self-esteem poopfest

So. My self-esteem is a poopfest right now. And that’s okay. It has to be okay. We all go through periods of lower self-esteem and quite frankly for me it has been the rule rather than the rarity. It’s hard to say really when it starts or exactly where it comes from, but all of a sudden I am there again not knowing what has played out in my head, just left with the feeling of worthlessness. The feeling of “get it together”. The feeling of a “you suck!” followed by a kick to the ladynuts from a jock in one of those countless high-school movies. A bit specific maybe but you catch my drift. And it’s so hard in these moments to know what the fuck to do about it. Do I run after the jock? Shout back? I could and I can because it is all happening in my mind, so one might say that I’m in control, but that’s the last thing it feels like to me from the inside. I feel out of control and spiralling. I feel like I have nothing to offer the world and definitely nothing to fight back with. I give up and slide down the high-school lockers to the floor. Comfy. Safe. Familiar. At the bottom, the cold floor. The thing with the floor is, no one wants to beat you down if you’re already on the floor. Where are they gonna beat you down to? It’s a trick of the mind to stay safe. Attack yourself before someone else does. And it works brilliantly but after a while you are stuck with a tyrant jock in your mind, who kicks you to the ground the second you aim for the breakroom door. Eventually you stop aiming.

I must say it is frustrating to find myself here again after all the work I put in to work with my self esteem. Consciously I don’t feel like this inner hatred is justified. I am not terrible at everything contrary to what this voice tells me, honestly I’m quite good at many things. Just because I don’t fit the standard model in society but what is that even it doesn’t exist! It’s different from culture to culture, continent to continent, mind to mind. I have to constantly remind myself of that. There is no “ideal”. I find that the people who struggle the most with self-esteem and mental health/anxiety, are the people who struggle to feel safe. That’s it, safety. It’s a biological need for humans. We need to feel safe and if we grow up feeling unsafe, we will have to find a way to meet that need in our adulthood. We can’t deny or suppress it, well, at least not successfully. The only thing we can do is try to meet it as best as we can. And believe it or not that’s what the voice in our heads telling us that we suck is trying to do. Trying to keep us safe from disapproval, rejection and isolation. So when it is yelling louder than usual, instead of trying to shut it up or tell it off, I could consider that a part of me feels unsafe. I could ask myself: why do I feel unsafe? Maybe I’ll realize I feel lonely, maybe overwhelmed, maybe something else. But that’s what the nut-kicking jock is actually trying to convey. It is never about whether we are worthy or not, capable or not, whether we are important or not. Because we absolutely are. It is about one or several parts within us that feel unsafe, and they’re shouting for our attention.

Currently, I actually do feel lonely. I am by myself in a new place, I don’t know my surroundings and I feel hesitant to exit my bubble. The bubble somehow feels safe to me. Nobody wants to feel lonely, hence, my nut-kicking friend's attack. It’s kicking me in hopes that I won’t be lonely then, if I stay small and floorbound. But that’s fortunately not how it works anymore. Beating myself won’t get me the love I wish for. So it’s not that I suck - and by who’s standards anyways? - I just feel a little lonely. And thats understandable and okay. But thank you, nut-kicker, for somehow letting me know how I feel. And the first step to feeling better won’t be to kick you back or lay half-dead on the floor, It will be to get up, go to the breakroom (kitchen, duh) and make myself a cup of tea. Because tea feels safe to me, and because I am totally deserving of it, even if you don’t think I did anything grand today. And if I’m being honest, because it’s the most self-help I’m in the mood for. Blueberry tea for me and my nut-kicker.