As I stood waiting for the bus, a group of girls were talking not far from me. While I wasn't the best of friends with them, we did have a lot of things in common; you know, playing house on the playground and an affinity for tether ball, the things that matter when you're 10. It wasn't that I was eaves dropping, but pretty soon it became obvious they were talking about a birthday party they'd attended. One of the girls had turned 10 over the weekend and they were re-living how fun her sleepover had been.
That's when I first remember meeting her. She leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Do you hear them? Did you hear how awesome the sleepover was? Too bad you weren't invited..."
I tried to ignore the girl. I was sure they'd wanted me to come, they just probably had forgotten to give me the invitation. Or maybe they just called my house to invite me and I didn't get the message. They probably had thought I was going out of town last weekend.
"Nope," she whispered. "They just plain don't like you."
"I'm pretty sure it's because no one has worn that shirt since the first grade."
This is my first recollected memory of my biggest hater; my Inner Critic...one Ms. Self Doubt.
The problem was, this wasn't the kind of friend you really wanted around, you know? She only came by whenever I was feeling bad about myself. And just in case I wasn't down enough, she made sure to point out all my flaws and really drive home my insecurities. That bitch was there when I missed the word 'cushion' in the finals of my spelling bee. She came around when I messed up my clarinet solo in the 8th grade. She made sure she was there when I bombed my interview question in Junior Miss. Always there with a, "Of course you're not, smart/talented/pretty/whatever else enough."
Pretty sure without her negative talk, I would have invented this.
Yuup, that she-devil made adolescence a real pain sometimes. Fortunately as I aged, I learned there are some friends worth keeping and some worth ditching, and this one belonged to the latter group. It wasn't that as I got older, I stopped failing at life; quite the contrary. But, with age comes experience and with experience came the ability to tell that callous tramp to shut the eff up.
My Worst Hater has made two semi-recent appearances in my life as of late. One being last year when I was fired from my first big girl job. "Of course they fired you, Melissa...you were definitely the dumbest one there. How could you think a stupid blonde like you could take on a big job like that? You'll never hold down a real, adult job." She yelled all these things at me as I left the job site, and followed me home, sat next to me on the couch and continued her demeaning banter. Finally, after having reached an incredibly low point, I dialed my Mom's phone number to tell her what had happened. As I tried to catch my breath and listened to the phone ring, Ms. Self Doubt asked me why I was even calling my Mom, and told me how ashamed my parent's would be of me. My mom picked up the phone and I managed to stammer that I'd been fired, while my Inner Critic sat there, smug look on her face, waiting for the disappointed words my mom would surely utter.
"What am I going to do??" I sobbed to my mom.
"Well, Melissa, you're going to print some resume's, put on a suit and on Monday, start hoofing the pavement for a new job...that place sounded awful anyway."
And just like that, I looked over and my Worst Hater had vanished. That's when I learned something about your Inner Critic...they don't stick around if you've got someone important in your life who has confidence in you. And not even the brashest, bitchiest Inner Critic has enough balls to go against my mom.
Bitch, pleeze...don't act like you didn't just soil yourself at the thought of going toe-to-toe with her.
The second of that tramps recent appearance's was super recently, like two weeks ago recently. I, Melissa Jean Krautscheid, for the first time ever, was dumped. It wasn't a horrible break-up, and I for a few hours I was actually really happy with how well I was taking it. That is until I was sitting alone on my couch and I heard a familiar voice. "You knew from the start you weren't good enough...you'll never be good enough. No one is ever going to like you that way." I felt myself sinking to that same, dark heavy place. Maybe she was right about this one--maybe I wouldn't ever find 'the one.' I should be clear that I hadn't been dating this person for too long, and while I really liked him, I didn't consider him to even be 'the one.' But that's how sneaky and scheisty your Inner Critic can be when you're down. She took what boiled down to a situation of bad timing and twisted and turned it until I knew it was completely my fault and and that no one would ever love me.
Fortunately for me, I have a group of thoughtful, kind and ever-patient friends. One in particular was only a phone call away and came over to talk to me. It was a bit awkward with the three of us sitting on the couch; me, Self Doubt and my friend, but as we talked it got better. My friend explained to me that while it did come as a shock, at the end of the day, people are wild cards and there is just no predicting them. As my friend assured me that I was a good person, and I was worth dating, my Worst Hater's presence became softer and softer until she finally left the room. I've learned it can be hard to ditch Self Doubt by yourself, and at times, it's necessary to bring in reinforcements.
I'm not really sure what I want anyone to take from this. Maybe I was just writing it to get things off my chest. Maybe I just wanted to figure out how many different names I could create for my self negativity. Or maybe this could actually make a small difference to you. We all talk ourselves down from time to time, and it's important to know that in the small circumstances, we can ditch it on our own. However, it's also important to know that there will be times when it might make it easier to talk to a friend about it. It helps to remember that even in our most trying times, there are people around us who love and support us. And for each time we lose faith in ourselves, there are people out there who still believe in us. And that, friends, is just plain awesome.
It's not who you are that holds you back, it's who you think you're not.
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