I am tired. So very tired. I have been so busy, I am not even sure what day it is. It is Tuesday right? I hope so, otherwise I have written on the wrong day.....again. This online school stuff with my oldest takes all day and it leaves me with virtually no time to clean my house like I need to. It is slowly driving me insane. This must be what is like to be a teacher. We don't pay them enough...they need more incentives because this shit is hard. I have to do math now......math!!!! Ugh.
I was trying to decide what to write about today, and I would like to write something informative but I am distracted by the fact that my 22 lb orange tabby smells like he has rolled in the litter box again. He hasn't because he is too fat to do so but I am wracking my brain on how he could clean himself every second of everyday and yet he still smells so horrid. I am going to have to give him a bath. As in, a real bath with actual water. I don't think this is going to be pleasant for either one of us. In fact, I am writing now because I am somewhat concerned that I won't be physically able to type after I do bathe my fat fur baby. I like my arms to be scratch free but I like my house not to reek of stinky cat more....If you don't hear from me on Thursday than you know my cat was extremely displeased and went all Cujo on me. Yikes.
Okay enough of my crazy everyday life problems. Seriously, I have no idea why I felt the need to write all of that. I apologize for making you read such drivel but that is what was on my OCD mind and I always like to write about whatever nutso thing is going through my head when I sit down to blog, God help us all...On to today's post.
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I was reading some posts today and I ran across the topic of self esteem. I think most people suffer from self esteem issues in their life times. I mean, if they don't then they are seriously lucky and should probably play the slot machines in Vegas. Self esteem issues seem to be a right of passage for most of us. It is even more of an issue for people that suffer from mental illness.
We suffer and because we suffer, we often times feel bad about ourselves. If it isn't the emotional turmoil we deal with on a daily basis, than it is the negative voice that tells us how worthless we think we are. It tells us how broken we are. How unlike everyone else we seem to be. We try and ignore it but it is hard to ignore a voice that lives in your own head. It isn't as if you can simply out run your own mind.
And like most people with low self esteem, we end up doing things that we feel even worse about later. We often end up being over sexualized so we can feel like we are desired. We usually feel like crap afterwards but in a rush to feel accepted, we often will go through demeaning things just to be "liked" no matter how fleeting that feeling may be. We can end up trying "illegal substances" or drinking alcohol too much. We end up in bad relationships and tend to put up with other people's abuse because we deep down feel that it is what we deserve. We sadly, end up being taken advantage of or manipulated more often than we realize. Why?
Because we want to be loved. We want to feel less alone. We want to finally fit in. We yearn to be acknowledged and accepted. We struggle to fill this hole that lives inside us, without ever realizing that we need to fill that hole not with others opinions of us but with ourselves. To put it simply, we look to be accepted because often times we struggle with accepting ourselves and it is painful. We know that we are different and we place blame on ourselves for that. It is a form of self destruction even though we don't always see that is what we are doing.
It takes a lot of years to reach the conclusion that the only opinion that really changes your life, is the opinion you have about your own self. If you call yourself stupid or worthless than you never see that you are in fact, neither of those things. We develop habits of putting ourselves down.
Much like an abusive relationship, we slowly grind our own self esteem down further. It is like an abusive relationship because it is, in fact, an abusive relationship. We are in an abusive relationship with ourselves. We punish ourselves. We degrade ourselves and we don't even realize we are doing it.
The truth is, that we are different. That we feel things in a different way than others. That we struggle. That we have issues but none of that makes us bad or worthless. If anything it makes us stronger than the average person. It makes us wiser and more compassionate. We beat ourselves up for things that we can not help and that is rather pointless, now isn't it. There are things we can change about ourselves and there are things that we can't but that in no way makes us broken. It in no way makes us less than. It simply makes us....well us. And frankly, whether we know it or not, we are truly magnificent and wonderful people. We just have to realize that we are worth more than we give ourselves credit for and stop letting others dictate how much love we deserve. If we can learn to love ourselves first, then their opinions don't mean Jack. And Jack is sooooo overrated anyways. We deserve better than being someone's after thought or someone else's entertainment. We deserve to love ourselves.
