Self Esteem 101
I had therapy today. I feel like most of my blogs are going to start with that line. Therapy is where a lot of the shit that goes on in my head just kinda comes out. I’ve kept what I feel like hidden for years so it’s not an easy thing for me to do. I’m not someone who views themselves as an overdramatic sad person either so normally I’m not all about the feelings stuff but I suppose if everyone expressed themselves in a perfectly normal and well adjusted manner then we wouldn’t need therapy. So there’s that.
Eggs.
So one of the first things that I’ve kept nicely hidden is…ugh…and this is a pain for me to write, my huge self esteem issue. Most people don’t even see it and if you’ve ever had a chance encounter with me then I’m guessing you didn’t even notice it. You see with people I just meet or don’t really know, it doesn’t come out. It’s only when I start to get to know you and usually it hits about 2-3 months after we begin to hang out when things get a little weird with me. Then that’s when the pattern that I didn’t even know existed until recently kicks in and my friendships typically and pretty routinely get fucked.
So rather than overload you all in one post about my childhood, that’s for another post entirely, let me just sum things up for now by saying that I did not have the loving and supportive parents with the 2.5 kids and a picket fence. Now before you think that this is just some other blog from some young kid who has some issues with their mommy or daddy…well yes and no. No, I’m not some kid with run of the mill problems I just want to bitch about. But yes I have issues, if I didn’t then this blog wouldn’t exist and you wouldn’t get to read all about them. You’re welcome. Having said that, I didn’t have it as rough as some other kids I know, what I went through was a very slow and agonizing erosion of my sense of self. Everything that make up the parts of your identity that are supposed to prepare you for socializing and all the fun stuff as an adolescent like dating or the not so fun stuff like how to deal with heartache, or basic skills like just being ok with who you are as person were slowly, painfully, and repeatedly either taken away or discouraged. And unfortunately, the experiences that I’ve had as a young adult have only reinforced what I was taught.
My parents weren’t absentee parents, I didn’t grow up in abject poverty, and I couldn’t tell you what it’s like to have a parent that was an alcoholic or anything like that. What I can tell you is how it feels to be kept upstairs away from company so they won’t see the marks on your face. Yeah, I’ll expand on that in another post…I’m not overloading remember? This post is about the stuff that leads into the latter.
And that stuff is that I really wasn’t allowed to socialize with anyone. We didn’t celebrate birthdays, or any holiday for that matter. I wasn’t allowed to “associate” with anyone who wasn’t the same religion as my parents so hanging out with other kids was very strictly regimented. So maybe when I say I couldn’t hang out with, “anyone” that’s a bit of an exaggeration but when everyone at your school is not part of your religion, that automatically makes it feel like that. At my elementary school of K-5th grade I remember there were 3 kids that went to my church. Ironically, I also remember that none of them liked me. Because even within the strict rules of my church, my parents were those parents who tried to adhere to each and every one of them. So they were the uncool strict parents in an already very strict world. Ergo, not even the kids in my church really wanted to hang out with me. In elementary school I was awkward and shy, and always, always had a bully. It was only when I hit high school that I actually made a close friendship that lasted for more than the school year.
Now you throw in very strict, controlling, and abusive parents, add a lack of socializing and experiencing things that grow the “thick skin” you’re supposed to have to help you emotionally get through things in your adult life, sprinkle some gay in that mix, which of course meant I was going to hell and voila! You have me. Well most of me. There are other things but…yeah…overloading right?
Where The Fuck Is My Basket??
As you probably guessed it’s because of that upbringing that now even in my college years I have an extremely hard time keeping, not making, friends. See I can meet people pretty easily, I’m actually pretty funny and outgoing in person and I’m good at making people laugh. A quality I learned very early on in life as a way of deflecting. It’s the little and routine social interactions that just…well I just do them wrong I guess. Because I never got to do them as a kid. Strangely enough, I’m not even sure what I’m doing or not doing that makes everything go sideways but…here let me explain. So I’ll meet someone new and we’ll hit it off, and within a couple hours to a couple days I’ll usually get their number, their various social media, and everything’s great! We’ll be texting and we’ll text a lot. Strictly platonically of course, nothing romantic. Then we’ll hang out or meet up a couple more times and then that’s when it happens.
