Look at me, all fucked up over someone I’ll never meet

• Noah Kahan (False Confidence)

You’re doing it again. The stress in your chest, the tension in your head. That anxiety in your belly – it’s all because you’re doing this again.

You can scroll and scroll but you’ll never find what you’re looking for. Put your headphones on and block out the world, but it’ll be there when you come back.

It doesn’t matter what you try to do, you can’t escape this feeling. That silly teenage insecurity that has plagued your days since you were thirteen and developed an acute awareness of the space you take up. When your consciousness grew to include the way you appear to other people.

But wondering how you appear is not enough is it? No, you need to add judgement into that – because how can one human witness another without that, right?

Even in the shelter of your own home, away from the prying eyes of anyone – friend or foe – you’re crippled. Your conscious of every movement, every look, and every judgement that comes with it.

You try to search for others who look like you, think like you, in the hopes it’ll lessen the fear. But that’s still comparison, and it does nothing to douse the flames. If anything, you’re adding more fuel. You’re just giving yourself more examples of what you’re not to add to the mental bank for later, when it’s time for a more gruelling beating.

Why do you still do this to yourself? Have we not learned anything in the decade since we were last a teenager? That awkward, goofy girl who was terrified of judgement yet so heavy with envy – you’re still going to let her control how you feel?

You’re doing it again, thinking the way you look and how you’re perceived is the most important thing about you. You’re stopping your career, your love, your experiences because you just ache to be seen as something you have no control over anyway.

Stop it. Put that down, get out of your head, and crack on. There’s work to do.

Speak soon,

Rachael

Image: Woman At Her Toilette, Berthe Morisot