Me, myself and I

Anyone who knows me will know that I've never really had much self confidence, especially in terms of my capabilities and body image, aka my self esteem has never been that high. Before I became unwell though, I was finally getting somewhere with it; I was happy with my body in a way I hadn't been before, I had a good job and was newly married to a man who is completely out of my league (though he would disagree!). However, with everything else that changed when I became Ill, any self worth I'd managed to build up after many years of work disappeared, hence this week's chapter in my 'relationship' series: the relationship with myself.

Now, I will do my best to prevent this from being a 'woe is me' installment, as that's the opposite of what I want to put out into the world, but no promises! 

So, what do I mean by the relationship with myself? I'm sure anyone on social media will know that it's becoming more widely accepted and promoted for people to 'love themselves', be confident in our own skin, and promote yourself and what you're good at; so I guess this probably wraps up exactly what is meant by our self esteem and self worth. I've always struggled with this as, from an early age, it's been engrained into me that I'm not allowed to be good at anything, mostly because I was bullied and ridiculed at school as a result, or that I'm not capable of doing anything right. From there I've always had this discomfort that being confident in yourself and your ability is egotistical and selfish, and as soon as you start then you become an unlikeable narcissist, and so I've essentially become the opposite of that: a self deprecating, unconfident perfectionist with low self worth. 

Being unwell has not helped this in the slightest, as it has taken the small parts of me that I was happy with and made them negative; the best example is definitely my body Image. I've previously mentioned in my 'food glorious food' entry about my relationship with food and body weight and how weight loss has brought the background issues of body dismorphia to the forefront. The hardest part is that, prior to illness, I had been happy with my body for the first time, I was stronger and fitter than I'd ever been, and that body has now become a point of disgust despite it actually being a body that has zero need to lose any kind of weight. This isn't helped by comments from others stating my current body is enviable; what they don't realise is the damaging impact these comments have and that I'm unhappy with it because of how I've gotten here, stuck with the constant fear of putting on any weight. 

On top of this, I've found myself unemployed as a result of my long term sickness. Now this is something that needed to happen to enable me to focus on my health and healing, but that does not make it an easier pill to swallow. Ultimately it is a point of pride, as I have gone from a professional respected role to 'the mass unemployed', a position I never thought I'd face. As it turns out, when someone asks you what you do and you find yourself avoiding the truth because you are embarrassed by it, that's a pretty big knock to your pride and confidence. 

I didn't realise how much of my identity and little self worth i had were wrapped up in what may seem to be small things, and to be honest I could easily spout on about a lot more but then this would be more of a book than a simple blog post! So, I will leave it with this: our self worth and esteem are wrapped up in more than just our image and what we display to the world, and I'm trying to take control back around these things, and this blog is part of that. Illness has caused me to lose a lot of myself, but it has also opened up an opportunity to build myself back stronger, and if i can help someone else feel less alone through this blog as part of that, then great.

Ta ta for now!