Whoops this turned out to be really long.

Right, so I write a self conscious entry about how I worry people don’t like me, and I related it to noticing a lot of people on FB deleted me. And I get this nice, private, anonymous note.

"If what you post on FB resembles what you have written in this entry, I would have deleted you, too."

Fucking cheers mate! Who in the world honestly thinks, "Oh, this person is feeling shit about themselves today, I’ll post something to see if it will make them feel worse!" Yeah. Thanks.

I know its just some random anonymous asshole who I shouldn’t care about, but it did make me feel worse. Because annoyingly enough, this is the kind of thing that DOES get to me. It pisses me off that other people’s opinions are really important to me, I wish they weren’t! But for now, how I feel is how I feel, so thank you, anonymous loser who wanted to make me feel just that little bit worse. You did your job well.

Ha, I suppose this is another reason why I don’t post. Writing on here is like looking into a mirror. A high definition mirror. Once I get started I start to reveal all sorts of ugliness that I’m just not ready to look at. It’s why I write rants instead. It’s easy to ignore yourself if you’re being angry at everything else.

In that same sense though, writing on here can also be nice. it’s nice because a lot of the time I do just say what I want. Come to think about it, this diary is the only place I really share my feelings about things.

Out and about in my daily life, I really don’t like to show emotion. I’m embarrassed by it. But it can work against me, it means that I never appear sad or angry, but I also never appear excited or happy. I just raise my eyebrows a lot. Hm, I wonder what people think I’m thinking when my eyebrows are flailing around as they are wont to do?

So yeah, where was I. Oh yeah, OD is some sort of fugly-ass mirror but also a surprisingly good place to talk about my feelings. I never really thought about that until now. Fine yeah, so most of my feelings revolve around how much I hate myself, but you know what? I don’t discuss that ANYWHERE else, ever!

Sorry, for people reading this, it’s alright, go somewhere else and read more fun things, I’m having some sort of revelation that you guys don’t need to read about.

Whenever I try to talk about how I feel about myself to someone else, in person, I burst into tears. Every single time. I know that sounds ridiculous and completely unlike me but it’s true. I can’t bring myself to say a word about my self esteem. But here, because I’m typing, not talking, it’s just like thinking. It feels alright to talk about it here.

Wow, I have honestly never realised that I can write here for myself. I always write here for other people to read, but actually, this is a pretty good place to vent I suppose.

Saying that, although it’s easier to talk about my self esteem here, it’s no easy to actually boost it. I have no idea how to feel better about myself. It’s 50% looks, 50% personality. I can type about how awful I am until I’m blue in the … fingers? But all it will do is highlight how I think I’m awful.

How DO I attempt to remedy this? I can’t go around my entire life feeling like this. There is no way! In fact, it’s pretty pathetic that I haven’t done anything about this before, what, I just thought "Oh yeah, you hate yourself. Do that FOREVER." Great move Rose!

Well, I had some cognitive behavioural therapy a few years back and it taught me some useful stuff. The thing I took away from it was finding evidence. Like… for example, I thought people didn’t like me, so I had to look for, and record, all the evidence to suggest this. But I also had to look for evidence against it, like a fair experiment.

I remember my therapist pointed out I’d skip over a lot of things that should have been taken as positive signs that people like me. If someone cooked me a meal, or bought me a gift, I would immediately forget it happened. Then later, they might not answer the phone and I would think "Oh god, they’re ignoring me because they hate me, I am awful, etc etc."

Or maybe they weren’t near the phone. Maybe they were busy. Maybe maybe maybe.

So in my head, I would be racking up all this "evidence" that I was hated, but I never took into account meals, gifts, hugs, etc.

So I should look for more evidence. I try to, i guess, but I’m actually having a pretty tough time at work.

See, everyone is around 30ish, and I’m 22. I’m the youngest in the office by a lot, and I’ve gotten it into my head that this is the reason people don’t wanna hang out with me.

