The struggle with self worth (the journey)

Warning: long post ahead. Probably hard to follow but that's how this works.

Okay, so about five years ago, you know I was in counseling for struggling with abandonment issues. My dad was an alcoholic and even though that felt completely normal, that's all I knew.

Well fast forward to now-ish and I started in a relationship and the reality of the situation became clearer. It was clear to me (and likely my significant other) that I definitely needed to go back to counseling. 

I made an appointment with my counselor that I had used prior because A) I love her and she's fan-freaking- tastic, B) she knew my history and we had a great rapport. 

I'm unsure if you've (whomever you are reading this) has ever been to counseling and heck, maybe it's different for everyone, but it can be hard to express yourself. And when you do get into the "good stuff" it often takes turns and switchbacks, detours and U turns, etc. It's hard to follow along, how therapist do it? No idea. 

Through this most recent counseling period, I've been made aware that everything really stems from my feelings toward my own self worth. Now, to me this seems almost shameful to express, because I would say I am pretty good at fooling people into thinking I am confident and therefore believe I deserve the best, etc, etc. Logically, I believe that - however, that is not how my brain is wired. So admitting this to everyone is pretty frightening to show you the "real me".  Every flaw that I am, I am ashamed of, and I am pretty much laying it out here for you all. 

So there is a difference between self worth and self esteem, but they also work together. If you know me well, I am a very curious person and because of that, I do A LOT of reading and "looking into" things. Pretty much every time I leave my counselors office I have something to look up, whether that be "a grown child of an alcoholic", "self worth", "shame", "abandonment issues", etc. According to psychalive.org (and no I am not going to site this source appropriately because that seems like a waste of time and this is more for me than for anyone else and I am still giving due credit), self-worth should be less about measuring yourself based on external actions and more about valuing your inherent worth as a person. So it's more about who you are to your core versus what you do. Also from this website, Dr. Kristin Neff (who has some education specifically to psych) expressed that self-esteem is when we measure ourselves against others. Essentially, always fighting a losing battle. One thing that I read that resonated with me was "your self-worth should also take into account the unique qualities that make you you." We are all unique and that gives us inherent value. 

Ahhhhh, then this website goes into that crazy thing call the inner voice. If you've been to therapy or read/researched anything with the human mind, you have heard about this inner voice. My inner voice, is my worst critic, most peoples are. Critical thoughts, undermining my sense of self worth. Oh! I knew there was another reason I left this psychalive.org open on my phone - apparently there is an article out in the world called "7 Reasons Most People are Afraid of Love" and this website takes a direct quote from there that says 

"We all have a "critical inner voice," which acts like a cruel coach inside our heads that tells us we are worthless or undeserving of happiness. This coach is shaped from painful childhood experiences and critical attitudes we were expose to early in life as well as feeling our parents had about themselves. While these attitudes can be hurtful, over time, they have become engrained in us. As adults, we may fail to see them as an enemy, instead accepting their destructive point of view as our own."

