Do you ever have those days where for some reason none of your clothes seem to fit you the way they did the last time you tried them on? You're getting ready for the day, or for a night out, and your face just doesn't face the way it should, you're clothes don't look right, your hair won't do what it's told, and the time is starting to run away; you're going to be late to whatever you're supposed to get to, so you start to get a bit hysterical and self-critical until you just wish you could crawl back into bed, hit a reset button, and try again tomorrow when everything hopefully does what it's supposed to.
Just me?..
I've written before about how people shouldn't let their insecurities control them, and I wondered whether I should write about this topic again when I could just reshare an entry I'd written a couple of years ago. Except, my body, and a whole lot of other stuff, has changed since then and I don't really see this as a problem that can be fixed by a few hundred words.
So I'm going to give you a few hundred more! Yay!
We each know the power which comes with feeling confident, but like many other feelings, confidence is unfortunately very brittle. Just the other day, I'd woken up feeling pretty good about myself but it only took a few silly things happening throughout the day to leave me with a mind full of self-criticism by the time I was getting into bed for the night. And the frustrating thing is, that the moments which chipped away at my confidence were so minor it was stupid: I saw my reflection in a full-length mirror and I didn't like the way my legs in my callipers looked, then a friend took a photograph of me and another friend and I thought my arms looked fat, and finally, the hot weather made me tired and subsequently self-conscious about how obvious my Spina Bifida was whilst walking through town.
Not one of these things is important, nor are they anything anyone else would take any notice of, let alone care about. But that's what insecurity is: getting stuck inside your head about silly things which in the grand scheme of things, do not matter. Only, they matter to you and sometimes they matter so much that you torture yourself over thinking about them.
I'm lucky enough to be able to keep my insecurities at bay most of the time. But the times when I can't - which do tend to be either when I'm drunk drunk, or experiencing the boozer's blues the day after drinking - in those moments, I can't do much except let myself just sit in it. I eat loads of snacks, or I cry to my friend, or I watch a film, or I stare at the wall whilst listening to my sad playlist. And I know that if a psychologist were to read those coping mechanisms, they'd probably say that they're all really unhealthy - disclaimer: I'm definitely not about to make a case for you to do exactly what I do. However, I do think that my generation tries to psycho-analyse themselves far too much and that we need to just feel whatever it is we're feeling for a second, without self-diagnosing. Obviously, there are limits and lines where a person needs help but it's also okay to feel naff for an afternoon. In fact, surely it'd be worrying if we didn't feel like rubbish once in a while?
I'm not going to patronise you now by listing all the reasons why we should be kinder to ourselves because I'm not a motivational speaker (shocking, I know), but also because we all know this already and knowing that I shouldn't criticise myself, unfortunately, doesn't mean that I won't from time to time. It's about being able to strike that balance where you allow yourself to feel what you need to, whilst also making moves to pick yourself up out of any ruts you encounter - it's not always easy, and I'm not a pro, but we do our best.
So if you do wake up and your face isn't facing, or your body isn't bodying, and although you know it's just in your head you're still feeling meh, then that's alright! As our lord and saviour Hannah Montana once said: everybody has those days.
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