Neurotic Nelly
Showing posts with label self esteem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self esteem. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Sunday, July 14, 2013
This One is For The Girls......................
I am afraid that I do not understand where teenage girls are at in their minds these days. It is not that I was never a teenager, I get the angst and the confusion. I don't get how they see themselves and their lack of self esteem and self worth. The way they objectify themselves willingly and wholeheartedly.
In the early 1900's women dedicated their lives to the suffrage movement. They died, fought, went to jail, and were abused for our right to vote. They fought for the right to have birth control and clinics for women. The right to have choice in our leaders and our bodies. Sadly, many of our young women have never heard of great women such as Margret Sanger, Susan B Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
In the seventies women burned their bras and grew their arm pit hair out dangerously long enough to braid it and wear it as a scarf. To snub their nose at the ideals of how women should look and act.
In the eighties women wore their hair with sideways pony tails, raccoon eyed makeup, and shoulder pads that made them look more like cooperate football players rather than women. They said we can do anything a man can do and we have the shoulders to prove it. They worked to become CEOs of major companies.
In the nineties somehow underwear became worn on the outside of our clothing. We wore our father's and brother's army boots with our dresses and rocked out to empowering music like "I'm a B...." from artists like Meredith Brooks. We wanted to show that we were tough and femmine at the same time. That we were a force to be reckoned with. No longer would we be pushed into the corner. We wanted equal pay and equal ideals.
Being a woman is something to be proud of and it has nothing to do with how skinny you are or what your outfit costs. We should reflect on the battles waged and won on how we get to buy and own such clothes in the first place. There was a time when in this country a woman was not allowed to own any property at all. She was not allowed to have outward opinions on matters such as politics and land owning. No one listened to her ideals or opinions.
Now, thirteen year olds are more interested in how they look rather than their career plans or their education. They are worried about being skinny enough, pretty enough, and "sexy". A fact I find highly disturbing. What happened?
Duck face pictures are dumb. They do not make anyone look "hot". They make you look like your lips had a major stroke. They look broken. It reminds me of when I was a kid and I would make ugly faces my mother would scold me and tell me that if someone hit me on my back my face would stay that way. If no one has hit you on the back then there is no excuse to keep doing it. It's akin to getting into your mother's makeup and filling in your eyebrows with her favorite hot pink lipstick when you were five years old. It looks silly.
The constant comments about how fat you look bothers me. Weight has nothing to do with beauty. It really doesn't matter because most girls who comment about being fat weigh in the lower nineties anyway. If your waist is the circumference of my thigh then you are not fat, you are just confused. Beauty is about self confidence and attitude, not what the numbers on the scale tells you.
Making ridiculous comments about wanting a relationship like The Notebook. Please......The Notebook is a romance novel. Romance novels are fairy tales, akin to the three little pigs. There are people, creatures, animals that you recognize but they do ridiculous things that are impossible. How does a pig build houses when he has hooves for hands? How does a wolf huff and puff and blow your house down when wolves do not posses the ability to pucker their lips? They are capable of panting not blowing.
Books like the notebook are fiction. How do I know this? Well, for starters they are not located in the same isle of the library as The Diabetes Cookbook, autobiographies of Elvis, or The Diary Of Anne Frank.
A good way to tell if a romance novel is ridiculous is if nowhere in that book or movie there isn't someone farting, burping, or picking their nose. There is no talk about him coming home after a long day of work and him having stinky feet. No mention of her nagging because he refuses to share the television remote. No arguing over whose turn it is to take out the garbage, fighting over the bills, or contempt because he forgot something on the shopping list. No one lives like they do in these stories. We are all human and as humans we all have our own issues. Love is what your willing to put up with. I am sure even Ryan Gossling passes gas at some point. He is human, last I heard. I am not saying there isn't true love or that relationships can not last forty years, I am saying that relationships are hard work. That people do annoying things and to love someone is to accept their baggage. What ever that baggage may be.
I don't know why there is such a perverse need to saddle yourself up to someone when you are so young. Learn who you are first. Go out with friends and have a social life. Go to college. Get a part time job. Fall and learn how to pick yourself back up. Find who the real you is first before you try to become a half of a whole relationship. If your betrothed is still waiting to be with you after that than it has a chance of being real. If not then it wasn't meant to be anyway.
