As many of you have come to know me on this forum, you've probably kinda figured this out about me, and I really don't know how to overcome it. Sorry for the length,
Somewhere along the line, I don't know if it stems from being an overweight child or what, but somewhere along the line I got it in my head that I'm less than awesome. As a teenager, I felt pretty useless and worthless. Now, as a young adult, I merely feel like I'm not awful, but I don't think there's anything particularly special about me, either. As far as I'm concerned, I'm just your run of the mill average-jo, and there's just nothing all that special about me. I never feel like I measure up and I'm always hard on myself and I'm almost never satisfied unless things are going perfect, which as we all know almost never happens. And this is in all aspects of myself: in just about every way possible, I feel like I'm not good enough.
And the thing about it is, I don't really know WHY. Because really, there's nothing really "wrong" with me, other than I'm still in that awkward transitioning period between graduating college and moving on to the next step (grad school/career), and I haven't quite left the nest yet, so to speak. And really I can already name off awesome things about me: number 1, I've lost nearly 85 pounds! And I graduated college with honors, and I'm on my way to grad school. I'm a pretty decent writer and I'm pretty good with music and I have awesome hair and a pretty face. But for some reason, I feel like even the "good" things about me aren't good enough.
This really hit me in the face when I went out on that date a couple weeks ago. The guy really is of a high-caliber. And maybe its just from age, but I feel like he's better than me all around and honestly although I want to see him again, I almost don't even blame him for not wanting to see me again, and I'm almost to the point where I don't care if he decides to see me again. But it's not because I'm not concerned about whether he likes me or not, it's because I don't think I'm good enough for him anyway. He's got a better education than me, a better job, a better car, a better body, he sings better, he knows so much more than me; I really felt kind of dumb with him at times. But the thing is, I know all of this is really silly because it's all so trivial, but for some reason it matters to me. When he didn't ask me out again this week, I didn't think he might be busy or something, I immediately thought, "Who am I kidding? What would a guy like him want with a lame-o like me?" I felt like a loser compared to him.
And I always feel like that and I'm constantly worrying about what everyone thinks of me (e.g., feeling inferior to date) but the funny thing is... no one thinks badly of me. In fact, almost everyone I come into contact with seems to think I'm awesome and the people that really matter (supervisors, professors, people like that) always think extremely highly of me. I know I'm a good person; I TRY to be a good person. But for some reason, although I'm really great at being what other people expect me to be, I'm awful at being what I expect me to be.
I guess the main thing is I don't know how to STOP feeling inferior. It's like no matter what I do, I'm never gonna be good enough for myself. I thought losing all this weight would change my perception of myself, but it didn't, in fact some times I think I'm worse off than I was prior to losing weight. I'm tired of this constant battle of nitpicking myself for everything; I want to be happy and satisfied. I just wish I knew how to do that naturally without having something/someone else do it for me. -sigh-