DAAAAAAAAAMNNNNN!  But, then we learn to challenge the inner critic and start to see ourselves for who we truly are and karate chop those negative point of views to the ground. Easier said than done, I know this all too well. I am often reminded in counseling that I need to treat myself with the same kindness and compassion as I would treat a friend. The conversation often goes, well if your friend did this, do you think that they deserve (whatever negative thing I said or felt). And obviously, my answer is - well of course not.  Ultimately, I clearly would never expect another person to feel that way, but if it's me, I expect to feel that way, so I am the exception to the rule. (pretty wild huh?). Maybe an example would be easier to wrap your head around because as I type it I realize I was trying to keep it broad  because it can be used in so many scenarios but, if I was trying to understand this I'd be looking at the screen saying WTF in my head. So for example : Let's say I am having a conversation with a significant other and I overreact (because my inner child comes out because I was triggered or something - which my significant other would have no idea about) well, after I had HUGE emotions about something, and afterward when I realized this, I would stew on this, thinking things like, well I screwed up and now I am not worth the trouble and all the emotions that come along with being with me romantically. So he's going to break things off and I just F'd this whole thing up because of that. It's truly a vicious cycle. Now, if you have high self worth that probably seems preposterous. Mostly because it is. But what I have learned and what it really comes down to is my reactive brain and my logical brain. Now, if I were to be in my significant others shoes and that happened - most people, if not all, would shrug it off and be like - huh, they must be having a bad day or whatever. But that's not how I think, I go right to "well I showed I wasn't perfect, because I wasn't perfect, I am not worthy of love." EVEN THOUGH my logical brain can eventually get to the more obvious ending of - shrugging it off. But when I was young I learned and made that pathway in my brain to go straight to the I am not worthy. My logical "brain car" takes some different paths and has to turn around because it got lost a few time - eventually getting there. I hope I am explaining this okay-ish. I know when I am at counseling and I am trying to express how I was feeling or my thinking process my counselor is so patient and thinks VERY hard on what I am try to say and eventually rewords it and is able to express it a million times better than I was. 

Just a little FYI: It is 3:30 am and I have to be up in two hours for a 12 hour shift and I just could not go back to sleep. I got like two hours of sleep then woke up and have been trying to sleep since and then I just gave up and let the fingers peck. Just in case anyone was wondering - or if parts of this seems a little delirious - that's why. To be fair, by the time I actually publish this so people can read it - it's GUARANTEED to be like... at least a week later than it is right now. 🙄 (oh and this is the best emoji) Okay, you can tell it's late/early because I'm just rambling.      

I've noticed that my struggles with all this (stuff or trauma - I don't know what to even call it) is really only in romantic relationships. I am constantly worried about things like what the other thinks of me or whether people might leave me. Constructive criticism? Ha- that feels like a dagger to the heart and an attack on me and who I am as a person rather than advice to help me. Something I've also noticed is that IT.IS.EXHAUSTING. I don't want to think like this. I don't want to constantly be held back by this. I am 32 and I am still struggling with this and it has taken a lot from me already. Obviously, I am confident enough (ironically) to know that shit will not take me down. I will continue to face this head on because I want a life outside of this shame and unworthy feeling. However, it's been 7 months that I have been working on this and I am constantly constantly constantly working, thinking, processing it. I am working on it more and am AWARE of it and can identify most things or at least identify why I react the way that I do. Which of course makes me analyze things more. When I take something personal or react I have to stop and think .. huh? is this an appropriate reaction to this or is this my reaction part of my brain. That is by far the HARDEST part. I have to constantly assess my reactions and "monitor" it. And because I sometimes can't identify or distinguish it - it has put impacts on relationships. 

I feel emotions extremely deeply. We are taught - typically - about negative emotions and not so much the positive emotions. As I was sitting across from my counselor we talked about how I have these big emotional reactions to thing (which is how a child would react) but then now as an adult, I am immensely empathetic, I feel for people. I put myself in their position and can somehow relate to most people. She asked me to list what I thought were positive things about myself. One of the things I listed was that I am a very grateful person. I appreciate the little things. She then made sense of that to me and responded with something like, well yea, that makes sense you feel emotions deeply and you are very observant. I've always seen my emotions more of a negative. Often I hear things like "you are being overly emotional" or "you are being extra sensitive". Although, I don't always take that as negative because I see and recognize the good that brings in my profession and being a good friend (being able to relate to people and empathize), I never put it together with the emotion of joy. Like the joy I get of early mornings enjoying nature and taking it all in.  When you ask me if joy is a feeling or emotion, yes, duh. But sometimes I just don't make those connections. Then I am mindblower for awhile and feel like I had an "AH HA" moment. 