It seems that everyone goes to parties and stuff together on the weekends that i only hear about after the fact. Depressingly, sometimes I hear people muttering under their breath about their weekend plans, and MAYBE I’m wrong, MAYBE I’m right, but I FEELS like they’re muttering because they don’t want to be rude cause they know theyre not inviting me.

Now, sure, I could just try and invite myself along, but if these people truly don’t want me to come to their things, I don’t want to make it awkward for them by butting in.

And yes, I do invite people out, but no one has ever taken me up on my offer…

What I am grateful for is David, the guy I sit opposite from at work. He invites Mat and I places and we have fun with him. He’s a nice guy, and he does prove that not "everyone" "hates" me.

Still, I don’t really know what I’m trying to get at, maybe people just don’t know me so well so they don’t invite me. But, also, do they not want to get to know me by inviting me places? I’m always doing my best to be friendly and nice to everyone, trying to get to know them.

Ah this sounds a bit whingey, let’s get back on that productive healing thought path. Where was I?

So, what I rpobably need to do is set out what is actually wrong. I think I need to be brutally honest with myself about what it is I think is wrong with me, and then be focused, balanced and fair about finding evidence to prove or disprove these thoughts. It’s not about telling myself how great I am, it’s about being realistic and honest.

If I’m being honest, I know that a lot of the stuff I think about myself PROBABLY isn’t true. And having that vague bit of knowledge shows that there’s light at the end of this tunnel and I can see a way out, even if it’s quite far away.

So how to structure this? Hmmmm….

So, 50% Looks eh? That’s a toughie, I’m not sure how to fix how I feel about how I look. Mat could tell me a billion times about how great he thinks I look but I genuinely find it impossible to believe him. Now, relying on others to tell me how I look is no good either, because that’s a weird question to go round asking people and it’s all subjective.

Hm, it is all subjective. one person might find me beautiful and the next repulsive. Sometimes I look in the mirror and I find it’s an acceptable reflection, other times I find myself horrified by the creature grimacing back at me.

Well, I suppose everyone feels like this sometimes, some a lot, some not so much. I doubt a lot of people are actually 100% happy with the way they look.

I can’t change my face. Even if I had unlimited money for surgery, I

would still have no idea where to start. I think I’ve mentioned this before actually, but it’s more my expressions than the actual shape.

IDEA! Okay, let’s assume that my expressions are actually fairly unrepresentative of my feelings. That would also coincide with the fact that I don’t like to show my emotions in public actually. Okay, so yes, assume that I never look like I’m feeling anything, and/or what i do look like is generally the opposite of how I’m feeling. Maybe this is why it takes me so long to make friends.

It could have nothing to do with my personality, but more my inability to reveal who I actually am.

I always think I do a good job of hiding things, but maybe I don’t. I’m always relearning the fact that people aren’t as easily fooled as I think they are. Maybe a lot of people see through my expressionless facade, or even if they don’t, maybe they just get an off feeling because of my demeanor.

I have always been like this, for so long. Maybe this is the reason it takes people so long to warm to me. BECAUSE I TAKE SO LONG TO BE HONEST ABOUT WHO I AM AND WHAT I FEEL!

AHA!

Ha ha, I sound like such a nerd. Who cares? my diary, my rules.

Okay, yes, if I think about people who ARE my closest friends, they’re people who I’ve known for such a long time that I feel comfortable being the real me around them. In fact, for whatever reason, David at work is very easy going and accepting, which makes me a little more the real me around him. Which is probably why he invites me out more.

If i don’t start just being whoever the hell I really am (ie, someone that feels emotions and thinks thoughts JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE) then I’m never gonna make friends easily!

Saying that, the real me does offend people occasionally. There are some people who genuinely find me quite offensive and rude. But I’m not being that way on purpose, I can just be quite opinionated and strong worded. I do my best to tone it down. but shoudl I tone myself down?