One day I’ll notice that they didn’t send me a good morning text like they normally do. Or they begin to respond with one syllable answers. And I panic. I begin to think, what did I do wrong? Are they mad? And keep in mind that I never voice these things to anyone. Oh no, I stubbornly and selfishly keep all my crazy strictly in my head. On repeat. I’ll try a couple times to message again but this time I notice that I’m not the first person they message so now I feel oddly insecure like, “Why did you message them first? And not me anymore?” Because of course my friends can’t have other friends I guess? And for some reason the fact that they didn’t message me first is somehow proof that they don’t like me anymore, so I begin to look for things to prove that I’m in some way still special to them. Keep in mind this isn’t even like relationship-y stuff, these are all totally platonic interactions. So while I’m looking for clues that will stop my anxiety I tend to get quiet which makes people often think I’m either mad or just not fun cause remember, I’m the funny person they met and laughed with just a month ago. So now it’s like they feel awkward because they usually ask me, “Are you ok?” and right about then is when my anxiety kicks into over drive because now I know that they know something is wrong. I’ll look harder for poof that we’re ok to get things back on track. Which inevitably leads to disappointment. Because normal people have more than one friend right?
But for some reason my brain won’t process that. Which is weird because on paper I know that people have friends and they’re going to do things with their other friends and that it’s ok they do those things and I shouldn’t freak out about it because it’s totally normal. Yeah, I guess my brain is an asshole. An insecure selfish asshole because I get really lonely and really sad when my shiny new friend, who I was super close with a minute ago, suddenly doesn’t text me first. Or when I realize that the person I was hanging out with all the time suddenly has other friends they need to tend to. And because I get lonely, I try to keep track of them like what they’re doing or what game they’re playing. (Yeah, I’m a gamer but we’ll talk about that in another post) And I know some of you will be like, “Well why don’t you just give them a call or ask to hang out?” Because in my head that makes me feel like I’m chasing them to be my friend and friendships aren’t supposed to be like that right? Or I become terrified that it somehow makes me seem clingy and even though in my head I’m probably the clingy-est bitch in all the land, I don’t want to seem like that to my shiny new friend. I will break down in tears, I’ll camp my phone stupidly hoping for a text or a snap or a message or a DM or something from them. I’m guessing that right about now some of you are reading this with a look that is something close to an, what the actual fuck expression and believe me…I look at myself in the mirror like that too. Trust me. It gets bad. Like I’ve gone as far as getting passively suicidal over a friend I just met two months ago. It really is agonizing. As long as we don’t get close, I’m a totally normal, funny, socially chill person. Which is totally ironic when want is a close friendship or just to have a friend really.
What I think drives this crazy is an unhealthy dose of FOMO, but mainly I just don’t have the self esteem to be calm enough to think, “Ok so they didn’t text you first. It’s ok. They still want to be your friend.” When I look for things to prove I’m still that special, shiny new friend what I see is the opposite. I see that they are in a game with someone else first and yeah, they’ll invite me, but I had been messaging one of those people a couple times and they didn’t reply to me but they messaged the other person right? Cause they’re in a group right?? So I’m the third wheel right??? So I begin to feel dejected and unwanted. Then I stop replying to anything because by this time I’ve already convinced myself that they don’t really want to hang out with me, and I don’t want to be that person who gets dragged around socially because other people feel obligated. Then because I have gone down this road before I’ll tell myself that I already know what’s going to happen…I already know that this person is going to stop being my friend and the thought of being a stranger to someone I was close to is excruciating for me. So in a very cruel irony even though all I want in the world is to have a close friend, more often then not, I’ll be the one to leave. In order to avoid the pain of a friendship slowly dying off, I’ll just bail. And I’ll hate myself for it. I’ll cry and tell myself that I’m such a fucking loser so who would actually want to be friends with me anyway?
This pattern has been happening to me since I was little. Not that I had any friends but I did still try to make them. When I was small I used to cry when it happened. And it happened a lot. My mother would often look at me and in exasperation say, “You can’t put all your emotional eggs in one basket..” I still cry now. I managed to laugh today though because my therapist said the same thing about the eggs and baskets but she also said something that made me think. “When you grow up the way you did, it’s hard to see that you have any eggs.” My response was, “Yeah I can understand that, and I still don’t know where my goddamn basket is.”
Does anyone? Cause it would be nice to have eggs. The basket would just be a bonus.