A Little Self Loathing

Do you ever have a day, (or month) where you mind and your brain are not on the same page? Where intellectually, you know one thing, but, you feel or think something totally different? As of late, I have been riddled with angst over the most ridiculous and insignificant. Laying in bed at night over-analyzing conversations, my behavior in social situations, feeling completely inept when around other humans. Wishing I hadn’t said certain things, or acted certain ways. Questioning my responses to the behavior or statements of others.

I know intellectually, empirically, that I shouldn’t worry about the thoughts of others, “no-one can make you feel inferior without your consent,” said the great Eleanor Roosevelt. And yet here I am, sleepless, riddled with angst, wondering whether I should have handled things differently. I feel like I’m back in high school, worrying about what everyone else thinks about me, worried I’m going to get in trouble.

It doesn’t help that I just returned from being at a family function where I felt completely insecure about my social abilities, as well as my physical appearance, knowing I had become the person that people talk about later, the one that is gossiped about, and not in a good way, but rather for how they’ve “let themselves go.” I tell myself it’s okay, I’ve had a rough last few years, and I did just have a baby a few months ago, after all. But then my cousin walks in, two weeks post partum, looking lovely and adorable, and I want to crawl under the rug and hide.

And then I mentally slap myself in the face, and tell myself to "shut up, and stop it. This is not important; this is ridiculous; you are just fine the way you are. Don’t buy in to the crap that you hate. You aren’t 12 anymore, you know better."
I tell myself all the things I would tell my students, or my own daughter. "You are good, and intelligent, and beautiful. There is no one standard, and we are just kidding ourselves if we think that we would want to be homogenized."

And just when I start to feel a little better, my demons come back and start haunting me. “Okay, but then do you remember how rude you were earlier today?” I am reminded of the time I was snippy to Bryan. Or the time I was talking with some friends and, as always, shared perhaps too much. And then I do something really stupid like, forgetting keys, or losing my phone charger, which only adds to the problem. Because, really that is something that happens to everyone, but to me, that becomes, "YOU IDIOT!!! HOW COULD YOU LET THIS HAPPEN, SEE? YOU ARE A MORON!!!"

And so, more angst, more analysis. And more self-talk.

I know that it is all silly, and then I feel all the more ridiculous. Who is so vain to sit here and stew over their own conversation, to analyze every word, every behavior? It must surely be a bi-product of boredom. Certainly the women of the depression, working hours and hours a day didn’t have time to sit there and analyze whether they were or weren’t socially acceptable.

And so, I remain feeling ridiculous, and self-loathing for having these feelings in the first place. A vicious cycle indeed.