Believe in yourself or nobody will… This phrase plagues the minds of many young people as they are growing up and figuring out this thing called life. Parents try to instill the values of self worth into their children. Friends boost confidence to help you believe in yourself. Most people are taught that they can do anything they put their mind to. I am no stranger to receiving these proverbs throughout my life. I was taught that I shape my success with my mind. My struggle was always figuring out whether to listen to life or the optimists who were living it.
I remember as a child I was sent to talk to a professional, I cannot remember if it was a counselor or a shrink, but I don’t tell many people about this. The reason was because I created a little comic talking about how I was a worthless fat slob who nobody liked or cared about. I was a young boy, maybe elementary school aged, and I just didn’t feel like I was worth much. I would see the other kids with happy familial relationships. They got along with their siblings while I had one brother who didn’t like me at all growing up and my other brother was in his own world and the cause of much of my stress and not so happy feelings. My mom was sicker and home life was bad. This was interesting as it contrasted with the praise I would get throughout academia.
Even though times like Middle School, as referenced in volume 1, eventually ended, the lack of self worth continued throughout life. One thing I noticed growing up was that no matter what was going on, if things were going well for a while then it wouldn’t last. I always felt like bad things continued to happen to me. I got numb to successes because I felt that it only would last for only so long before another bad thing happened. This was a constant theme throughout my life. High school was no different. On the outside things were fine, but at home who knew what was going on? There were times when the electricity was off in the winter and we had to take cold showers in below freezing temperatures. My mom would be in and out of the hospital, the money I was trying to save from selling CD’s would have to be used for random unexpected bills or stolen by my cousin. I started to feel like I only deserved the negative things that happened to me while others were happy and got all they wanted.
Now logically I understand that one shouldn’t be so pessimistic, but I couldn’t help the way life was shaping me. To my friends I was optimistic and nonchalant, but internally I was sad constantly. Throughout high school and even college these feelings continued. Women were a big part of this as well. I used to be a hopeless romantic and it confused and killed me seeing all these peers of mine getting attention from women or getting girlfriends while i just got used by those girls as a means to get to my friends. The girl I went to prom with liked another guy and ended up messing with a really close friend of mine. Now I didn’t ask her to go, she asked me, and it confused me as to how stuff like this would happen. I started to feel like i wasn’t worthy of happiness, worthy of a girlfriend and so forth. I felt like my position in life was to make others happy as that is what I was best at. Even the time I was able to creep out of the friend zone and find a girlfriend it did not work out. It only furthered these feelings. Same thing happened with another woman not too long ago actually. Sadly enough, I battle these feelings still. I am doing way better as I know I am worth a lot more, but my initial reaction is doubt when something good seemingly comes around. These are things that I have not told many people before, but as stated before, letting hurt go requires transparency. I hope this snippet of Jiggs’ feelings on this particular topic can help someone out there. There’s a lot more but that would make this post 10+ pages. Team no dissertation.
