, did you realise that your eyebrows don’t match each other etc?” This is the voice that prevents me from trying something new “You? You think you can do that, of course you can’t do that.” Combine that with the scared voice, and you get someone who’s too scared to try and prove those thoughts in wrong, in case they are right. Case in point, I really want to start pilates, I keep cancelling the sessions because the voices shriek at me, “you are going to look like an idiot, everyone is going to laugh at you, don’t try, run away”.
The two worst voices love to gang up on me in social interactions, especially when I’m with people that could be considered intimidating (e.g. anyone who may be smarter/prettier/kinder/more important than me – I find a lot of people intimidating.) (Although, heck I can even be intimidated ordering lunch at one of those salad places. “I don’t know what kind of lettuce, can I just please get a simple salad and be gone, WHY IS THERE SO MUCH PRESSURE? How does everyone else order without effort?!”)
“You know they aren’t going to like you. You aren’t important enough. Oh, wow are they judging you, I’d be judging you. You’re going to say something stupid aren’t you? Oh yeah, just stand in the corner and hide, look aloof or weak, that’ll make people flock to you. Oh, and you are right, you aren’t good enough for these people, and it’s pretty much your fault. People would like you more if you weren’t fat, could do your hair and makeup, were better read, were more interesting etc.”
Those voices always make me feel a need to apologise for everything, even existing. “I’m sorry I’m in your way random stranger on a footpath, I’ll walk into the road, to get out of your way”, “I’m sorry that you have to humour me, person, because it’s just pity that’s making you talk to me, I know”, “I’m sorry if I once accidentally winked instead of blinked and it’s made you feel uncomfortable” etc.
I’ve always had these soul crushing negative thoughts, ever since I was really young, they’ve come and gone in severity but have always been there. I’m trying to work out why they are so bad right now, when I’m actually in therapy, am in a place where on the surface life is quite good, I’ve been lucky (although I have worked for opportunities) and I’m old enough to realise that despite what my thoughts say, I’m actually kind of nice and fun. Occasionally I even take a really pretty photo.
It started with a restructure, when for logistical reasons, the team that I led was disbanded, and I was sent back to a version of my old job. I wasn’t technically demoted, but it felt so much like I was. I went back into a team and job that I used to be so confident with, but both had moved on, and I was forever behind the eight ball. Coupled with some office gossip that made me think that my behaviour had led to the decision to cut my team (which I only just learnt wasn’t true, and was never fair, I did my best to be good in that role), and my existing insecurities including imposter syndrome (as yet undiagnosed, unlike my actual anxiety but I’m going with it), my self esteem and confidence plummeted. I’ve been very proud of my work achievements and always hung my hat on them in the face of everything else, and this really knocked me about.
However, things changed and another restructure landed and I’ve just moved job again. So, while I’m pleased to have been recognised as worth keeping and valuable to another team, there’s a new round of nervous energy, a new group of people and tasks to feel intimidated by, and my desperate need to please/be instantly amazing has kicked into overdrive, so I’m on edge.
(Oh yeah, the need to please/be instantly amazing is really driven by those voices, but they are also very easily defeated, if I’m not instantly awesome/loved, I fall apart.)
Then there’s the milestone birthday. My 40th birthday is a few weeks away. I feel like the Jaws theme should be playing as I approach it.
I foolishly have blown my 40th into a big production, almost by accident.
Mistake 1 - I made it an arbitrary deadline (“I will have lost weight by it”, “I will have grown my hair by it”, “Iwill have taken up <insert hobby or something here>”)for things that are a lot more complicated than just “will do by this date”.
Setting a deadline like this is a huge mistake because it brings in the “you’re going to fail” voice, followed quickly by the “told you, you failed, loser”. The “it’s too late to fix things now, the suffering is permanently yours, or you will suffer in the future because of this” voice pops in as a chaser.
Mistake 2 – I decided I had to make it count. I’ve never had a proper birthday party, and dammit this was going to be the excuse. Except, oh no, I can’t have a party, my birthday’s in winter, my house is wrong to host something, I’m too lazy/cheap to organise an event, oh and, thanks voices for reminding me, I don’t have enough friends.
That last point has been a kicker. It’s made me really think too hard about my place in the world when it comes to relationships. I’m happily married to my best friend, so I’m not alone or lonely (most of the time), and I realise that I am very lucky to be in that position. I also have grown up with two sisters who are brilliant, have great parents, married really well in terms of inlaws, and have friends and family that are wonderful people who I love,unfortunately many of them are far flung. However, I’ve still found myself feeling isolated lately. When I see other people celebrating with groups of people, or people hanging out with people they went to school with etc.
It’s also made me think about what energy I put out, and what I get back. It’s a selfish thought, but I think sometimes it’s needed because it can get emotionally exhausting if you are always a doormat, and I know I veer that way.
Mistake 3 – I’ve become paranoid about not making it to my 40th birthday. Something about the idea of dying at 39 really irks me.
This is where the guilt about how I treat my health has really exploded. I really strongly dislike myself for our out of shape I’ve let myself get, and the ways I let it affect me, from always feeling unwell, to being paranoid about taking someone’s space on public transport so I hurt myself contorting into positions I think are least going to affect them. Even if I’m not touching them anyway.Flying which I love, has become a nightmare. I feel like I deserve to suffer healthwise, which is terrible and counter intuitive to looking after myself.
So, I’ve created my own hell in many ways, and instead of looking forward to my 40th, I’m counting down till it’s over.
