I'm Sorry for Being Sorry

One habit that I have had a particularly difficult time breaking is my tendency to apologize for just about everything.  I apologize for what I say, I apologize for things I do and do not do, and I apologize for who I am.  I'm sure some of you have noticed that on my blog, when discussing a contentious topic (which does not happen often given my fear of confrontation) I usually spend as much time apologizing for my opinion as I do actually struggling to verbalize it.

As you can imagine I believe this comes from a deep-rooted insecurity that's been clinging to my back for, well, as long as I can remember.  I can't ever remember being totally comfortable with myself in any situation, and because I am usually repulsed by my own presence I assume that everyone else feels the same way.  Usually when someone agrees to hang out with me (for whatever reason) I give them ample opportunity to escape me it and then apologize for my seemingly endless awkwardness.  I generally operate under one of two assumptions when dealing with anyone in my life, to include Rob: (1) They are only spending time with me to humor me or (2) I've managed to dupe just about everyone in my life into thinking I'm a person that deserves love or friendship when really I'm just an obnoxious unwitting con-artist.

I had an epiphany about this a few days ago.  Simply put, when I apologize for being me I am granting power over my life to someone else.  I am allowing some other person--even if they don't realize I'm doing it or have malicious intentions--to control what I think and how I feel about myself.  And perhaps more illogically, I'm thereby making the assumption that that person isn't dealing with their own shit and trying to figure out life themselves.

It's as if I think that they can define me better than I can define myself.

My epiphany led me to the question of why I let this happen and why I let myself think this way.  I tried to remind myself that if I was really as repulsive as I imagine, I probably wouldn't have an amazing husband that astounds me every day with his kindness and understanding.  I probably wouldn't be as successful as I am in my job.  I probably wouldn't have the great friends that I do have.  My life is full and my life is happy, and it's time I come to fully appreciate it. 

So because I love lists, here is a list of things I need to work on toward this end:

• I need to work on taking control of my life and of the image I have of myself.  This is the only life I have and I spend far too much time acting like I'm going to get yelled at at each turn.
• I need to learn to truly love myself.  To not self-deprecate, even in jest, and to not treat myself any harder than I would treat another.
• I need to stop the dysmorphia and to stop assuming that other people understand me better than I understand me.
• I need to stop letting the dysmorphia define me.  I am not defined by my magnified flaws, but by the entire person that I am.
• I need to let go of toxic people in my life.  This is a whole post in and of itself, but in the past I have typically been drawn to toxic, damaged people who suck out the best of me and turn their backs when I most need them.  I need to fill my life with friends who appreciate who Caitlin is.
• I need to take care of myself.

I don't know how best to end this so I will do so with the quote from a woman I particularly admire:

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Working, Thinking & Awesome Husbands

I've had a bit of BCS (blinking cursor syndrome) of late so pardon the potential incoherence of this post.

I spent my entire day today locked away in our guest room-cum-office creating training videos for faculty.  I began to grow so sick of my own voice I thought my head would explode, but I managed to get all of them done by 6 or so and thus felt very productive.

What was far more exciting to me, however, was what was happening outside of my office.  My darling husband woke up, walked the dog, cleaned our sheets (which has desperately needed to happen), made the bed, washed the dishes, made a delicious dinner of rotisserie chicken (he picked off all the breast meat and gave it to me because that's the only part of the chicken I eat), sweet corn, and mashed potatoes, and didn't ask for any help.

Plus, he walked around without his shirt on all day.  Who could ask for anything more?

"You're welcome."

I wanted to get him a gift for being so amazing all the damn time, but what do you get the man who has everything? Answer: gelato. That sort of makes up for all the doubting and crying and bad-wifery, right?

Side note: does anyone else like to mix chocolate and fruity flavors? Rob thinks I'm insane.

I know I gush about my husband a lot on this blog, but as he told me, "Your blog is called To Make Love Stay.  I think you're allowed to write about love."

