Welcome back to the series of self-depricating shower thoughts minus the shower that can scarcely be called a blog! I'm your host, Lexi! Here to say I am once again feeling insecure about myself for bullshit reasons that creates a feedback loop making me even more insecure! I'm not sure how common this problem is for people who deal with depression and anxiety, but I just hate how I get so insecure so often. This time, I am awake once again past midnight because I'm too hungry to sleep due to my lack of eating throughout the day, so I've replaced sleep and food with stalking high school friends and acquaintances on Facebook. So, in doing so I found out that one of my classmates from high school graduated with a BS in mathematics from a better school than I went to, and is currently a researcher and PhD candidate. Awesome. I would love to be happy for him, but I'm too busy hating myself that I'm not at that level of success. I wish that I had the type of success that I could brag about. I love my job, I love doing therapy, and I feel so fulfilled helping the kids that I work with, but I can't help but feel like it just isn't enough. Without at least my Master's, I can't help as many people as I would like to, and I can't provide the degree of therapeutic help that I want to, and without a PhD, I don't feel like I will be able to have the same level of reach and be able to provide the same level of support for my clients that I would truly love to. I am improving the lives of the kids I work with, and that matters so much to me. It matters more to me than anything else, but in saying that, it hurts that I can't do more; that I'm limited by my current lack of education. I keep thinking that once I get my Master's and am licensed to work somewhat independently as a clinician, I'll feel like I've done enough, or once I get my PhD and am working my own clinical practice, it'll be enough, but I'm worried that it'll never be enough. Because 10 years earlier, my highschool friend got a PhD, and has a decade head-start on doing amazing work. I'm trying really hard to remind myself that I'm already doing amazing work, even if the scope is limited to just a few kids, because those few kids are kids who will grow up to be happier, more confident people because of the work I'm doing now, but then I think "wouldn't it be better if I helped even more people? If I provided services not just to prevent kids from growing up as miserable as I am, but helped people currently existing as miserable adults feel less miserable, and have the tools to make their life great?" Those children matter, but even more children matter even more by virtue of numerical superiority, and if we expand beyond children, even more people matter even more because of now not only numerical superiroity in relation to there being more children, but numerical superiority in terms of demographics, as I am now helping people who need help here and now, not avoiding needing help in the future. But, without a Master's, I can't provide services to people other than children, and without a PhD, I can't provide those services at the level of knowledge and skill I will feel like I will develop over the course of a much more extensive education that is inherent to spending a decade in school. Not to mention it would be nice to feel like I've amounted to something I can be proud of. I just wish I was proud of myself. I wish I wouldn't compare myself to people like I do. I've accomplished a ton already, but it just doesn't feel like it.
I just want to be respected. I want people to look at what I've accomplished and think "wow....she really did a lot, I respect that." What's funny is I only want that so much because it will give me permission to respect myself, as if having self-respect requires peer review. I feel like if I consider myself to be a smart and accomplished person, or someone worthy of pride, irrespective of other people feeling that way about me, I'd just be an arrogant fool. People have called me arrogant my whole life, and I hate that. I hate myself so fucking much, and I have hated myself for the entire time people have called me arrogant. I never felt arrogant until people started saying I was, and now I can't shake the feeling that I'm always going to be arrogant. In retrospect a lot of my "arrogant" features were just features of autism, or so-called "friends" projecting their own insecurities on me, yet I can't shake the belif that I'm a shitty, arrogant person who is way dumber and way worse than I think I am. The logic generally goes as follows: most people overestimate their intelligence, it would be arrogant for me to presume that I am different from most people and do not overestimate my intelligence. I believe that I'm an idiot. therefore, I must be ludicrously stupid, even moreso than I believe myself to be. This creates a feedback loop, because when I engage in this line of reasoning, the conclusion is that I am ludicrously stupid, which causes me to consider the same reasoning again, and reevaluate myself as even dumber than that, and so on to infinitey. If I believe at first that I am of average intelligence because most people are average and its arrogant to assume that I'm not, I conclude this exercise with the idea that I am so stupid that you would be pressed to find someone dumber. What's funny is I've had an IQ test done. You'd think that would be the end of it, that my score would tell me exactly whee I rank in terms of current common measures of intelligence, but I just don't believe it. I tested at 145, which is too high because I know I'm stupid, so the test must be wrong. I assume that the test was made easier for me for some reason, and in reality I'm average. But wait a second--you think you're AVERAGE? People overestimate their intelligence, so you MUST be below average. Wait, you think you're BELOW AVERAGE? Stop overestimating, you're clearly WELL BELOW AVERAGE. This continues until I consider killing myself to spare future people from dealing with my stupidity.