If your partner is a cheater, liar, manipulator, or abuser then don't take him/her back. If they have wronged you they aren't worth your time. You will love again. You are worth more than that. Trust me.
So I guess what this long drawn out post is trying to say is that you are selling yourself short. You can be anything in this life. You do not need to worry if you are good enough for someone. If they don't want you then it's their loss and you were probably better than them anyway. Stop worrying about your looks and get a good education. Looks fade, intelligence is forever. Learn about the struggles women have gone through so you can take pictures of yourself in your booty shorts and share it with the world. Contemplate on that for a few minutes and decide if that's really the image you want to share with the world. Are you just an object or are you a person with dreams, hopes, and emotions. Because mark my words, people are not thinking about you as a person when you post pictures and comments like that. They are seeing you through the goggles of sexual objectification. Stop saying you want a relationship. You don't really. What you want is to feel whole. What you want is to feel special, to know who you are, to validate your feelings, to feel unconditional love. These are all things you can give yourself. Don't wait for someone else to give you these things because they can't. Only you can prevent forest fires and only you can love yourself that way. Don't believe that your crush can save you from yourself. That never works out. Crushes are people you put so high up on a pedestal that there is no way to go but down. You aren't "in love" with them. You are "in love" with the idea of them, and no one can stand up that kind of scrutiny. Take my advice because I have been where you are now and I have made the same mistakes.
Take the advice of this wrinkled, grey haired, walker pushing, old bitty. Love yourself. Find yourself. Get to know your self worth and project yourself the way you want to be received by the world. You can't promote yourself as strong, intelligent, or classy when you are doing the duck face.
Neurotic Nelly
In the early 1900's women dedicated their lives to the suffrage movement. They died, fought, went to jail, and were abused for our right to vote. They fought for the right to have birth control and clinics for women. The right to have choice in our leaders and our bodies. Sadly, many of our young women have never heard of great women such as Margret Sanger, Susan B Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
In the seventies women burned their bras and grew their arm pit hair out dangerously long enough to braid it and wear it as a scarf. To snub their nose at the ideals of how women should look and act.
In the eighties women wore their hair with sideways pony tails, raccoon eyed makeup, and shoulder pads that made them look more like cooperate football players rather than women. They said we can do anything a man can do and we have the shoulders to prove it. They worked to become CEOs of major companies.
In the nineties somehow underwear became worn on the outside of our clothing. We wore our father's and brother's army boots with our dresses and rocked out to empowering music like "I'm a B...." from artists like Meredith Brooks. We wanted to show that we were tough and femmine at the same time. That we were a force to be reckoned with. No longer would we be pushed into the corner. We wanted equal pay and equal ideals.
Being a woman is something to be proud of and it has nothing to do with how skinny you are or what your outfit costs. We should reflect on the battles waged and won on how we get to buy and own such clothes in the first place. There was a time when in this country a woman was not allowed to own any property at all. She was not allowed to have outward opinions on matters such as politics and land owning. No one listened to her ideals or opinions.
Now, thirteen year olds are more interested in how they look rather than their career plans or their education. They are worried about being skinny enough, pretty enough, and "sexy". A fact I find highly disturbing. What happened?
Duck face pictures are dumb. They do not make anyone look "hot". They make you look like your lips had a major stroke. They look broken. It reminds me of when I was a kid and I would make ugly faces my mother would scold me and tell me that if someone hit me on my back my face would stay that way. If no one has hit you on the back then there is no excuse to keep doing it. It's akin to getting into your mother's makeup and filling in your eyebrows with her favorite hot pink lipstick when you were five years old. It looks silly.
The constant comments about how fat you look bothers me. Weight has nothing to do with beauty. It really doesn't matter because most girls who comment about being fat weigh in the lower nineties anyway. If your waist is the circumference of my thigh then you are not fat, you are just confused. Beauty is about self confidence and attitude, not what the numbers on the scale tells you.