After a day of thinking far too much about work, traveling later this week, blogs, bitchy people, bitchy people on blogs, and a wedding I have coming up on Sunday, it was truly an amazing thing to just sit in the car on our way to an extra-long dog walk and let the happy just wash over me.  I felt quiet and I felt happy.  We passed a hotel with a sign that said Summer will end, but the memories will last a lifetime. This summer was truly an wonderful one despite the moments of anxiety and happiness-crushing depression.  I got to spend so much time with my husband and enjoy these days, the best of our lives so far.

I will apologize again for these posts not coming up to snuff lately.  My sister and I are off to Florida for work (yep) this week so the mediocre posts will at least be few and far between.

On Inadequacy, Mostly

Let me be the first to apologize for ignoring my blog of late.  Work took over like crazy and I'm trying (oh, how I'm trying) to get everything done.  Today I worked on two documents all day and after dinner, decided that I was going to turn my mind off and catch up on some blogs. 

I've been positively itching to write a blog post but it seems like everything I want to write is somehow inadequate.  Truth be told, I've been feeling a little inadequate lately.  I feel like I can't do anything right, that everyone sees me as the big awkward monster that I see myself as.  I feel that everyone hates me and begrudges my talkativeness and (of course) awkwardness.  I feel like know that I am half the wife that Rob deserves. Every positive comment comes immediately in one ear and out the other, while the negative or even slightly negative comments hang on for dear life.

Awkward!

 

Sometimes the thoughts threaten to overwhelm my brain and crush my sanity.  I end up withdrawing and disconnecting and I hate myself when I'm like that.

My therapist started me on a new thought process that I've been trying to use as much as possible.  She intially tried guiding me toward coming up with thoughts that directly contradicted the negative little ant-thoughts that pervade my brain on a daily basis.  This--perhaps not shockingly--had little to no effect and the thoughts kept on marching. 

So one day after a tear-filled admission of psychosis she handed me a notepad and told me to write down all of the proof I had that any of my fears and neuroses were justified. As expected, my list looked something like this:

[Insert blinking cursor]

This method was actually quite helpful.  It doesn't remove the thoughts or the anxiety, but it places a stopgap and keeps my anxiety from going from a 3 to a 9.  Instead it sits around a "healthy" 5 or 6. I don't know that it will ever go away, but dammit, I will try.  I owe it not only to myself, but to my husband and the people I love, to love myself and to be the best person I can be.  I hope I can reach that someday soon.

Are you all having a good week so far?

Love Me, Dammit

Lately I've been dealing with a deep-seated fear of abandonment.  I didn't really realize just how severe this fear was until I found myself absolutely crippled with anxiety at the thought of my husband leaving me either for being so damn anxious all the time or because he'll finally realize, just as I did within a month of being together, that I am not worth his time because a funnier, quirkier, prettier, younger girl is out there somewhere.

I guess I realized that no matter what happens or what has happened with Rob and I, I do not feel as though I am worthy of love.

For as long as I can remember I've held the conviction that Rob will one day leave me for someone else, that it's only a matter of time, and who could blame him?  Who could love someone so flawed, what with my anxiety every time someone says "boo" (or doesn't say "boo," and it might mean they don't like me anymore), my constant lack of trust, my propensity toward talking about absolutely nothing, my short hair, my cellulite and spider veins, the fact that I drink from straws like a suckling infant (seriously, I get mocked at family events), the fact that I can sometimes come off as judgmental or self-righteous, and my gross feet.

The interesting thing here, I suppose, is that by coming down so hard on myself I am actually being far more disrespectful and cruel to Rob.  Basically I am telling the man who promised me his life, who thought of me while he was in firefights and IED explosions, who has bought me the most thoughtful gifts I've ever received, who has held me during my worst moments of body-wracking depression and anxiety, that nothing he has done counts for anything because his love for me must be fleeting, transient, and one sexy girl away from completely vanishing into thin air.

In these moments of blindness I completely forget about the way he looks at me when I'm talking, the pleasure he gets out of cooking together (the man refuses to let me cook for him), how excited he gets when he comes home and the dog and I are there to greet him, how he finishes my sentences and vice versa, how I can write "Your Mom goes to College" on our chalkboard and he can tell me exactly what I was thinking when I wrote it, how I can start a movie or TV show reference and he can always finish it or keep it going, how he's happier watching endless episodes of "Twilight Zone" or "30 Rock" with me than he would be going out with friends, or how I can't walk by him without him telling me that I'm his favorite.