My cat is bugging me for attention as I write this. Every sentence or so I stop to pet her and she makes this adorable little chirp. I love her so much. I envy her ability to not be self aware enough to hate herself. We feed her tasty food, give her treats and love, and the worst part of her life is that she has to take a gross medicine for her screwed up thyriod, but even that doesn't seem to bother her much. I feel good that I can help her be that happy. She's such a sweet little kitty, she deserves the world. She walked off after scratching the couch. I don't mind honestly. My boyfriend takes issue with it, but what good is furniture if kitties can't scratch them up? We've been trying to train her to use the scratching post, or something other than the couch, but she just prefers scratching it for some reason. She'ls playing with a skirt I took off after work, I love watching her have fun. Sorry for the ramble about my cat, I've just been writing what I've been thinking up to this point, and I got distracted by cat. I wonder if she knew I was upset and wanted to help me feel better? I'm probably just personifying her, but its nice to think she noticed and wanted me to be happy too.
I burned my hand cooking porkchops earlier tonight, and I keep having to stop myself from picking at the blister. it hurt like crazy for a while but its calming down now, but I know it'll hurt all over again if the blister gets popped, but oooooooo I wanna pop it so bad!!!!! Sorry again, another random thought. It is almost 2 AM at the time of writing, thoughts are a bit jumbled. I hope people don't think I'm bragging about my tested IQ score when they read this, I'm really not. I don't believe its accurate, I think its an overestimation, dramatic overestimation. My "friends" in high school used to make fun of me for pretending to be smart whenever I mentioned anything relating to science or one of my special interests other than Godzilla (and even then sometimes), and now I'm terrified of someone sending r/iamverysmart whenever I mention anything relating to that score because of the tendancy for people to do that, and the frequency in which my "friends" did that to me in high school. But that score is relevant to what I'm feeling, and the whole point of this blog is to convey what I'm thinking and feeling as a kind of therapeautic practice for myself, and maybe someone else if they relate to what I'm saying. So I have to mention it, right? But if I do, I'm scared people will tell me I'm just bragging. I don't even think IQ is a super valid means by which intelligence can be measured, and certainly don't think I could be reasonably classified as having an IQ score of 145. There's that blister again--I wanna pop it so bad, it would be so easy to just.....POP. Its so cool that there's fluid under there that's helping heal my skin from the burn, the human body is amazing. Feels like if you told someone from thousands of years ago what is actually going on underneath a blister after a burn ,they'd either assume you were lying or think magic was involved. I'm consistently impressed by my and other people's bodies and how they work to keep us alive. This would be an example of something I would be mocked for talking about. My autistic ass kept talking about it though, cause I couldn't stop myself, it was just so cool and exciting to think about and learn about my body and all the cool shit it does, and they were the only people I was talking to besides my dog (RIP Chloe, I miss you every day). I feel like crying a bit having reminded myself of my late dog Chloe. She was my best friend since I was 8 years old, and she passed when I was 20. I'm 22 now, and this year will be 3 years since she died, but I still think about her almost daily, and miss her so bad. I just wanna take her on a walk one more time, or give her one more treat, or pet her one more time. Or hear her scratcing at my door at night because she wants to sleep in my bed and cuddle all night. I'm crying now. Despite my tears my cat is not coming to comfort me, so I think that disproves the "cat noticed that I was upset" hypothesis. I still love her to pieces though.
Well, if you're somehow still reading this, I've kept you long enough. Go do something fun, you deserve it. Don't you dare tell yourself nobody loves you, because I love you. And I always will. Stay safe out there, whereever and whenever you are. I would hug you all if I could, and tell you all to your faces how loved you are. Please let yourself have fun, you worked hard today.
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