My Journal

He Told Me To Write This

6/19/21 - 11:59 p.m

My boyfriend told me to journal every night. Raw feelings. Not filtered. He says that I have low self esteem, that I have constant negative self talk, that I find the imperfections in myself and hone in on them and do all that I can to "fix them," and once they're "fixed," I move onto another imperfection. And he says that I don't recognize the good in me, that I'm all negative and that it's a cycle. And he told me to journal every night to collect evidence of my negative self talk. 'Cause honestly, I thought I've been pretty damn confident in myself. The thing is, I'm confident when things are going well... But one wrong comment and, according to him, I'm having a breakdown. Like today, my mom implied that I'd be wasting my college degree and my dad's investment into my education if I didn't use my degree to get a career. And she implied that I need to grow up, and I absolutely hate when she says that because the things she believes makes me immature are the very characteristics that I love about myself. I'm imaginative, I love to dress up, escape to other worlds. I love pretending to be different characters on YouTube. I'm emotional, I'm hopeful. And I hope to stay this way. No, I know I'll stay this way. I'm going to learn to sing broadway-style and I'm going to join a theatre group... And, and... I'm going to become a voice actress and voiceover artist. And I'm going to be a homey person who likes wearing flowers in her hair and wears backpacks instead of purses. That's just who I am, and that's who I want to be. It's not childish! It's me. So when my mom makes these comments about my character and life choices, it's like... What do I do? I'll always be a child in her eyes. Or maybe not. Maybe that's one of those negative thoughts my boyfriend was talking about. Maybe I interpret everything she says to me as her saying I'm immature because it's already what I believe she believes. But I didn't just make that up! She said I'm immature. She constantly reminds me that I need to grow up. I've never worked harder on anything than my voice acting. And I'm constantly thinking about life after graduation. But she insinuated that I'm not being proactive enough as if it's not on my mind every damn minute of the day! Or did she!? I don't fucking know anymore. I don't know what interpretations are real and what's a result of my "low self esteem." I just want to get rid of it. I want to fix my self esteem. It's just hard when I don't even realize when I'm having negative thoughts. It's crazy that my boyfriend said I'm so negative because I don't even realize it! He's been urging me to talk to someone and I promised him that I'm going to when I get back on campus but honestly? Therapy kinda sucks. It's like, what can I learn from a therapist that I can't learn on YouTube or Google? Therapists say some of the same stuff I hear on those mental health videos on YouTube. And after a session, I'm left thinking, "Okay... I'll do that. Thanks for the hour-long session of stuff I can hear online whenever." And it absolutely sucks to say that, I know. But I've been to therapy before. It feels like talking to a fucking friend or something, and sure it's nice to vent, but I'm not gaining anything from therapy that I can't find on YouTube or on the phone with a friend. Therapy is not this magical thing where you go and things magically get better. It's lackluster and overhyped and I just need to figure this out on my own.

But I promised him I'll go, so I have to go.