What’s your opinion of yourself, just as a person? If you were an outsider, would you be friends with yourself or admire who you are?
I personally think I’m pretty awesome. I’ve felt this way since I decided to stop caring what anyone else thinks of me. I’m much more motivated to be compassionate, friendly, creative and brave when I’m doing it just cuz I know I can do and be whatever I want. I’ve gotten through so much unlivable stuff and come out the other end alive and always doing my best. I really believe in myself and I’m always so excited to meet the person I am tomorrow and every day after and see him grow.
I think I’d be friends with myself but I’m such a motormouth I think I’d probably get overwhelmed too LOL, my friends are fairly quiet people who like listening but I do have some like me and our conversations go at 400mph! But yeah I think one of me is enough
Hmm, for me it was a matter of figuring out the realistic worst case scenario and putting myself in their shoes.
Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter if someone is thinking negative things about me if they’re not gonna act on it. Human beings make judgements on their surroundings as a very basic survival instinct. Anyone I see, at some point, is going to have some passing thought about me. Even just to notice I’m another person getting on the bus or browsing at the shops. I cannot prevent that from happening, and ultimately, it actually has NOTHING to do with me. They can think what they want. If they make it my problem, I’ll start causing problems for them too - I’m not above making a scene if it embarrasses them and makes them think twice about trying to mess with me. It just… truly does not change anything about my life and who I am to know that people might be thinking negatively of me. Their fault for getting it so wrong in the first place, if they talked to me they’d know I’m a nice, chill dude lol
I’ve had to grow a thick skin though. I’m very visibly gay and get heckled often, gotten mugged, had to run from bashings quite a few times. For a long time I tried to come off as “straight” as possible to stop people noticing and hurting me, but there was nothing I could do to stop people’s perceptions of me from existing. That was how I learned that I cannot stop anyone from thinking badly of me… and after that I figured, why the hell should I spend any time and energy trying to predict what everyone else is thinking? If they think that badly of me, they’ll damn well let me know about it. There’s really no point caring what anyone thinks of me if they don’t have the guts to say it lol. That’s just how I’ve come to think of it
Sorry if that doesn’t make sense I know I ramble lol but it was a very conscious decision for me and I had to work at it and challenge myself. And over time it just became natural not to give a damn
My self confidence/esteem/worth are gossamer thin. The result of ‘bullying related trauma’. It’s only recently that I’ve mentioned the bullying to a psych nurse. On the surface I can vehemently disagree with bad comments but inside it gnaws away at me. It’s a case of ‘OMFG I’m no good’. I try to compensate sometimes with false bravado. I’ve never had a paid job;never went to college/uni;I’m crap at a 1001 things or more.