So if I can ignore the spectre of 40, and can take a deep breath over my health, how do I get better, how do I learn to love me, how do I start trusting myself, heck can I even dream of feeling proud of myself.
I said to someone recently, when discussing my anxiety, the most frustrating thing is being able to identify the negative thoughts and feelings, and knowing that you should be better/stronger but not finding the ways to actually be, it would be easier to be less self-aware.
I’m one of those people who can vividly remember the embarrassing, the isolating, and the sad moments of my life. As an example, I don’t have one memory of me laughing when I was in school. I must have, but those thoughts are gone, in favour of remembering the time(s) I ran crying from a classroom, or was told off or told that “I wasn’t welcome to sit there”. It’s ridiculous. I’ve moved on so far, and life was never that bad, but I just remember being an emo teen before emo was cool, and feeling like I’ve let that damage and shape me in ways it should never. The friends I made in my first few years of university, I had a falling out with where I don’t even know what happened. I just knew that I was suddenly on the outer. One of the group once offered to tell me “what I’d done wrong” but I declined the offer, honestly I was different, but I’d never been deliberately unkind to them, and so I honestly knew that I had done nothing so wrong that I had to shoulder all responsibility, and to say otherwise was unfair. Maybe I could have learned something, but appointing blame on a relationship that moved in different directions was unneeded.
As someone who struggles with the concept of not being likeable, it’s taken me a long time to accept, and I still really don’t, that people aren’t going to like me. It’s, of course, irrelevant that I don’t like everyone, and that not being popular or loved by many isn’t actually the be all and end all.
So, here I go, yes I have unlikeable characteristics, and yes, I’m sure that in every social situation, from school to a party, I’ve behaved in unlikeable ways. That said many of them are accidental, I was told I was aloof, when I was just super shy, I’m overly apologetic as above, I can be needy, overly emotional, despite my feelings about being judged, I can be an expert level judge, I’m intolerant of ignorance, things that challenge my own moral code, and of Taylor Swift etc. (If I share this anywhere, feel free not to add to this list…)
But you know, everyone has behaviours/traits that aren’t stellar. It’s being human.
When I pause to really look into how my life is, I honestly think I’m actually a nice person, I care deeply about people and the world they live in (not enough to limit my hot showers to an environmentally friendly time). I am intelligent and I do want to know as much about things and the world that I can, I want to help people, I am generous, I want to push forward. I know I can make people laugh. I may not have a lot of close friends, but walking around the office in a different state the other day, and realising how many people came up to see me with smiles on their faces and talked to me about how nice it was to see me, affirms that I must be doing something right with people. People tell me they trust me, and they can. (I am a gossip hound for drama, but I can and will keep a secret.) I’m awkward when people are sad, because I feel emotions really deeply.
I have achieved a lot, to the point I no longer have much of a bucket list (which in some ways is bad, because I like having something to reach for). I’ve done really well in my career, even if I think of myself as an imposter and luck is a factor, I wouldn’t be where I am without talent and hard work. I’ve travelled lots, I’ve had experiences that are amazing, I have a nice house, a cat and things are actually good.
Nope, I’ll never be known as the prettiest girl in the room, something I’ve always dreamed of being, but that’s such an unobtainable thing to want to be, and when it comes down, I’d genuinely rather be kind and/or intelligent than really pretty. And maybe I’m not as hideous as I think,maybe I don’t have to hide behind the fat. If I look closely enough there’s a sparkle that comes on when I smile, and that mouth/nose ratio I worry about, maybe it’s less about the size of my nose, but the small button mouth I have that when posed correctly looks like something a 1920sHollywood starlet strived for. (I’m getting ahead of myself here but go with it.)
I’m also stronger than I give myself credit for; I frequently have people telling me (often myself) that I fall apart in difficult situations, and sometimes I do, but sometimes I don’t. I am capable, not always, but even the strongest can’t weather all storms. I am able to grow and learn and challenge myself. I can do some of the things I’ve been sure I can’t. I can also learn to just enjoy trying. It’s time to tell myself that I don’t have to be perfect, I don’t have to be someone who’s not me, I just have to find my opportunities to be the best I can be at the time, in the circumstances and I have to find a chance to smile.
As I’ve written this, I’ve felt my emotions changing, the first page and a half, I felt miserable, like the words were able to cut me, but as I’m trailing off, I’m feeling better. I don’t need to be held to an arbitrary date, which my 40this to achieve things. It’s time to accept that it’s not too late, that I still have time to change the things I don’t like, to be a better me, to be a fitter me, to be a happier me, and quite frankly stop worrying about impending doom, it could happen at any time, it is going to happen, so the best I can do is live and enjoy what I have, and what I have achieved.
It’s time to accept that I can hold a conversation with people, I can be interesting, most importantly I am valid.
I’m desperate to add in a disclaimer, as every time I say something nice about myself I feel like I’m being arrogant and so instantly feel a need to point out something bad about me, but I think I’ve already addressed that the bad qualities do exist, and I need to learn that it’s actually okay to be happy with yourself. (Plus my psychologist has told me I have to quit with the disclaimers.)
This is all just me writing thoughts down, but while I haven’t taken the action I’ve talked about yet, I think this is important in me reframing my narrative. Whatever life is ahead of me, no matter how it may end or when, no matter if that lump is nothing or something, I can be proud of me, I can like me and I can keep working to make me and other people smile.
That’s what’s actually important to me. I hope I can really start to believe that.
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