There I go being shy again…

I was scared when I started this blog that after a few posts I would lose my nerve and stop. Well it looks like that’s exactly what’s happened. 😖

The Internet is such an incredibly mean and toxic place. Putting yourself out there and sharing what you want to share doesn’t just risk exposure to insults and bullying, it guarantees it – at least if you do it long enough. And I’m very conscious of just how bad I am at handling that when it happens to me. And so I quickly get too scared and bow out.

And that limits me in so many ways in my life, not just when it comes to writing some silly blog. I need to try and figure out where this is coming from and deal with it.

I was certainly bullied a lot back in demon school for being different from the other hellspawn. If people pick on you when your brain is younger and more neuroplastic, I think it’s pretty natural for it to stay with you into your grownup life. I think that’s part of where it’s coming from.

But I think it’s also about the bad approach I took to that bullying from day one that let it hurt me a lot more than it otherwise would have. I give wayy more weight to nastiness and insults than I do to compliments. If someone says something nice, I think they are only saying that to cheer me up because they feel sorry for me, and they don’t really mean it. But if someone says something mean, I think they wouldn’t have a reason to say it unless they meant it. And so I can be showered with compliments and it still only takes one rotten remark to cause me to fall to pieces again.

When I really stop to think about it though, I think the reality is that people are even more likely to say nasty things they don’t really mean than they are to say nice things they don’t really mean. Maybe they are just having a bad day and are making something up on the spot to take it out on you. Maybe they really mean what they say at the moment, but quickly realize they were being excessive when they calm down, only now they are too proud to admit that. Maybe they are prejudging you, writing you off without really bothering to understand you first. Maybe they are even hypocrites, blaming you for something they do all the time too, either because they lack the self-awareness to notice that or maybe because they are projecting their insecurities onto you as their punching bag! And then there are Internet trolls that will gladly say whatever they can to hurt people’s feelings and make them mad, whether they are speaking truthfully or not. They’ll even invent entire backgrounds for themselves just to get a rise out of people.

I think part of why I take the bullies so seriously is because I trust them to tell me who I am more than I trust myself. There’s something humans (and demons) are susceptible to called “overconfidence bias”, where they tend to see themselves as a lot smarter, more reasonable, or more knowledgeable than they actually are. For example, a 2018 study showed that 65% of Americans believe they are above average in intelligence. I’m really conscious of stuff like this. So whatever instincts of confidence I have, I kind of ignore it, because I figure it’s coming from a place of overconfidence bias.

The people who really struggle with confidence though are people who suffer from depression. Depressed people aren’t susceptible to overconfidence bias – they have the opposite problem! So if you’ve been diagnosed with depression, it’s probably not a good idea to try and compensate for overconfidence bias you don’t have. Even for people who aren’t depressed, recalibrating your opinion slightly is all you really need to do. Dismissing every nice feeling you have about yourself as you being crazy is excessive.

I think there’s a bit of an “err on the side of caution” thing going on here too. After all, you’ll never get yourself completely right, and people are going to see how you are wrong about yourself. And I’d rather everyone see me as underconfident than arrogant, because society frowns on arrogance, while underconfident people get praise and comfort. And I’m an honest person, so I internalize that attitude rather than just pretending to have it. Even if it’s subconscious, what I’ve ended up doing is deliberately trying to feel bad about myself out of instinct for social approval! 🤦🏻‍♀️

But I’m far from the only one doing this to myself without really realizing it. If you’re slightly chubby, you might go around telling everyone how fat you are so they know you notice, leaving you less socially accountable for it and maybe getting a few of them to assure you “You’re not that fat!” Or maybe you’re that 4th grade teacher who needs to draw something for the class, and you need to make sure to call out how you know how terrible your drawings are, even if they are just ordinary and average, because it makes you feel less judged for it. Or maybe you are trying to write a blog and are worried you’ll come off as arrogant for actually thinking you have anything worth sharing, and so you’d rather just shrink away and shrivel up and hate yourself instead. It sounds so much safer.

The problem with this self-flagellation is that you aren’t really deterring insults, because people are mean and they are going to want to say mean things no matter what you do. Instead, you’re just making yourself more vulnerable. You’re letting other people dictate what you are allowed to think about yourself, leaning on them for compliments that may then not come, and are letting everyone else know that you’re easy prey. It doesn’t fix any problems and it only means you’ve built up your own inner bully that will torment you with way more cruelty than any real person ever will. Meanwhile, all that public self-shaming rubs off on others and makes them feel worse about themselves too! If you’re a bit chubby and complaining about how disgusting and ugly you are for example, what is that going to do to someone fatter than you hearing you talk like that about yourself? And I wonder how many teachers insulting their own drawing skills end up discouraging the children they teach from learning to draw better themselves!

Trying to evaluate yourself the normal way is just too confusing and you can’t really do it. So the best metric you have is to imagine someone else just like you, but who isn’t you. Then you are using a part of your brain that judges others, rather than yourself, and it’s a lot better at accurately judging people! I would never tell someone else that all their opinions are automatically not worth sharing. So why would I tell myself that? I would love to read about and comment on my friends’ opinion pieces. Why would I think no one would want to do that with mine? It’s okay for me to share because it’s okay for others to share.

That’s only going to help though if you aren’t already mean and overly judging of others. So maybe you should try and learn to forgive others for their flaws, and that will teach you how to be more forgiving of your own!

I want to end this by saying that I think constructive criticism is okay – it’s an essential part of self improvement. I’ve always wanted – and I still want – people to point out where they think I’m wrong. But part of that is learning to separate useful negative feedback from stupidity and insults, because taking absolutely every negative thing said about you as gospel truth is not going to help you improve either. It’s not automatically arrogant to look at what someone said about you, take in their apparent knowledge and the soundness of their argument, and to conclude they are wrong!

Here’s to hoping there will be many more articles to come and I will finally be able to get past this! Feel good about yourselves everyone! You’re all worth something!