Making ridiculous comments about wanting a relationship like The Notebook. Please......The Notebook is a romance novel. Romance novels are fairy tales, akin to the three little pigs. There are people, creatures, animals that you recognize but they do ridiculous things that are impossible. How does a pig build houses when he has hooves for hands? How does a wolf huff and puff and blow your house down when wolves do not posses the ability to pucker their lips? They are capable of panting not blowing.
Books like the notebook are fiction. How do I know this? Well, for starters they are not located in the same isle of the library as The Diabetes Cookbook, autobiographies of Elvis, or The Diary Of Anne Frank.
A good way to tell if a romance novel is ridiculous is if nowhere in that book or movie there isn't someone farting, burping, or picking their nose. There is no talk about him coming home after a long day of work and him having stinky feet. No mention of her nagging because he refuses to share the television remote. No arguing over whose turn it is to take out the garbage, fighting over the bills, or contempt because he forgot something on the shopping list. No one lives like they do in these stories. We are all human and as humans we all have our own issues. Love is what your willing to put up with. I am sure even Ryan Gossling passes gas at some point. He is human, last I heard. I am not saying there isn't true love or that relationships can not last forty years, I am saying that relationships are hard work. That people do annoying things and to love someone is to accept their baggage. What ever that baggage may be.
I don't know why there is such a perverse need to saddle yourself up to someone when you are so young. Learn who you are first. Go out with friends and have a social life. Go to college. Get a part time job. Fall and learn how to pick yourself back up. Find who the real you is first before you try to become a half of a whole relationship. If your betrothed is still waiting to be with you after that than it has a chance of being real. If not then it wasn't meant to be anyway.
If your partner is a cheater, liar, manipulator, or abuser then don't take him/her back. If they have wronged you they aren't worth your time. You will love again. You are worth more than that. Trust me.
So I guess what this long drawn out post is trying to say is that you are selling yourself short. You can be anything in this life. You do not need to worry if you are good enough for someone. If they don't want you then it's their loss and you were probably better than them anyway. Stop worrying about your looks and get a good education. Looks fade, intelligence is forever. Learn about the struggles women have gone through so you can take pictures of yourself in your booty shorts and share it with the world. Contemplate on that for a few minutes and decide if that's really the image you want to share with the world. Are you just an object or are you a person with dreams, hopes, and emotions. Because mark my words, people are not thinking about you as a person when you post pictures and comments like that. They are seeing you through the goggles of sexual objectification. Stop saying you want a relationship. You don't really. What you want is to feel whole. What you want is to feel special, to know who you are, to validate your feelings, to feel unconditional love. These are all things you can give yourself. Don't wait for someone else to give you these things because they can't. Only you can prevent forest fires and only you can love yourself that way. Don't believe that your crush can save you from yourself. That never works out. Crushes are people you put so high up on a pedestal that there is no way to go but down. You aren't "in love" with them. You are "in love" with the idea of them, and no one can stand up that kind of scrutiny. Take my advice because I have been where you are now and I have made the same mistakes.
Take the advice of this wrinkled, grey haired, walker pushing, old bitty. Love yourself. Find yourself. Get to know your self worth and project yourself the way you want to be received by the world. You can't promote yourself as strong, intelligent, or classy when you are doing the duck face.
Neurotic Nelly
Thursday, May 9, 2013
No More Apologizing
It has come to my attention that many people that suffer from mental illness feel inferior. We often apologize for our feelings and beliefs. We apologize for possibly offending someone when we disagree with something said or done. Why do we do that? I want you to really take a second and ruminate on that question. Why do we feel our opinions and beliefs are something to apologize for? Do you see normal people going around apologizing for having an opinion? No. They don't. They don't because they have self confidence and we tend to lack in that department. We tend to feel not good enough and it's crap. Stinky smelly crap. There I said it.
I used to apologize or feel guilty because I had a different opinion or belief on something. I do not allow that anymore because I realized that it is my right to think and feel the way I do. I feel the way I do because of the things I have gone through in my life and I am predisposed to feeling that way. And you know what? I don't feel bad or guilty about it.
If you burned your hand on the burner of a stove , do you forget you burned yourself? Not likely. Afterwards you will always be cognizant that the stove can hurt you. You will always be careful to not touch the stove when it is hot. You will always make sure that you will not get burned get again.
