Building Self-Confidence 103

I am anxious.

A 'normal' person would feel anxious in these circumstances.

My department is being restructured. My house has toxic mould growth. My marriage is being challenged. I need to lose weight to get fertility treatments. My mental health diagnoses strongly suggest I shouldn't have children at all. My GPs keep failing to provide adequate and timely assessment of my unexplained physical health problems. I could have cancer. I could have conversion disorder.

In the last month alone, I have 5 silver hairs. I'm not yet 30. I won't finish paying my student loans until I'm 37. My brother is in the most dangerous part of Afghanistan. My father was recently made redundant. He's in his 50s. My sister is waiting for a kidney. My nephew, recently graduated from university, got his ex-girlfriend pregnant. Two of my co-workers are also pregnant.

The common themes are grief, inadequacy, and fear.

I just want to move forward. But the number and weight of the decisions I need to make paralyse me. I grow even more anxious. My reproductive cycle shuts down. My headaches get worse. And to cope, I become even more obsessed with fixing everything.

A lot of 'normal' people in my circumstances would take medication to cope. But because of my mental health difficulties, these current circumstances simply match how I always feel inside: sad, inadequate, and afraid. And since I've survived that way for years, I know I can survive that way for many more years. People experiencing depression or anxiety for the first time often panic. They wonder, "what is wrong with me?" They struggle to cope.

But, feeling sad, inadequate and afraid isn't the hard part.

Accepting those feelings.
Sharing those feelings.

That's the hard part. That's what keeps us from wellness. And that's why self-confidence is so important.

As a result of my mental health challenges, I am experiencing cognitive problems. Words are often difficult to find. I forget how to pronounce others. I lose my train of thought. And sometimes, my sentences don't make sense.

My public speaking skills are a source of pride. So, these changes have been damaging the backbone of my fragile self-esteem. When I first started making these mistakes, I panicked. It's a clear sign I'm going crazy. My mind is deteriorating. I cannot trust myself anymore. I was devastated. What were others thinking?

Three months, still no sign of improving. In fact, it's getting worse. But I've quietly accepted it. And then the next time I mixed up words in a sentence or took three tries to pronounce a word, I didn't panic. I moved on. Somehow, even though it makes me sad, my cognitive decline became a part of me. When I accepted it, what other people thought didn't matter anymore.

I treated myself with compassion.

Instead of fighting the changes or obsessively trying to control or explain them, I simply accepted them. I wish I could do the same thing for my new grey hairs or our infertility or my past. I wish I could trust other people. I wish I could share how I felt. But my feelings are still wholly unacceptable to me.


Read on the NHS Choices blog.