I know that I will keep running into this issue of trust and self-loathing with Rob until I learn to love myself.  Loving yourself is the only true way to learn how to love another, and that is a fact.

So starting today, I am going to work harder on loving me for who I am.  Because this is the only body and mind and hopefully husband that I'm going to get.  And I can't imagine the man would've stayed with my crazy ass this long if there wasn't something awesome about me, right?

I have a feeling I'm not totally alone on this, so ladies, follow my lead and focus on loving yourself as much as you love those around you.

We all are worthy of love, not only of the love of others but also the love of ourselves.  

I hope you all are having a wonderful, love-filled week.

Also, I wanted to wish my older sister and best friend, Megan, the happiest of birthdays tomorrow! Love you, sister!

Come on in to my Inferiority Complex

Those of you who have stuck around this blog for awhile know my struggles with depression, anxiety, and an inferiority complex in regards to...well, just about everything. I constantly compare myself to others' marriages, tattoos, appearances, lives--indeed, just about anything you could think of. As you can imagine this is not a particularly healthy exercise and means that I often find myself feeling miserable and hopeless.

One of the downsides to becoming more active in the blogging community is that it gives me ample opportunity to scrutinize everyone else's lives and compare them to my own.*   I start to admire another blogger's tattoos and may start to wonder if my tattoos meet the same standard. I lust after the long, beautiful (sometimes blue - so awesome) hair that so many bloggers have. I bemoan the fact that my crafting skills are slightly below the level of a sight-impaired three-toed sloth.  I worry about the fact that my blog lacks a "niche." If my blog posts don't receive comments, or not many people view my blog in a day, or if I write multiple posts in a short period of time (worrying about that now) I obsess over how horrible my writing must be or what an ineffective blogger I am, especially in comparison to all those AWESOME bloggers who kick blog ass on a daily basis.  Truly, for me, these are all real and justifable reasons to feel down and, you guessed it, inferior.

Danielle from Sometimes Sweet shared an article last week that explains how social media actually makes us feel more isolated because of this tendency to endlessly compare ourselves. Indeed, as we tend to primarily show the best of us online, it means that we are constantly aware of how we can't stack up against all the absolutely "perfect" people around us.  We know that we aren't perfect, that our hair doesn't always fall in the right place and sometimes we yell at our significant others for tripping over a rug or giving off too much body heat in bed, but because we don't always read about this happening to others it's easy to assume it's just us, and it's probably something we're doing wrong.

This isn't to say that any of these bloggers who I imagine probably walk on water ever try to promote the idea that they are flawless.  But somehow, the flaws that others do put on display seem to make them even more endearing because, and maybe this is just me, their flaws just don't seem as real and obvious as my own. Their flaws seem (to me) to come from being too awesome and too beautiful. 

One thing I admire about myself is my ability to be incredibly self-aware about the thoughts I have on a daily basis.  I know for a fact that everything described above, things I think and feel very acutely on a daily basis, have no basis in reality.  I know for a fact that a lot, if not most, bloggers and people in real life have the same issues with inferiority and insecurity that I do.  I know that my tattoos, photography, appearance, life, marriage have no bearing on anyone else's, and vice versa. 

In short, I know that I shouldn't live my life in the context of anyone else's life. I, and really all of us, need to learn to live our own lives free of these constraints.  Because I have learned that no matter how much I compare myself to someone else, I will never stack up.    And if I continue to compare something as trivial as my blog to others', I will quickly burn out on it, and who wants that?  Writing and connecting with people is awesome, and it's so cool that I get the opportunity to participate.  Why make it into a chore?

Am I alone in these feelings? Totally fine if I am, I'm used to being the crazy one.

To end on a lighter note:

Happy Friday!

*I wanted to say in this footnote that I compared myself to other people long before social networking was around...it just makes it easier to do so when you're around more numerous and diverse types of people.  Totally awesome to be able to communicate with amazing people worldwide, but if you're anxious or depressed it opens up a whole new world in a completely different way.