Mental illness is the same way. If someone has hurt you or you have been hurt by something, you are not likely going to trust easily. You will always doubt that everything is as it seems. Since mental illness hurts us, we doubt our emotions and our opinions. We are unsure of our worth and our validity. So let me just say this, we are valid. Our opinions are ours and we have nothing to feel guilty about. We do not have to agree with everyone else. We should stop apologizing for our feelings. They are ours and we have every right to feel them. We should stop minimizing our opinions. We think this way because of the things we have been through. It is our right to feel,think and believe the way we do. Our thoughts and opinions are valid. They are worthy to be heard. They do not need to be followed by "I'm sorry" or "I apologize". We do not need to apologize for what we believe.
The difference of opinions are what make us look at our lives in a different light. It makes us think about things in a way that we may never have thought of before. Different is glorious. I am not saying we don't have to listen to others opinions, I am saying that we have to have ours heard as well. We have to speak up and stop being sorry.
When we put down the niceties and window dressings we have nothing left but honesty. When we stop playing dress up with lies, we become our own true self. We stand, we are counted, and we matter.
The best friendships I have had in my life are the ones that are based on honesty. If I look like something the cat dragged in, they would tell me. If we disagree on a point, we talk it out. Neither of us may change our opinion but we respect each other's view. That is because we respect each other. My wish is that we start to believe that what we think is important. Because it is important. My wish is that we start feeling like our opinions are valid. Because they are. My wish is that we all understand that it is perfectly acceptable to be who we are, right now at this moment in time. Because we are just as worthy as everyone else. My wish is that we stop apologizing for our beliefs when we think we are not good enough to have any or talk about the ones we have. Because our beliefs are ours and they are just as valid as anyone else's. My wish is that we stop worrying about offending and insulting others and realize that when we minimize our feelings or apologize for our opinions we are offending and insulting ourselves. [tweet this]. That we are saying that they don't mean anything. And they mean absolutely everything. They are a representation of who you are and what you stand for as a mental illness sufferer, as an individual and as a person. You have the right to believe and think and have opinions. You are valid and what your feel is valid. You have the right to feel the way you do and not be sorry or scared that what you have to say is wrong or not good enough to be said. It is good enough. It matters. It is perfectly ok to agree, disagree, or be undecided. So let's put down the window dressing and get real. Let's start to believe in ourselves and our words. Let's stop putting ourselves down for being different and start accepting that what we have to say is necessary for us to say and necessary for others to hear. Words are powerful and we need to stop apologizing for using them.
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I would like to ask you to please take a moment and watch this video. A few posts back I wrote about wishing there was a more accurate film depicting OCD and I have found it. I think that it represents not only some of the common compulsions of OCD but more importantly the pain that is living with this illness. When I see shirts and memes making light of my mental illness, I tend to get upset. Because OCD is so not funny. Because OCD is a debilitating disorder of the mind that can, if allowed to, take over your whole life. I have not seen this movie. I have not seen it because I am afraid I will see to much of myself in it. That I may pick up compulsions again and I do not want to live that way. Not that watching a movie can make me start to compulse again, but I am scared of the possibility. I think I might just rent the movie later when I have time to watch it alone. I may cry if I watch it, because I feel like it is somehow a mirror to some of the things I have lived. The excerpt of the film is good enough for me right now. The pain is so readily available in this clip that I just felt I had to share it. I feel that maybe , finally some people will get just how devastating OCD really is to your ability to function, your relationships, and your life. OCD is not obsessive coffee disorder or obsessive corgi disorder as some shirts make light of. OCD has a broad spectrum of symptoms as this clip shows. From being a complete clean freak to a hoarder type. If untreated OCD can become a living hell. If untreated it can turn from carrying soap in your pocket to well, peeing in jugs, No one wants that. I certainly don't want that. What is so upsetting is had Howard Hughes been alive in this time, his life could have been less painful. There is help now and unfortunately in his time there was nothing to be done. He suffered needlessly and was taken over by his illness/my illness to the point of him living like a hermit alone and It makes me sad.
For those of you who can not see the video the link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dR8xVqSfXc
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