Who do you see when you look in the mirror?
Do you see someone skinny or much bigger?
Are you looking at your true beautiful self?
or do you see your inner demons fighting themselves?
what do you hear when they whisper?
do you think they laugh and snigger?
Or are they talking about themselves
sharing their own insecurities with their friends?
Insecurities are not our friends!
they alienate us and make us not love ourselves
when you look in the mirror tonight
see who you really are, beautiful inside and out
and when you fear what people say,
Ignore them and tell yourself today is going to be okay
Today I am going to talk about Insecurities. The inner demons we have inside ourselves telling us we’re not good enough, and how it affects mental health. I want to talk about what insecurities I have and how it has affected my relationships, my social life and my day to day life and what I think of myself.
insecurity/noun
- 1. uncertainty or anxiety about oneself; lack of confidence.”she had a deep sense of insecurity”synonyms:lack of confidence, lack of self-confidence, self-doubt, diffidence, unassertiveness, humility, humbleness, meekness, timidity, timidness, timorousness, uncertainty, nervousness, hesitancy, inhibition, self-consciousness; More
- 2. the state of being open to danger or threat; lack of protection.”growing job insecurity”synonyms:unstable, unsecured, loose, rickety, rocky, wobbly, shaky, unsteady, precarious;
(obtained from google.com)
Insecurity has multiple meaning, as per the above google dictionary description, it can be literal, meaning something is unstable or unsecured, but it can also mean something more figuratively, such as a feeling, or low self-confidence. The thing I find interesting is that the literal definition has some connotations that can cross over into the figurative. For example, I find that unstable, unsecure and shaky are all good words to describe the mental health implications of Insecure, at least they do personally for me, I find that when I am having a panic attack, I feel very unstable, which in turn makes me feel insecure.
So, the question is what does insecure mean for you? Personally, I feel every word in the dictionary can have different interpretations, depending on multiple factors such as; how it is said, the pitch and tone, or how it is used in a sentence, whether it is used positivity, negatively or without emotion, and this applies more than ever to insecure. The things I feel insecure about and the things you feel insure about could be opposites, or they could be similar, but never the same. The reason I believe this, is because as people we are all different from the way we look, the way we talk, our personalities and the way we act, no two people are the same. So, it makes sense that all our insecurities are different, but they make us who we are and we can either embrace them and fight our inner demons or we can succumb to them and let them win.
My Insecurities and how I learned to cope
I have a lot of insecurities, some which I have held onto since I was young, some that developed because of relationships and others because of my anxiety and panic disorder. when I started this blog, I said I would share my experiences so I am going to talk about my biggest insecurities in more detail, and I am going to talk about how I cope and embrace them, but I am also going to talk about how some of them have control over me and I’m still trying to find ways to fight them.
WEIGHT
My biggest insecurity recently has been weight, I used to look in the mirror and hate what I saw, family members would make underhand comments about how big I was getting, or that I look so different to how I used to look when I was a size 10, and it made me hate myself. I hated going clothes shopping and trying stuff on because I never knew what size I was going to be. I felt this way for a long time and it is only recently I decided enough was enough, I didn’t want to hate myself anymore, I wanted to look in the mirror and love myself, I didn’t want to panic about my health either. So, on the 1st January I joined WW (weight watchers) and I have lost 1stone and 3 pounds in five weeks, and I am incredibly proud of myself, it’s given me a new lease on life and I am finally able to fight those weight demons and feel good about myself.
LOOKS
My next big insecurity is the way I look (regardless of weight, as I thought this back at size 10), for a long time I didn’t consider myself to be a ‘pretty girl’ all throughout my education, I felt like I didn’t fit in and the boys at school never ‘fancied’ me, and I always thought that was because of the way I looked. I never wore a lot of makeup, and I never straightened my hair and styled it, other than a pony tail. As I got older, I realised that I’m not ‘Ugly’ and that I am beautiful in my own way, and I now have an amazing husband who tells me I’m beautiful every day. The way I embraced this insecurity is by having confidence in who I am, and knowing that I can’t change that, and I know that not everyone is going to like me, but if I like me I will be okay.
Mental Health and the way people perceive me
The last Insecurity I want to talk about, is difficult for me, because I’ve not yet found a way to embrace this side of me. My biggest insecurity and fear is when people see me having a panic attack or when my anxiety is triggered, I’m worried they will think I am crazy, which is a trigger works for me, it makes me feel uncomfortable even typing it. When I have an attack or I am triggered I tend to fidget a lot, or I will talk to myself and rock back a forth, to calm myself, and in my head, I have an irrational fear that people won’t understand and they will think negatively of me and look down on me, and this come from a place where mental health is still taboo. People are more accepting and understanding of mental health, but for some reason I still can’t shake this fear, but I am trying.
Overall, I feel that insecurities are part of who we are, but they can be detrimental to people who suffer with mental health, as normal insecurities can be heightened and they can be triggering. I believe, personally, the best coping mechanism is to try and tell yourself that you are who you are, and learning to love yourself can be powerful and healing. As I’ve said everyone’s insecurities are different, and we are all individuals and I feel that if we stopped putting other people down and picking at other insecurities, the world would be a more accepting place, a s cheesy as that sounds, and if we put the effort into being confident in who we are, and loving ourselves, any negativity that we do hear will wash off us, like ‘water off a ducks back’ (Jinx Monsoon, Ru Paul’s Drag Race)
Thank you for ready this week, I really appreciate that you are letting me speak about mental health. Next time I will be doing ‘J is for Justification’
A-Z of Mental Health 
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