I just got done reading an article in Psychology Today (no really. I sound pretentious here, but I seriously did just get done reading it. It's a good magazine. I stole it from work). Anyway, the article was about faltering self-esteem and how it relates not to our outcome of success in both career, relationships and life in general. Not a very hopeful article for someone such as myself - a crazy blog-writer with the self-esteem of an over-sized 12-year old with braces and a bad perm. It also basically said (in not so many words) that there isn't a whole lot you can do about the plight of having low self esteem except learn to accept that this how you are and (more likely) learn to foresee the impending doom of self-loathing when (and it will happen, oh it will) things aren't going your way. Which, lets face it - for someone with low self esteem - happens quite a bit. I mean, I already feel bad that you've wasted 5 minutes of your life reading this garbage. You'd be better off with a blog about knitting. The article goes on to say that people with low self esteem benefit from the accolades of others - that small snippets of complimentary feedback can temporarily boost the feeling of low self esteem, yet are horrible at taking any compliment at face value. For example:

"Oh, Jess. I enjoyed your blog" REALLY means "Jess, I felt sorry for you so I read your blog and THEN I felt even more sorry for you so I felt obligated to compliment you on it, even though I would have rather been playing angry birds and skyping my long-distance boyfriend in Nebraska.". Or something of that nature. Isn't it ironic that we need the complimentary feedback to feel better, but yet we pass it off as phony, misguided comments that aim only to mask what we perceive to be the truth. That we suck. ("We" being metaphorical here - not we meaning me and you - you don't suck. You're here. Reading. You're the best). I've also noticed that people (girls mostly) with low self esteem, feel the need to retaliate a compliment with something that takes the shine off of themselves (ourselves?).

"I like your sweater"

"Oh, this old thing? It's a bad color for me and it's itchy. Also, it smells like moth balls"

You get what I'm saying.

So, in summary - it's okay to feel like shit about yourself as long as you are aware that you are, in fact, not as shitty as you think. Just be aware that you will often think the world is coming to an end when you have hiccups in life (don't worry, it's not) and you will be especially poor at letting anyone tell you that you're awesome. That shouldn't stop them from trying, though.

Oh, and one more thing - compliments left in the comments section of this blog will give me the small, but temporary lift I need in my own psyche to continue to write mesmerizing words and not fall back into the downward spiral of circumstances that is my life right now. You know what to do.