Not Worthy.

I have never been a person with great self-esteem. I have always suffered from the ridiculous habit of negatively comparing myself to others and of picking at my own faults until they are enormous, bleeding, gashes of insecurity.

There are things at which I excel – I’m human, after all, and we all have talents and skills and things about us that are impressive within a variety of contexts. I can, when I’m not feeling particularly crappy, give you a list of things about me that I think are good, or neat, or even pretty awesome. There are instances in my life where I feel amazing – whether strong or smart or pretty or, well, whatever. Context.

But lately I am more aware of my faults than usual – and those faults seem to be growing in a way that’s unmanageable. I can’t seem to find compassion for them, either, nor an acceptance. I can’t seem to shrug them away. I can’t even do my usual trick of looking at other people, seeing faults, and thinking about how those faults are what make them interesting to know or to look at, depending.

There are reasons behind most of my insecurities – though some of those reasons are long-expired and simply stick in place as a result of the layers of other crap I’ve piled on top. You can’t cleanse a wound that you’ve applied 40 bandages onto if you don’t peel those bandages off, right? Same thing here. I just don’t have the slightest idea how to get to the wound and actually heal it. The bandages are so tight that, in some cases, I can’t even figure out where they start and end.

For a long time, I relied on other people to fix my self-esteem – or to at least prod it upward. It worked for that time and then it didn’t; it doesn’t work at all, anymore, except for the most brief of moments. No one follows me around telling me how awesome I am (though, y’know, if you’re inclined to accept that position, please let me know) but, then again, no one did in the past either. I don’t know what’s changed.

And lately, it seems, the things that I am being ‘recognized’ for are not the things that I want to hear. It’s as if my brain hears good things and immediately says, “That’s all well and good, but don’t forget that you TOTALLY suck at X, Y, Z.”

I pick at the faults. Over and over and over. It’s like my mother’s voice saying, without humour or cliche, “98% is all well and good.. but why didn’t you get the other 2%?”

Only, in the case of the messages in my brain, it’s great that I do well at my job but why can’t I do [fill in the thing here] well? Or, I focus on the fact that I might be smart but I’m fat. I might have a good sense of humour but I’m too short. And then I pick at the faults. I pick and I pick and I pick until I feel like I’m going to drive myself insane because there is no resolution.

Those, by the way, are mostly hypothetical examples. I don’t think I can bring myself to list the real comparisons I’ve got going on here.

I have clearly, in my head, assigned certain traits (and skills, and other things) a higher value than others. And I don’t know why because, logically, they’re not of greater value in an overall context (just in a particular context). They’re just a different facet of myself or of humans in general. I keep trying to shift the focus and I can’t seem to do it for any length of time.

Then I desperately look elsewhere for some sort of validation – because that’s what worked in the past – and it isn’t there, either.

I don’t have the slightest idea how to fix this. I don’t know what the right steps are toward changing my perspectives or perceptions. (And, unsurprisingly, I’m kicking myself about that, too.) I am not a cheesy-mantra chanter and I’m not going to Stuart Smalley myself with the “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!” but I need to do something. Soon.