I(21F) feel extremely ashamed of myself whenever I am with a lot of people. It’s the feeling that I’m not good enough and am not what I wanted to be, that I did not reach my expectations. I always was the brightest student when I was a kid and thought I would achieve a lot but now I’m just average. I feel useless and want to hide from everyone. I can’t deal with this anymore. But I don’t know what to do.
4 comments
it seems to me that you’re comparing yourself to others. i get it, i do it too but we need to learn to break this cycle and live our own life. you are where you are supposed to be and you are who you are. if you aren’t happy with where you are at now, do something about it. what do you see yourself doing in the next 5 years? is there a certain goal you feel like you need to accomplish in order to feel worthy?
I have the same feelings. I hate myself for achieving the same things as others even when they’re happy with it, because I feel like I could do more. Your parents may have instilled this shame in you from a young age, and this idea that you need to be perfect / only worthy of praise if you achieve very highly / being terrified of failure? Not sure about your life story but that’s the case for me. Therapy could help with that. It’s helping me. If you have loving parents I apologize for the accusation.
I still want to do great things, but I’m starting to be more okay with the idea of not doing so. And honestly that makes me work towards my goals even harder because you have to fail multiple times to succeed in the end.
you are only 21, you can still achieve great things, no one has their shit figured out that early, even though people like to pretend they do. Knowing this start to believe in yourself and with time you will get rid of such feelings, and just know that there is no switch click, negative things we want to get rid of takes time and practice
This isn’t an instant fix, but I might suggest practicing active mindfulness.
The people around you will think what they think, and do what they do. We as a social species can inspire action, but action is the responsibility of whoever is acting.
By practicing mindfulness, I mean keeping your thoughts centered on yourself. Less thought about whether you stepped too far or too short in front of the group and tripped and now they all think you’re a ditz. They don’t. They probably won’t even hold that thought in mind after a minute or two.
If you measure yourself against other people, then you will never measure up.
Measure yourself against yourself. It’s not a matter of where your friends are that you need to figure out a route to; it’s a matter of figuring out where *you* want to go and figuring out the route there.
I am not Well. I have a lot of difficulties in day to day life. I am in a position where I look at people even just working the supermarket and in my head I’m going “How do you find the strength or motivation or any of it…?” But I don’t hold their actions against myself. They’re fighting their own battles and winning and losing things that I will never know about, and I’m fighting my own battles and winning and losing things that *they* will never know about.
If you truly believe that you are Less Than you were earlier in life, then that is what it will be. But you don’t have to let that be your truth if you don’t want it. Early twenties is a time of massive self-exploration, which also can mean a lot of negative self-talk. Your pain is valid.
Spend some time thinking about what you want out of life. Not what you need to be competitive with other people in your life, because it sounds like looking at things that way is doing you a lot of psychological harm. But what *you* want. And start simple. What’s for dinner tonight? Something you like? Make something you like. Or order it. You deserve it. Or if its a simple meal night? Put a sprig of something green on your plate. It sounds stupid as hell, but there’s reasons that parsley shows up in the corner of every plate meal in the states; makes a person feel special.