Externally Processing My Way Through Life

I have self-confidence issues. And I have an overly analytical brain. This is a very bad combination.

It results in thoughts like these, while preparing for a playdate the next morning:

"What should I pack the kids and I for lunch? Should I just pack what we usually eat? But what if they don't think I feed my kids healthy enough, and what if they look at what am I eating and think that is the reason why I'm fat (mind you the kids eat turkey, cheese, and fruit, and I have a turkey sandwich on wheat bread and fruit). I have to go to the gym before it, all my gym clothes are old and ratty, what if they think I'm a complete slob? Should I go home and change first?"

It's so annoying, and it goes on like this all of the stinking time. Especially in social situations, I am always criticizing myself, or wondering if I said too much, or the wrong thing, or a bijillion other critiques.

I've always been a self aware person. Aware of what I'm wearing, how I'm put together, the overall image I'm portraying. However I wasn't always so critical of myself in what I said. In fact I probably used to be not critical enough of the things that came out of my mouth. Now I'm overly critical, and yet I still say overly harsh things all the time.

I think Ukraine, and babies messed me up.

Let me explain that. In Ukraine I was made aware of a lot of negative qualities in myself. While I am grateful that they were brought to my attention, I was not approached in a very kind or loving manner on these issues. In fact many of the things I had even previously liked about myself were criticized while there.

I came home feeling very aware of every little thing I said and did, and felt like everyone was watching all of my mistakes ready to attack me about them just like happened there.

Within two years of that I had a baby. I gained 50 pounds while I was pregnant, and 30 of them hung around. The little self confidence that I had left had been based on my appearance. Add that to a non existent clothing budget (my other crutch), and you can imagine the damage.

Since then I've been able to regain some of my confidence back. It's mostly confidence in who I am, and what I know about myself to be true, i.e. what God has given me, done in me and who He has created me to be.

But when it comes to social situations, I'm a disaster. It doesn't help to be in a fairly new place with fairly new friends, who don't really know me either.

It's a really annoying cycle, and my mind is my biggest enemy. Replaying all of the bad scenes, wrong words used, questionable humor and bad actions. Sometimes I really wish God had made an off switch for it.