My Insecurities

OK, this is one of those things I wrote a while ago to help me process what I was going through at the time. Our social basketball team isn’t playing this season and re-reading this has made me miss it. So shout out to the Sticky Bandits. Hopefully we’re out there next season missing open layups!

I’m feeling pretty low right now. I can’t seem to find joy in anything. Even the things that usually give me joy. I played basketball the other night with my friends. Now all I can think about is missing free throws and layups. I’m sure my friends don’t care, but I feel like I let them down. It’s social basketball for f*@ks sake!

I know I can move past that stuff. I know that it doesn’t matter. It pisses me off that I let it get me down, but I know it’s only because I’m anxious and depressed right now. Because I know I miss those same shots even when I’m feeling great!

The insecurities I struggle with most are the ones closer to home. I struggle to have any love for myself, so I begin to wonder how my wife can love me? How can my kids love me? When I’m in a bout of anxiety and depression. This is before I’ve told my wife what’s happening to me, I feel like she can do and deserves better than me. I need her to tell me that she loves me, but I don’t want to ask her. My brain scares me into wondering about what happens if she says no. She’s always been so supportive of me. We’ve been together since I was 18 years old. She knows who I am pretty well by now. But when I’m in that desperate moment, my brain tricks me. In those moments I need to know it and have it spelled out for me.

It’s hard to find words in the moment though. So I say nothing. I stew. Get more anxious. Working myself up so much that my chest gets tighter. My head gets cloudier and I can’t bear to talk about anything let alone my feelings. We have a busy life too. Three young kids, both have jobs, gym and run etc. So finding a quiet time when it’s just us is sometimes difficult.

I read into looks that I normally wouldn’t. Things that I probably wouldn’t even register. Things that may be completely in my head. All of a sudden become things that eat at me for hours. My brain is already over-active and it takes a perceived look of frustration and turns it into something serious. It’s torture. But once the spiralling starts it’s so difficult to bring yourself out of it.

My wife tells me that I’m too hard on myself. I know I am, but I think that must be how we all are, right? Like in my basketball example before, would I ever hold missed shots against someone, hell no. If I saw it was getting someone else down, I’d give them a pep talk. But when it’s me, I can’t do that for some reason. It’s like I missed some important lesson somewhere along the way, how to be kind to yourself. How to feel like you’re deserving of kindness. I don’t know how to do it for some reason.

I find it strange too. Because I don’t think I’m a needy person in general. I don’t need reassurances when I’m feeling fine. I would say I have a pretty decent dose of self-confidence. When I look at all the things I’ve done in my life, I wouldn’t have done them if I didn’t believe in myself. But when I’m feeling low and anxious those things feel out of reach. Like maybe someone else did them and I watched them on TV and stole the memory.

It’s so easy to spiral in these moments. One thing piles on top of the other. It presses down on you until you feel like you’ll never get out from under it again. I’ve written about self-talk and the same thing applies here. For me it seems to come from the same place. The struggle to treat myself as I would someone else. To be kind to myself.

So I'm working on accepting that it’s OK to miss some free throws. It’s OK to have feelings and it’s OK to sometimes need to be told that you’re loved. I’m working on treating myself with the same kindness I would someone else. Because we all need picking up from time to time and to be told that we mean something to other people.

If you have moments like these and have never talked to anyone about them, I can’t recommend it enough. I always told myself that these things were just personal weakness and to try forget them. But it all plays in to the way you view yourself. It will feel good to get it off your chest.