Is it alright to feel like you’re living in a shell of yourself?
Is it okay to feel like your place in the world is becoming more and more insignificant?
It’s like my self-esteem is completely shattered. And even though I continually try to search for the pieces and put them back together, it seems as though there will always be parts missing and fragile cracks will forever be present.
Maybe the issue is that my self-esteem was never really “whole.” It’s very hard to pretend like you’re okay on the outside, when on the inside you feel like you’re suffocating. However, confusingly enough, sometimes it’s easier just to fake it. I can’t remember a time when I ever felt truly “alright.” Since childhood, I have let traumatic past experiences break my self-esteem to the point where it negatively impacts my present and seeps into my future. But I know that I can’t continue to let my past have such a negative hold on my life. I have to learn how to love myself, even with the missing pieces and visible cracks. I have to figure out how to truly be “alright.”
“Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland.
– Isaiah 43:18-19