Yes, of course there is a line between being yourself and having manners. I mean, sometimes you’re thinking " Urghhh I’m bored of this conversation, I wish they would talk about something else" but you don’t SAY that. And not saying that wouldn’t be me hiding who I am, it would be being polite. It’s obvious that not everything I talk about will be really interesting to other people either.

Okay so maybe I see that most people are probably thinking the same things as me. Maybe I need to establish a level of appropriate self-censorship.

At the moment, I would get the my self-censorship is set at around 80%. As I get to know people better I guess that percentage goes down. But I think I need to come up with like, a default setting for being around those I don’t know, etc, because otherwise, I’m gonna keep on feeling paranoid and self conscious and not making many friends.

So! If the default setting is say… 60%, and then it can drop accordingly… But now I’ve got to try and understand what that 60% is actually censoring.

So, start from the bottom. You always censor mean thoughts, eg, "I am bored of what you are saying" or "Hmmm did you gain weight?" I know for sure everyone gets these thoughts, but you DON’T say them. So yes, censor bad manners, what else needs to be censored?

Any opinions on politics or religion. For sure. I mean, yeah, when you get to be good friends, you can uncensor this all you like, but I’m talking about a level of censorship required to make friends. Next?

Hmmm, maybe my feelings about myself might be a good idea to censor. You don’t make friends by telling everyone how awful you are. By the way, I’m not saying I don’t censor these things at the moment, just covering all bases here.

Okay, unsavoury elements. It’s not cool to go on about sexual preferences, toilet habits and all that other personal private stuff. Yep, censor that.

Hmmmm, this all seems too obvious, let’s look at what I shouldn’t censor.

Okay, so I should be honest about…

What i like. Sometimes I’m not because I’m worried other people will disagree and then think less of me for liking something they don’t. But if I think about when other people say they like something I don’t, most of the time, I don’t judge them for it at all (unless it’s like, baby murdering or something). So yeah, share my likes.

I think it’s also safe to say I can share my dislikes, but let’s hold off on long opinions about disliking for the mean time, dislike things non-chalantly.

I can share anecdotes about myself, opinions, jokes, invitations, food and drink, sympathy, empathy, EMOTIONS?!

Wow, this is all starting to sound really like, "WELL DUH."

Maybe an easy way to put all of this is to be less timid. Speak up!

Okay, so sometimes I think people are giving me funny looks because I just revealed something about myself or my opinions that they judge me for. There’s nothing I can do about then! I’ve already said it, they’ve already judged me. And if they truly are constantly judging me, maybe I shouldn’t be friends with them anyway? Or maybe I just keep going until they understand who i am.

Maybe I’m making it a difficult and annoying mystery because i suppose I’m probably not easy to figure out.

And I suppose I censor some things ebcause they’re all like, "Oh I don’t play computer games, what a waste of my life!" And then I feel inferior for being a gamey loser.

Eh! So what! I’m obviously from a different generation. I don’t play them constantly, probably only around once a month. Who cares?!

So I read horror books and not artsy fartsy forgeign things? It’s cause horror books are fun!

This is me! If I keep being ashamed of who I am basedon my comparisons to other people I’m never gonna be likeable

It’s a right old corny saying but I guess the whole "People won’t like you if you don’t like yourself" is probably quite true.

But I won’t like myself if people don’t like me.

FINE! Then I have to take the first step. I have to be me and not be afraid of being me.

Blah blah this has gone on for quite a while now.

To conclude: Be myself, speak up, don’t worry! People judge me, I judge them. And come on, I CAN’T change who I am at my core, so don’t fight it, celebrate it.

 

And that concludes this week’s family movie of the week, titled "Learn to love Yourself" Directed by Wussy Mc Lameface. Yeah, I’m making fun of how lame I sound, I’m not gonna becured just by writing some insane diary entry! But I’ll get there, it’s just it’s ME who has to do something about it!

GOOOOOO!

XxX