So if you know me at all online or irl or wherever you probably know that I've always struggled with developing a sense of self and tend to worry far too much about flaws and other negative things about myself, so it was a bit awkward today when the topic of self-concept came up in my CMST class and I was asked to write a paragraph or two answering the question "Who am I?" It was difficult for me to decide whether to focus on the positives or negatives of myself or whether to talk about my interests or hobbies and the like. I kept noticing that I gravitated towards writing negative things like "lonely," "burdensome," "childish," etc. When I wrote those things though I felt like I always needed to balance them out a bit by writing something positive, or stressing that there are things I am doing to make progress in those areas towards bettering myself as a person. It was really hard and yet nobody else in the class seemed to be having as much difficulty.

The strange part was when the professor asked us to stop writing and asked if we knew about the concept of the "looking-glass self." According to this concept, people develop a sense of self by interacting with other people and adjusting themselves based on the perceptions they think others have of them. From a young age, people develop "themselves" not only from their own experiences but from what other people have told them about themselves as well. Whenever you judge someone to their face whether it's positively or negatively you are in some small way affecting their self-concept, especially if they are young. They will of course build a great part of their sense of self independently but they are still affected greatly by input from others.

It's nature and nurture. People can't change certain aspects of themselves but they can still be drastically changed through interaction with other people; it's a vital part of human growth. It's strange though because the people in my life have been largely very supportive of me and so I knew that the tendency for me to gravitate towards writing negative traits and mental states was due to my own negative perception of myself. When I was growing up I didn't accept praise. If I did well on a test or a competition or whatever it was never because I worked hard or was smart, but because others didn't work hard enough to overcome me; something they easily could have done if they had tried. For some reason I was fixated on negativity even though I was usually in a loving, supportive and very honest environment. For some reason I would not fully accept the critiques others had of me and my friends and family still claim that I do this to this day. I can tell when someone is honest and/or correct in advice that they give me or when they compliment or encourage me, but even though I appreciate them dearly for saying so I don't always take what they say to heart, at least not through actions (which are what matter in the end).

I need therapy. That much is obvious and I'm on it right now but this is all still really funny to me. I can tell that certain friends and family have told me these things ad nauseam and would probably shake their heads in frustration if they read this, but again it was part of my process. It must be like the joke in old comedy shows and the like when someone has a "great idea" and explains it and someone else calls them a moron and then suddenly has a "great idea" of their own, which just happens to be identical to the idea the "moron" had. It isn't quite the same though because I certainly never believed those people were morons, it's just that I heard what they said and acknowledged it as correct but it did not really impact me until I realized it myself as well. I don't know why that is.

I actually rely too much on what others think of me, but ironically I often don't even accept what they have to say about me, be it positive OR negative. Somehow I developed a negative and somewhat empty self-concept on my own, or at least it seems that way. I think I am fairly good at analyzing other peoples' strengths and weaknesses and senses of character as well as determining whether they are a "good" person or not. People are of course both good and bad, but I mean good in the sense that they have a healthy outlook on the aspects of life that are important, or at least great potential to develop those outlooks. I gravitate towards those people and associate with them because of how much I respect them, and I often let them know what I value and see in them, perhaps a bit too often. At the same time though I have difficulty applying the same aspects I view as healthy to my own life. I'm still struggling to overcome this internal stigma towards accepting myself, but the very noticeable hypocrisy of what I say versus what I do pushes people away from me. Even when I don't know them very well I still get extremely anxious and upset when I realize I've pushed them away because of what I see in them; they're people who would be worth knowing in my life. 

i don't want to be molly in a relationship with sherlock