Content Warnings: Anxiety, low self-esteem
Dear friend,
I’ve been struggling quite a lot with my mental health recently. I’m an overthinker, and sometimes I don’t know how to stop. Like it’s been a part of me for so long, and it honestly feels wrong to get rid of it. But being in my own head all the time—it’s exhausting, to the point where it starts affecting my physical health, too. I’m physically and mentally drained, and it feels like things will be like this forever. I’m normally pretty good at challenging negative beliefs with more positive ones; it’s something I used to do all the time as a kid because I was so terrified of feeling sad. It has definitely helped sometimes because I learned from a young age to encourage positivity and to not allow little things to affect my day. But a lot of these little things are beginning to compound into one big thing, which happens to be low self-esteem. It’s pretty difficult to just confront years and years of low self-esteem with positive self-talk, especially in the long term. It might feel good in the moment to give myself something positive to think about, but that euphoria very quickly fades because I’m later reminded that there are lots of things that I don’t like about myself or that I want to change. I’m someone who tries to have an answer for everything—I find a lot of comfort in that. But right now, I’m not sure I have an answer. And maybe that’s okay.
From,
A friend
