And who are you to think otherwise?

I guess if this blog has a purpose or a theme it has been for me to explore feelings of self-worth. Hence the title: In and Out of Confidence. I enjoy looking at how I came to be me, out there in black and white, and placing that much distance between myself and my reflections. Indeed, previously, I was such a work-aholic that there was never any time to really deal with the pain of how I actually view myself. By being forced to be alone these months, this time for me has been a culmination of years of therapy to confront these feelings head-on. 

Recently, I received an e-mail from a friend reaching out to me after reading about my feeling "unlovable, undeserving and unworthy." I was given permission to share parts of the letter with you as I am sure there are others who might identify with both of us. I appreciate being able to share this personal communication with others, for I value this letter so much. As you read on, perhaps you will see why. Here follows:

You speak so frequently on your blog about your "in and out of confidence" and feeling unworthy. You remind me of me years ago. I found it so debilitating - emotionally, professionally, within friendships and relationships - that I determined it just had to stop. No way did I want to go through my whole life feeling so awful about myself. I suspect you and I differ to a large degree on this: I tried therapy a few times to work this through, but gave it up for a bunch of reasons, among them that I never found a therapist helpful in this endeavor, that they mostly indulged my feelings rather than constructively helping find a way out. They always wanted to go into great detail about my childhood to find out where these feelings came from.

I always ended the therapy with various practitioners when I couldn't stand the navel gazing anymore. I want to understand myself as much as the next person, but digging around in the minutiae of my behavior doesn't seem to be the way to do it for me. What I did do on my own, was practice listening to my internal chatter: "You're not pretty enough." "You're not smart enough." "What makes you think anyone is interested in your opinion." "Don't introduce yourself; there's no reason (s)he would want to know you." "Don't ask; you don't deserve that promotion." And so on. Hundreds of little demeaning messages to myself all day every day.

So I learned to catch myself when those thoughts were running through my head and turned them around. I practiced every day and over time, caught more and more of them. It felt forced and not real. It wasn't changing my "real" feelings about myself, but I couldn't come up with a better idea (and no therapist certainly could) so I kept it up - until one day out of nowhere, a light bulb went off and I had the most amazing thought sequence: ALL my feelings of unworthiness - every one of them - stemmed from my constant comparison of myself to others who seemed to have virtues and attributes that I couldn't, in my unworthiness, possibly possess - and were about being liked. I wanted EVERYBODY to like me.

Which led to: Who are you to think everyone on earth should like you? And, who the hell are you to decide you're not as good as anyone else? It's not up to you. Other people will decide your merits or lack thereof to them. Some will like you. Some won't. And so what. You have your own attributes, they are different from other people's and they are inherently valuable. Enjoy the people with whom you find simpatico. Tolerate the ones you don't like but must associate with (like work colleagues). Ignore the ones you don't like. And accept the idea that some won't like you. Just bloody get on with living your life and stop comparing. It seems such a simplistic, obvious idea now when I write it down, but it was a revelation to me the day it happened. It changed everything. Not over night, but quite quickly, along with dropping - with no effort on my part - my bad feelings about my failings. It seemed to be a corollary to all this to accept the not-so-wonderful stuff about me without feeling I was a bad person.

I used to envy people I knew who seemed naturally to believe in themselves and who always had. Who had never questioned their place in the world, their right to any endeavor they could manage and its rewards (I hadn't remembered that envy in years until just now, writing it. It's gone.) I wondered if my parents had behaved differently with me, I would have had confidence in myself from day one. I thought for awhile, my lack of self-worth had been their fault. But of course, it is not. Did I wish they'd raised me differently in some respects? Yes, but they did the best with what they had to work with, just as we all do. We are each dealt a deck of cards and I suppose none of those decks are a full 52; some cards are missing. And so, we must just get on using what we've got to the best of our abilities.

Tamar, you are smart and sensitive and caring and obviously accomplished ... You're a good person who deserves as much as any other person born on earth.

And who are you to think otherwise? [My italics]

In my reply to this letter I wrote:

I read [your letter] as a sharing and caring. A sharing of your self and process, and a caring about me and the wretched time I am wasting with all these feelings of unworthiness! I appreciate you taking the time to do this for, with, to me.

