I apologize for this entry being a little heavy. For the the past few days, I've had this really weighing on me. Before that even, this topic has always weighed down on me.
Sometimes in the rush of life, it's easy to forget but it's always there like a dark cloud hanging over my head. I try to be a pretty positive, upbeat person, but like anyone I fall short. And I always will. But unlike a lot of people, I don't bounce back from things like I should. I dwell on them and let them beat down on me. Like anyone I'm not perfect, but instead of realizing that, I hold everyone in my life up to this unnaturally high standards and then compare myself to them. All of my life I have struggled internally with myself about who to be, which is normal. But it's hard to feel good about anything I do when I look in the mirror and don't love the person staring back. It's really been an issue for me in relationships, friendships, and just in my personal perception of who I am.
Last night, I wrote a paper for psychology about the study of happiness and why others are happy while others aren't. One psychologist studied 4 aspects of the question. I won't bore you with all of the psychology mumbo jumbo, but basically happier people are people who hold themselves to their own standards instead of placing themselves up against their peers. I am guilty of ALWAYS comparing myself against the people in my life. And it contributes to how I see myself.
A friend gets engaged, I feel like crap about my love life. A friend gets a better score in a class, I dismiss my whole academic career as sucky. It's a problem and I feel like I'm stuck on this merry-go-round of self-loathing. It's like I intentionally break myself down and blame everyone else for it.
When someone walks out of my life, I blame myself. I sit and nit pick at every little flaw I have that may have drove them away. When someone becomes closer to another friend, I compare myself to that person and bash myself for not being as fun, as smart, as thin, or as talented. When my ex dumped me and married someone else, I went into such a dark place because I compared every little thing about myself to this girl I had never even met. I allowed myself to go into this dark place instead of stepping back, looking at what made me great and moved on. I'll admit, to this day (2 and a half years later), I still find myself looking in the mirror and thinking why her?
It pains me that I've wasted so much time downing myself and looking at everyone else. And it's been a big struggle that I still haven't gained any type of control over. I take EVERYTHING personally, EVERYTHING. And this attitude is taking over my life. I have this image of who I want to be but truth is I hold myself to such high standards that when I make the tiniest mistake, I give the whole thing up and dwell on it.
I'm trying to be as honest with this and mself, as I can. This attitude is really becoming a problem in my life and I struggle everyday with negative thoughts. I put myself so low on the pole that it's no wonder people walk all over me like they do. And it's made me a jealous person, not spiteful, just jealous. And I don't like being that person. I don't like yearning after what someone else has when I have my own life that could be just as great if I took my head out of my ass to see it.
In past entries, I've touched on this before. I've touched on just wanting to be happy. But honestly I'm nver going to be because the standards I hold myself to are so unrealistic. I CAN'T be my sister, or any of my friends, or the girl Steven married, or even just a random passerby. I was given this life because it is what was meant for me and I'm sitting here in this cloud of self-hatred. I'm driving people away. I'm driving myself into deeper problems than I could have ever imagined.
It's tough to realize that my weight has gotten the way it has becuase I don't love myself enough to even try. I think, "oh well, I'm always going to be fat and ugly so why bother?" And it's thoughts like those that are killing me internally.
I'm so trapped inside my own head that I suffocate myself. I don't know how to break free of myself and start appreciating what I have to offer the world. It's so frustrating that I can't just allow myself to let go and be Melissa. This struggle is something I've battled all of my life and yeah, I can sit here and blame the emotional abuse my dad caused me, but I've lived away from that for 3 years now. This is my choice. I have the control over who I want to be and how I want to think but instead of taking hold of the reigns, I let myself fall short of what I could actually be capable. If I spent as much time doing things I loved and letting myself free as I do hating myself, this would be a whole different entry.
21 years and I'm wasting it and that's what kills me. How do you just let go of the pain and the doubt and the standards? How do you stop yourself for holding yourself back when you've been doing it for so long? How do you love the person that you are when you spend so much time hating her?
No comments:
Post a Comment