Feeling of Comparison… destroying you on the inside…

Do you ever wonder if you will ever be happy with yourself?  Do you worry that if you can’t be happy with yourself hat no one else will ever be happy with you? Does it make you paranoid and second guess everything all the time? It’s a constant cycle of insecurity that I go through and I am sure many of you do too.

It’s hard for me to see my significant other speak to others and not feel like something is wrong with me, to not feel like I have an issue or what’s wrong with me that’s causing him to speak with or look at others. A lot of time’s i get so far into my own head that it becomes hard for me to pull myself out from those negative thoughts. A big part of having a mental illness and dealing with it day to day is the overthinking aspect.  You constantly are comparing yourself to others, overthinking, over wondering, over doing, over feeling. You feel things ten times more because there is something in your brain that makes you feel like you have to. 

For me it takes a lot of daily reminders and a lot of self awareness for me to not feel this way; but that doesn’t mean I do not have my moments of insecurity.  It’s like you have this person that you love so much and you don’t want to share them because you want them to love you so much too.  Then when you see them look at someone else, or maybe flirt with someone else it makes you feel like why am I not enough.  It make’s you feel insecure; not in a jealous way but in a why am i not enough way.  It’s not your significant other telling you that you are not enough, it’s whatever is going on in your brain that is telling you to feel a way about this because you are not enough. Those feelings are part of having a mental illness and they feed into other aspects of life that go beyond relationships. It feeds into work, when you compare yourself to others. Maybe one of your coworkers got praise for a project but you didn’t so now you are wondering if your work was good enough. It feeds into friendships, you compare yourself between you and maybe your friends other best friend wondering who is more important to them or who like more.  It could feed into your family life, maybe you have siblings or a lot of cousins and you are constantly wondering who the favorite is and if that’s you.

Comparison is a sickness, it’s a mental illness all on its own.  Everyone wants to be unique and we all are in our own ways, but that doesn’t mean we  don’t compare ourselves to others. As Humans we are constantly wondering what someone else has that we don’t, are they better then me at this? do they have more of this? why are they doing this like that ? what is wrong with me that I didn’t get that? It’s a sickness honestly and the best way to get over it is to just stop. You have to learn to recognize when you are having those negative emotions of comparison because those emotions are toxic.  On some level a small amount of comparison is healthy because it makes us better but the amount of comparison most people go through on a day to day basis is not. I myself suffer from high levels of comparison on a daily basis and it’s hard. It is hard to live that way as stated above. 

Somethings that help me when i find myself slipping into those toxic emotions of comparing myself to others is, I stop and I ask myself what will I get out of comparing myself to this person? Does comparing myself to this person help me or shape me in anyway?  Will I gain anything emotionally, mentally or physically by comparing myself to this person? I take a deep breath and try to understand why I am comparing myself. Am i suddenly feeling insecure about something, is something about what is being said bothering me ? And if so I need to express that so I can stop comparing myself. Is this person better then me? No, so why am I comparing myself. I find being conscious and aware of my negative and toxic comparing myself emotions really helps to bring me back and center me so that the comparison stops. Not  comparing yourself will always be hard but the more aware you are, and the more you work to overcome those feelings the better at not comparing yourself you will become. 

September 25, 2020

Written By: Amanda Paige Medina