Stuck in my efforts to stop comparing myself and gaining self-confidence
Dear Redditors,
(F29) I am writing to seek help regarding the difficulties I face when trying to untie my self-worth to how I « measure up » against the others. I am currently stuck in my therapy, even though I think I now have a good idea of why I built this habit over the years.
For the back story, this issue traces back to my childhood, since my dad - a very insecure person himself- used to compare myself to my classmates, with a focus on academic performance, intelligence and social skills. The fact that nowadays (I’m 29) I mostly compare myself in these areas supports the fact that my dad must be responsible. (I forgave him, since he was overall a good dad despite coming from a very abusive family, and we now have a peaceful relationship.)
As you can expect, this makes my life very exhausting, since there is always someone smarter/funnier/more successful I can look up to and therefore I always feel like I’m « not enough ». This makes my relationships with friends quite difficult, since I tend to think they are better than me. It makes me shy away from love relationships - mainly because I have this irrational fear that I will be left once my partner find a « better » girl. As a side effect, this habit also makes it hard to love myself, since it sometimes turns me into a person I don’t want to be: bitter, unable to be genuinely happy for others, to be as encouraging as I would like to be.
I went to the psychologist for the first time at 15 since this insecurity caused me a lot of anxiety, and have seen a lot of others ever since, with no durable effect. But since September, I made it my number 1 priority to try to get rid of this mental scheme, through frequent appointments with an EMDR therapist. I think resorting to this therapy made sense since my issues originate in some kind of trauma - being compared as a child was really traumatizing to me. But I did not see significant improvements, presumably because this trauma happened over the course of years and deeply shaped my way of functioning. Maybe EMDR therapy is not suitable for treating such « diffuse » trauma?
Also, comparing myself is a double-edged sword: it makes me feel insecure 95% of the time, but this is also my only way to gain confidence: the only thing that gives me confidence is to see that I have raised to the level of (or « won » against) a rival. Therapy made me realize that I was terrified of letting go of this scheme, since my brain thinks that if I stop comparing myself, I will lose all my confidence.
I think this is the main obstacle blocking me from changing. But I have been aware of it for months, and since then I did not make real progress and it seems that my therapy sessions don’t yield anything anymore. I feel really stuck and hopeless since I deeply want to change but it seems my brain confuses « comparing oneself » with « surviving ». Should I get another therapist to get a new perspective? Were some of you in the same boat? If yes, do you have any recommendations regarding what might help me further? I would deeply appreciate any comments, insight or experience you would like to share.
Thank you so much for reading 🙏🏻 And have a great day!
All the best