With love from me to…me
I was making my way carefully and unsteadily down the steep steps of our static caravan on my three year old, chubby legs. I was being particularly unsteady and careful on that day, one of my earliest memories, because I was concealing about my person a grubby secret. Once down, I remember having to walk slowly in my tiny bathing costume and shorts so as not to attract attention.Too late, it was my sister who ousted me, pointing at me and declaring loudly in her grown up five year old voice; “Mummy, she’s done a poo”.I don’t really remember much about the clean-up or any of the probably exhausted, eye-rolling my poor mum exhibited, after all we had probably all spent some time getting organised to leave for the beach. But what has really stayed with me is the memory of the vehemence with which I hated myself. Should I have cared that much as a three year old….really?
Self admonition continued to collect and store examples of my incompetence throughout my early years:
Trying to brush my own hair only to have to admit defeat and have the brush painfully extracted from the tangles by an adult
Early primary school bullying where I was placed on the outside of a group while they giggled and stole glances at me
First disco foray at junior school when no one asked me to dance and I had to endure the spotlight sweeping the chairs while some joker played ‘Won’t Somebody Dance With Me’ by Lindsay de Paul (yes I’m that old!)
Frighteningly I also remember as a teenager looking at myself in a mirror, looking deeply into my own eyes, and telling myself I was useless, ugly and unloveable.
Was this just low self esteem, it seems so extreme? I read about youngsters taking their own lives and I sadly understand. Life is so hard when you don’t believe in yourself.
As the years passed, with so many more bullies lining up to take a shot, the realisation slowly seeped into my consciousness. Where you calibrate and place thoughts and beliefs, energy and outcomes follow.
So my beliefs about myself had to become a self fulfilling prophecy. I was in fact inviting ‘them’ in to verify my low opinion of myself, what a revelation!
Something had to change and so The Weary Worrier’s journey really began. I’ve still got the ‘low-self-esteem-rucksack’ on my shoulder, but actually it is definitely getting lighter.