never good enough

[Strangelongtrip]

No matter what I do or accomplish I'm not good enough. There's always something I can compare myself to to make me feel like I'm not worthy or deserve things. I just looked at a friend's instagram account and saw how much more engagement they had than me despite having less followers (which I got on some stupid follow loop, which was just such a dumb idea. I'm beating myself up over it repeatedly) and now I'm spiraling so badly. That's a friend I aspire to be like. They're so confident and sure of themselves, or at least that's what I've seen so far. I may be moving in with them. I just feel like I'll never be as "good" as them and I shouldn't subject them to me. I'm open about having PTSD and stuff it just feels like I'll slip up one time and they'll leave so I have to be perfect and say the right stuff.

I feel like I don't deserve the friends I have, even though I'm a really good friend. I'm just not confident and I feel like that lack of confidence will be a drain on them and eventually they'll leave because it's annoying to bolster someone all the time. I lie a lot about how I feel about stuff. Winning stuff, getting good grades. I lie and say it makes me happy or I feel proud. It doesn't. All I can think when I get these things is "you just got lucky," or there's someone else who's better than you if I get runner up in something.

I've been working on this for years and I'm slightly better than I was but I'm still sitting here crying over some d*mn instagram likes. I always feel like if people are "better" than me they'll get tired of me and leave. But all the people I've surrounded myself with are awesome, talented and caring people now. I used to be able to affirm that negative belief by surrounding myself with fake, terrible friends: so I could say only terrible people like me, so I must be terrible. I don't do that anymore and the belief is crumbling/trying to find some alternative method of hating myself.

I feel like I don't deserve these people. Luckily I got in with another therapist and can maybe work on it some more. I don't know why it hit me so hard right now. I'm grieving a loss, so maybe I'm already raw. And big changes in my life. I'm just scared.

 

[Strangelongtrip]

I stabilized for about an hour then had another destabilizing event and have been in panic attack mode for 4 hours. I'm such an idiot for thinking I could live on my own no one's going to put up with me like this. I really want to relapse to calm myself down.

 

[Movingforward10]

Hi @Strangelongtrip , I'm sorry it's so hard right now. How are you feeling now?

Maybe take a break from social media? Remember people put their best sides on there (their false sides? Not the full truth of who they are), so it is so easy to compare yourself to them and feel inadequate. But don't! You're not seeing a full person with all their flaws as they are hiding those, editing photos, editing themselves.
And I get the hurt about someone getting more responses than you. I feel like that in Facebook sometimes. But take yourself away from it? It is feeding into your negative narrative you have about yourself and confirming it to you. That isn't helping you.

You are good enough.
You are worthy.

I'm glad you are reaching out to a therapist as they will be able to help you believe that you are.

Maybe try saying positive things to yourself?

 

[Strangelongtrip]

Hi @Movingforward10 thank you. I slept really well which is good, but I immediately started berating myself when I got up because I didn't have a text back from someone. I'm such a loser they have friends and go out and I'm just a loser bc all my friends live far apart. I will have to try more positive affirmations. I think I'm destabilized because my therapist died.

I don't know what to do about social media. It's for a professional reason, promoting my writing, but idk anymore, I don't want to deal with it. No one cares about what I post, I mean I get comments and all but like no one really cares. I can't delete it though. I've made lots of friends on there but they're all far away. It's just like if I can't even do that how am I going to move cross country? I guess that's a non sequitur but I just feel so ashamed it's messing me up this bad.

 

[Movingforward10]

@Strangelongtrip , I'm so incredibly sorry to hear about your therapist. What sad news. And you must have so many feelings about that? I'm so sorry.
Be kind to yourself, you are now dealing with grief as well as everything else. It's no wonder it is triggering these narratives you have.

 

[Strangelongtrip]

thank you @Movingforward10 luckily I could get in with another therapist to process everything. I'm trying to journal and such to help but I definitely needed that extra help.

 

[Strangelongtrip]

Just had a big breakthrough journaling! When things that make me feel bad/sad/ lots of hard emotions are out of my control, I attempt to make myself feel miserable of my own accord. (going back to not good enough belief) in order to feel like my emotions are in my control and I have a "reason" for misery and I can control it instead of accepting that sometimes life is out of my control and hard things happen. I've done this for years but never fully recognized it.

 

[Upside Down Eagle]

You should not compare yourself to others.
We are all individuals that cannot be compared. We all have wildly different lives. Strength is in diversity, and in the fact that people have such wildly different lifes. If we were all the same, monotonous homogeneous bunch, then no strength would be had.

Seek your identity, your strengths, within yourself.
Eventually you will emerge a unique, fantastic person, that cannot be compared with anyone!

 

[Strangelongtrip]

Thank you @Gwaihir !! I'm getting there. I still don't know myself totally. I'm working on it, one step at a time :)

 

[Mach123]

Hi this made me laugh and cry lol. I usually get the feeling of a thing from the first post and I immediately thought on reading you, “they got a featured thread and I never have”, LOL. ( looking again I’m not so sure about that but it’s funny anyway.)

That is a horrible feeling that I’ve always had and a few threads have been dealing with it lately as low self esteem and so forth.

But your words made me feel it, well done. I really can’t deal with people because of this at all and, I’m not going to elaborate but there is (for me) an entire sexual component attached to this which makes it SO hard to deal with, so I don’t. (Mostly)

Only the therapist really understands this and even she is always goading me to “do better” which she says she doesn’t, but to me she does. Occasionally I get through to her by having a fit and trying to explain again (and again) that’s how I feel!

It’s almost like nobody can believe you feel like that. But I do.

So do you I see, thanks so much for sharing lol. Isolate. I can’t use social media really at all. If you can’t, my heart goes out to you sincerely.

 

[Strangelongtrip]

Hey @Mach123 !! I’ve done the same thing about threads honestly, I don’t know what makes them featured either to be honest. I’m sorry you’re dealing with the same thing!! Im glad your therapist gets it but also sad she pushes like that. It has gotten better, but I still lapse into old habits. For me with social media, what I’ve been doing lately is when I see someone doing “better” than me, I get really excited for them.

Especially the friend I had mentioned. I actually just spent a week with them and they said they’d been working on it for two years!! I’ve only been working at this for 8 months!! And that sort of put things into perspective for me. Like I can’t be good at everything right away, which is hard bc as a kid I technically was, and gifted kid = depressed adult I guess haha.

I hope you can find something to help. And it gets better. I’ve known I feel a little better, but sometimes still slip.