when people say you are incompetent, how do you convince yourself that you are not?
it’s hard to live one day at a time when you’re always thinking about 10 years in the future. it’s especially challenging when you thought you wouldn’t live this far, too.
it’s my first time making decisions all by myself & i’m 26. mum never taught me to have confidence in my choices, neither have any of my family’s sides, so it’s scary. trusting myself is scary.
but it’s also exciting!
i don’t know the range of my choices. it could be messy & stupid, but it could be great & promising.
my first all-mine choice this year was to give up my masters degree. i don’t want to enroll in a masters yet, but i thought i should because they told me to (“you’re smart & you don’t wanna be a teacher, so study some more”). but i want a break from studying. i want to work & have my own money. so i walked to my aunt like a leaf in a thunderstorm, to bribe my way into living my life & she said “okay”. at least she doesn’t mind what i do as long as i can pay my stay in her house. so i quit. i’m still scared. it sounds stupid, but i stopped thinking my struggles were stupid a couple of years ago. it helps no one if i think everything i struggle with is dumb & childish; it only serves my negligence & i’m not gonna lie, it’s so damn difficult getting up after years & years of learned helplessness, of trying again & again only to get pushed, discouraged, & humiliated every try, over & over, because “why can’t you ever do it right?”
what good does these words serve? is it ego?
don’t they want to see me win too? don’t they realize my wins are to be theirs too?
twice it happened last week (i’m 26 ffs). i didn’t magically learn to do it perfectly first try when i was 10, so i might as well give up forever? are dumb mistakes that bad? like, honestly, what’s so wrong with making mistakes?? what’s wrong with learning? don’t they ever make dumb mistakes themselves? are they perfect? did they know every little thing about the world the moment they got out of the womb? are they omniscient, somehow?
but lucky i am to have access to cbt books & to have my diagnosis. i know they’re wrong for doing this to me—for continuously doing this to me when i’m on the verge of my 30s—by this age i should know better. there’s no logic when you complain a kid can’t ride a bike, yet you mock their pedalling, or tell them they’ll never ride because they wobbled & fell once or twice. or you never tell (or show) them what to do, never teach or help them to hold the handlebars, to find balance, etc. it’s ridiculous & evil.
maybe i’m meant to be a teacher because i could never give up on my students.
i can’t bring myself to do it.
nobody under my wing will quit, unless they truly desire to.
including me.
& i have no desire to quit.
but it’s hard, reader. it’s hard because the first couple of tries are the most fragile ones, when your confidence isn’t great & you have nothing by your side to clutch on to, & you keep hearing (inside & outside your head) that you should drop it. quit it. give up. let it for those who can—for those who know. it’s hard to ignore these useless comments & not use them to confirm your immediate, flawed reality, & keep swimming against the current. pick up again. try again. once, twice, thrice, a thousand times. until you get it right once, twice, thrice. until it becomes second nature.
& maybe it is ego, because the moment you get it right constantly, when you sound like you know what you’re doing (because you do know), they pretend you’ve never failed before. they act like you were born perfect.
it makes me want to rip the skin out of my face & bleed all over them.
life is a lie you have to believe to make it true.
one more wound to tender to, i guess. that’s what your 20s are for. revenge & redemption.
there’s a type of person i want to be, but i’ve been too scared to allow it to bloom. i think people will look at me oddly, judge me, lose their trust on me. i get scared thinking my family will mock me & abandon me, that my girlfriend will leave me, that my friends won’t find me fun & pleasant to be around anymore.
when you’re far below, nobody envies you, nobody challenges or rivals you. when you’re a harmless coward people don’t bother themselves with you, they leave you alone; they think your wins are bastardized luck & your failures are just another day under the sun. you go unnoticed. there’s no expectation beyond the threshold of the depths of a well. people don’t look at you.
i’m scared.
because i want to win.
but winning is scarier than losing.
but i can’t allow myself to live in misery.
i can’t let all this potential go to waste.
it’s unfair with life itself.
i’m nothing like my father.
nobody told me i was amazing, but i hear it, sometimes.
i’m scared.
because what if i am?
what if i’m not destined to be a failure, overshadowed by omnipotence?
what if i can win?
but... what if winning will curse me with loneliness?
must the price for community be so debilitating? must the price for self-fulfillment be so cruel?
i believe it would be easier if i were alone, if there were no one looking at me, yet i still behave like a 5-year-old, showing off their drawings, begging to be praised, seeking their own worth in the eyes of others.
sounds pathetic, but i know it’s not.