The more I talk with my counselor and what not it makes sense, why it's mostly just romantic relationships. My dad was an alcoholic and so I clearly want to be loved and accepted unconditionally by a man. But I have noticed and related things back to my dad like, walking on egg shells, not knowing "which dad I was getting" and how he'd react. Sometimes he was super fun and adventurous and then the next second he'd be angry and scary. So as a child I was constantly constantly constantly analyzing his mood and trying to pick up on little signs that would give me a hint at what to expect. I do that in romantic relationships. I see you didn't say this or that, or hold my hand, or react this way - and I am analyzing it because I'm trying to understand YOUR EMOTIONS so I can be prepared to react. WOOF that shit is deep man. That was super eye opening for me. Maybe not for you if you haven't gone through something like this - but dude. 

One thing I do that I know I do but do not like is I need reassurance a lot. Even on the little things, or big things. Like if I make a mistake, I need reassurance that we (my sign other and I) are good and they don't think differently of me. Reassurance-seeking means relying on other people to feel better. The reason it's such a bad habit for those with low self-worth is that it destroys your emotional confidence. Emotional confidence is the ability to tolerate difficult emotions without trying to a void them or get rid of them. I guess with reassurance that I seek - it takes away anxiety for me because of my overthinking and needing to be "perfect". Now there isn't anything wrong with wanting attention or taking the opinion of another  into consideration the problem arise when relying completely on another person to feel confident about yourself and life choices. The desperate need for approval typically comes from a place of fear and insecurity. So with life with my dad - any situation that overwhelm a child's ability to cope causes a "fight or flight" response. Which affects or shape the way they view and experience life. The problem with this is that when you grow up in that environment you learn from an early age that you cannot trust people and that the world is unsafe. Often the kids blame themselves rather than recognize the parent as unreliable and dangerous. As an adult it's hard to feel safe when as a child the person (my dad in this case) that was supposed to take care of me and protect me, did the opposite.  

So essentially self-esteem is crucial in the mental health and overall well-being of people. This is shaped by our early environment and our relationships with our primary caregivers. Later - it also involved other authorities figures, peers and similar influencers. As children, we start internalizing how others see us, and it becomes our self-perception. As a child I had to (in my mind) be perfect so that I wouldn't upset my dad. However, as a child and a human you aren't perfect. But you think or feel that adults reactions to you or things you do is because of you. When you are developing you - you don't understand that there is more going on in adult lives or that they are struggling from a disease like alcoholism - and that this has nothing to do with you. You can't internalize that kind of thought process as a child. So as I was developing in as a kid, I would get in trouble for things that didn't warrant such strong discipline. I would get mad at him because I wasn't able to understand what I did wrong so I would talk back, which obviously only made things worse. Or if I didn't listen to him or do something right away then he'd get mad. If I questioned him, he'd get upset and yell. I couldn't gauge his personality or how he would react, I learned to constantly be looking for all of the little signs. Hence, why I do that in romantic relationships now. Or why if someone slightly raises their voice I get triggered - or defensive. 

There is clearly a lot of damage that has happened. I have been putting in constant effort and dealing with this head on. Literally, I research and think about this stuff all day - it's EXHAUSTING. It's hard to trust my own thoughts, or reactions because I know they sometimes come from my inner child reactions. I am constantly wondering if my reaction is "valid" or if I am overreacting. Or did I just take something wrong that I wouldn't take wrong from anyone else. 

I am opening myself up to show you all of my demons, all of my vulnerabilities of how I am "not good enough", or "not worthy enough" to anyone who reads this. My internal struggles are significant and have had an impact on romantic relationships. I know I bring a lot of good into relationships, but I also know that I am not easy to be with. I think that is my biggest struggle. I don't always feel worthy of love and happiness because of the trauma from my dad, but it's what that trauma brings into current relationships that I feel unworthy. 

I am dealing. I am fighting. I will come out better than ever. I don't want to live with this effecting me forever. Part of me gets frustrated that it still even does, but all I can do is continue to get the help I need and fight for what I believe in.