Achievements are hard
If we think of self-esteem as a spectrum from -1 to +1, I'd say I'm in the positives now. But that I spent most of my life very close to the -1 mark. Looking back, growing up with no self-esteem was... interesting. I've always considered myself a rational person, maybe a bit too much at times, but that doesn't mean I'm not an emotional person too, just that I like to have a reason for all my emotions. This is silly, because usually emotions don't care about your reasoning, you may think the present situation is fine, but feel destroyed by it. Anyway, I digress.
For whatever reasons, I grew up believing that I didn't know how to do anything, that every achievement I had was out of luck, or flat out me manipulating people into thinking I did it. No idea how that worked in the rational sense, but I didn't care, I didn't deserve anything good, so everything good was not done by me.
And this has historically manifested itself as self-sabotage, riiiiight as I'm about to finish something. It's more noticeable when it's something big, like finishing a course, or translating a book, but it happens on the smaller things too. I've got some dozens of unfinished projects, tucked away in drawers, just waiting to be cute little cross-stitch pokemon, or crocheted bracelets, or drawings, or funny workplace haiku collections, or... you get it. There's just a little voice that sits there in the back of my head and says "what if we just... stop now?"
Even though I'm in the positives now, some thought and/or emotional processes are harder to overwrite. In part because I'm not fully aware of where they came from yet, and in part because I'm still working on thinking about myself as a person deserving of... I don't know, respect? Grace? Maybe even a bit of, dare I say, love?
Yeah, it's a process, and a long one, and it takes a lot of therapy, rethinking your relationships (especially the one with yourself), and some rationalisation. Arguing with yourself, asking questions. Why don't I deserve this? What did I do wrong to make me unworthy of (insert victory here)? And destroying my own arguments, which is easy, because there's no argument as to why a human being doesn't deserve to rest, or to have a good score on a test, or to spend time with loved ones, or to have done a successful workshop. I've been allowing myself to do all those things, and I'm working on accepting compliments. I'm in the positives now!
Right now, I'm approaching a milestone in my life. I'm about to end the academic part of my Master's degree, and I'll move onto internship and research next semester. And ohhhh boy, am I struggling to stay in the positives! I know I've worked for this, and I haven't cheated my way through any of it, and I learned and want to keep learning and that's probably gonna make me a good professional some day soon. But... what if I just quit now? What if I just stop going to class and slack off on my two final projects and just... don't do it?
I'm not going to quit now, but dang, is it harder than ever to stay focused on tasks and respect sleep schedules and pay attention in very interesting classes.
This post is a work in progress, I guess. Or rather a live text, documenting the storm of self-sabotage from the inside, while it's happening. I've got 12 days to go until my final presentation, and I'll argue with myself the whole way until I get there.
Wish me luck!