Not everyone benefits from therapy. I know that. It is such a long and tedious process - after all it took years to become who we are and so much of what we learned, for whatever reason, has become part of our survival repertoire, including defense mechanisms and protective shields from intimacy and vulnerability. Giving up valuable survival skills can be terrifying - especially since survival means life or death. In addition, it is really difficult to find the *right* kind of therapist. I've had a few "doozies!" Bob, my therapist, has been very good for me. He has been relentless in helping me focus on pretty much exactly what you discovered for yourself! And I am *so* close to "getting it!" Believe me. When I saw Bob in Buffalo after these past three months I realized that my journey with him is done. Returning to work, new job, new me (thanks to Bob, my "cave," the blog, and people like you) in August is going to be such an interesting time. Even now, my presentations seem different to me - more mature in some ways and I think I have become slightly more approachable. More stuff for me to explore, I guess!

I concluded:

I take it as an act of love and friendship and am not only grateful, but humbled that you would take that kind of time and trouble for me as well as entrust me with your personal stuff.

Comments

[Richard Lawrence Cohen]

What can one say except thank you? On behalf of all who have ever had similar feelings -- and I believe that includes most of us. And a deep bow to your friend for so successfully becoming his or her own therapist.

[Danny]

I agree with your ex-husband from the Central Asian steppe! These are the issues I grapple with constantly and I admire your friend for getting to those important realizations on his or her own. I am literally sitting in front of my therapist's office right now in my car feeding off of a neighbor's Wi-Hi signal and I've been having a very emotionally painful day so all of this resonates. Luckily, my therapist is not one of those who wants to dwell on my childhood at all--it's a very productive, challenging relationship. And I've recently tried that trick of listening to the barrage of self-hating thoughts that live in my head and turning them around. Even if it feels false at first it does wonders. My twist is that I try to be a better parent to myself by imagining anyone (especially me) saying to my daughter those horrible things I say to myself all the time and of course that's such an appalling thought it usually shocks me out of my self-hatred enough to step in as a good parent and assure myself that everything is going to be okay. A little cheesy, perhaps, but it works!

(Thanks for the pre-therapy!)

[Julie]

What you friend describes is just so how I have been coping myself over these past twelve months, Tamar. I am trying to catch the little self-criticisms and negate them. Some are more difficult than others because there is a semblance of reality to them. These I come to terms with. But the vast majority I can "see through" when I am on my guard. Still not second nature yet though. But that is what I am working on.

[Alicia]

Nice post today, Tamar. And I could really relate to the email your friend sent you. I also went through therapy for years and found it made me worse in some respects, but fortunately I found a good counselor a few years ago who taught me the same things your friend had to teach themself. Some things you can't 'think your way out of' you just have to let go and live and be yourself, warts and all. :-)

[Tamar]

From all your comments, it looks like some of what my blogger/e-mail friend wrote resonates with you as it did me.

Richard, thanks for the mention in your comments on your Relatively Relativistic post.

[Ella]

Yes, thank you so much for sharing this. It really IS feelings I'm struggling with everyday. Some days are fine and some are more black. Posts like this put things in perspective and remind me that we don't have to be perfect, but it's important that we like ourselves anyway.

[amba]

The light bulb that went on for me (well, one of them) was recognizing my perfectionism. I became tongue-tied and paralyzed because I thought every word that came out of my mouth should be witty and articulate and insightful, every movement should be graceful. It was so arrogant and absurd! I was comparing myself, not so much to other real people as to, I don't know -- characters in a Noël Coward play? I wanted to be fictional! (This is what comes of reading too many books as a kid.)

Nothing relieves any of us as much as hearing another person admit to the same unworthy feelings we've been hiding. So . . . thank you, Tamar.

[Tamar]

Amba, you bring in an importance piece to all of this that matches up so well with my friend's question: "And who are you to think otherwise?"

The idea of "arrogance" as we try and match up to fictional, models, "real" people, or whomever.

Thanks so much for sharing this part of you here.

[nappy40]

Thanks Tamar for sharing this letter from your friend. I can relate to it as well and am trying to cope with all the negative feelings just as your friend is. I finally got tired of feeling bad and unworthy. The funny thing is, the moment I stopped worrying and comparing myself to others and focused on me and my eccentric self, people flocked to me. I meet people now who want to know me. I even meet people now who want to love me, and I never felt worthy of that in the past. So thanks so much for this post.

[Tamar]

Ella, I'm glad if this letter was helpful to you. One of the reasons I wanted to post it was that I thought it might resonate with others too.

Nappy, I like your advice about focusing on "my eccentric self." I think that I am doing a lot of that lately and it might be starting to have a positive effect on how I view myself ... I'll keep you posted!