An Open Letter

Today at my basketball game, I didn’t wear a shirt under our jerseys since I usually sweat a ton. When I walked in, one of the guys on my team complimented me on my muscles and asked where I got shoulders like that. I joked and tried to dismiss it, but it weirdly stuck in my head. Body dysmorphia is such a weird thing when it’s from the gym like this. I never really understood it until I experienced it. I’ve gotten so many compliments on being muscular and so many passing comments acknowledging it. I would have thought they would make me feel good, but instead, it feels like it’s an inside joke that everyone else is playing on me. I look in the mirror, and when I flex, I feel good about myself, but only in a way that is hidden from the world. I think I am below mediocre when comparing myself to random people online, and I know that this is incredibly biased, but it’s still in my head. But when I’m not posing in nice lighting and with a pump, I feel like I just barely look like a normal man. And so when I’m wearing regular clothing at work, or just out and about, and people say that I’m muscular, I feel like they’re lying to me. It feels like it’s done out of politeness or just empty compliments, the same way someone may just randomly compliment your shoes even if they don’t mean it. The logical part of my brain feels like this happens too consistently and also happens from non-compliments, meaning that this is not just some coincidence. But the emotional part of me is somewhat scared, for a lack of a better word. Why does this happen when I look at myself in the mirror and I see a small boy trying to pad themselves up to look like a normal man? I work out my arms and grow all to be smaller than some normal man. And I’m no longer a kid, I’m 23, so why do I feel so small and scrawny? It’s like nothing has changed from when I was a kid. And there I know lies my issue, this is just body dysmorphia, and I am not the person I see in the mirror. I just wish I could believe it, or feel it. I feel embarassed whenever someone compliments me for being muscular or strong, since I’m just waiting for the shoe to drop and for me to get my hopes up, all to be brought back to earth. Hard. And so it’s safer if I just lay on the ground safe, without letting people raise me up. Whenever someone compliments me, the best I do so far is just dismiss it or move past it as fast as possible. Before, I would disagree or deflect it. Someone told me today that they find me incredibly hot, but also that they find my personality and mind too good, and that they fear they will get attached to me. All I do in my mind is try to find ways to discredit them, so that I stay in this mental mold that I am not really wanted. It’s stupid that I do this to myself, but it’s like I want to believe that all of these consistent positive feedbacks are just one-off events that will not happen again. And then they happen consistently. And I keep saying this was a random once-in-a-lifetime event, for the 8th time that month.

I’d like to love myself all the time. I have stretches where I do, and then I have moments where I’m like this. I scored no points in basketball, and I got scored on by their big guys a couple times. I fully whiffed the two shots that I had, horribly because I panicked. Even during random warmups I couldn’t make the ball in with a layup or right next to the hoop. I laughed at myself jokingly in those moments, because I couldn’t just let shame consume me. That’s for the car ride home. Our team keeps winning, and I’m not the worst on the team, but it’s close. I feel horrible being useless. I don’t want people to look at me with pity, and I don’t think that I should be included if I don’t carry my own weight. And so I want to not go again, because I don’t want to drag them down.

N asked me to tell her about the Dunning-Kruger effect, and she was interested by it. She then asked where I think it applies to me. I didn’t want to be depressing so I wasn’t fully honest by omission — I realized I think it applies to almost nothing, since I think I’m not good at anything really. I know I have really hard standards for myself, and so no matter what — even the things that I know that I’m in the top 1% of easily, I feel like there’s not much point of pride there. There are so many people in the world, and people that I will meet that would leave me with nothing to say other than they are better. No excuses I can make, and so how am I supposed to have an ego? I remember thinking about this a few months ago, if I am honest and say that I am bad at something, that’s arguably worse than being overconfident to others. The reasoning was if I say I am bad at something, and then if the person beats me, they gain nothing. If they lose to me, then they feel worse than bad. If I say I’m good, then if they lose their ego is intact. If they win, they feel better than good. And so it’s best for their ego if I say I’m good. I don’t think it’s that simple though, so I don’t really do that. But I don’t like to say how I really feel about my own skills, for fear of putting other people down. This is kinda the reason why I don’t like working in with people at the gym on things that I’m strong at. For example, my current goal is to max out the leg extension machine for 8 reps with one leg, and I’m 260/300 right now. The other day I worked in with someone, and they were doing around 170 and when it was my turn to go they would stand and just stare while I was doing my set. I felt bad, since I didn’t want that person to think that I was showing off. I felt horribly guilty. I know how it feels to compare yourself and not be enough, that’s all I did growing up. I don’t want to do that to someone else.

Apparently, N didn’t save my number, and I found out through a screenshot. Both D and N said that she is weird and she doesn’t save people’s numbers, only family and close friends. It did kinda hurt. Partially because I don’t know if she’s telling the truth, or if I’m just some person unworthy of saving a number for. It doesn’t help that N doesn’t really respond to my messages frequently, and also because she has read receipts turned off. I think she still hasn’t opened my instagram messages from Monday. I am hoping that she just isn’t a good texter and isn’t really responsive, and there is evidence to at least back that up. But I’m worried that the doubt is seeping in, and I think that maybe I’m just a dancing monkey for them to laugh at. I can entertain them and then when my use is over, I can be left in a closet. I think I can be weird, and I am not everyone’s flavor. But I’d like to be loved. I keep thinking back to art, if only I could do something like write beautiful enough, or play something so pure that I could be seen in it. I find it hard to use my words often. It would be easier if I could paint something with such intention, in a way that someone doesn’t find it embarassing but rather just “real” for a lack of a better word. I’ve wallowed in so much self pity already I feel bad. Haha, that’s kinda ironic isn’t it? Feeling bad.

I think I’m objectively good at things because I never feel like I am. Since I always feel like I need to be more, I always strive for that. But then I’m never enough. I don’t think there will really ever be something I’m the best at, and so I have to figure out some way to cope with this feeling. I guess regardless this would be important, since self-worth has to come from something more sustainable. I guess I just want this feeling to pass. I guess, I guess, I guess. I don’t like reusing the same words to start sentences, but I guess I’m just not smart enough to avoid that. My feelings repeat in these patterns, I’m too afraid to feel decisively, and so I say “I guess”. I feel like I talk too much in therapy pretty often, and it’s something I’ve brought up to her and she says it’s not an issue. But I’d like to shut up sometimes. I think I just ramble until someone stops me sometimes, because I don’t know how to express my feelings in that way. I don’t often have places where I can just be heard, and so I just pour out there from every wound. Sometimes slowly, sometimes not.

I think maybe my Dunning-Kruger moment may be thinking I’m emotionally healthy or mature. I fear that I am so far behind in that progression that I don’t even know how fucked up I am. I don’t know if I’m behind or ahead of the curve with all of this journaling. I feel like some days I’m learning more about myself in a way that others don’t, and some days I feel like I’m playing catchup. Some days I feel like I’m just going in a fully different direction, and that I’m incredibly weird and unfortunately off-putting. I don’t have enough self-confidence right now to be fine with that fact, and so I just sit with it. It may be time to go to bed, I’ve been sitting here writing for about 30 minutes now. I hope I’m enough.