Self-doubt and insecurity

[Saphin]

Self-doubt is a problem I know I have, and I've had for years. I think a lot of it stems from growing up with quite overbearing "you can do better" sort of parents - which was great for encouraging me to learn new things when I was younger but now that I'm an adult, has left me with the sort of mentality that I constantly doubt the worth of things I do or say.

 

Some of this is just every day life things - like feeling like I've wasted time I could have used on something important whenever I do something relaxing but mindless like watch tv, or play a computer game; or worrying about where I'm headed in my career and whether I should have achieved more/earned more by the age I am.

 

Other times it's more destructive stuff like when I doubt whether my boyfriend actually likes me, or if my friends only went out with me somewhere because I paid.

Most of the time, I feel rational enough to recognise that these things aren't true and while they upset me, I can shake them off; but sometimes - when a thought really sticks, it's hard for me to get rid of that doubt; and I find it really hard to talk to the people involved without either coming across as insecure and clingy or sounding accusatory?

The times that I have brought up these things - my friends/boyfriend reassured me (of course) and that settled things, but I felt worse for having to ask something I knew the answer to in the first place, just to quell my own anxiety.

 

Because of that, I tend to err on not talking about it at all and waiting it out; since it upsets both of us and doesn't actually help - I just don't know whether that's the right thing to do?

 

Probably the main thing and one of the pivotal things I've always been insecure (and the one that affects my relationships the most) about is my appearance. I've never been happy with how I look - I have always been overweight, since as far back as I can remember. Fairly recently, I've started to remedy that. I've started going to the gym regularly and swimming - and in the last year and a half, I've lost 25kg. I have a bit more to go yet, but I'm struggling to reconcile how I feel about myself with how I look now? Again, it's another insecurity thing, where I find it really hard to believe that I could be attractive to someone. And again, logically, I know that's stupid. I was attractive to someone at the heaviest weight I've ever been, and obviously I'm attractive to someone now - since they are dating me, but even so, I have times where I doubt the authenticity of those things.

 

I just really want to try and find a way of dealing with this sort of thing in a constructive way, because at the moment - it is a source of misery for me. For instance, I've just come back from staying with my SO for a week; which was lovely. It was a really relaxing, really nice week and I wish I'd not had to leave at the end of it! But as well as the positive of that week, there's been a worry in my head ever since I got back that he's going to get bored of me? (I think maybe - because it was quite a low-key week. We didn't really do a great deal, just relaxed and spent time together.)

 

I don't know why I'm worried about that. We talk regularly, we never run out of things to talk about, we enjoy spending time together, he wants me to visit again next weekend - there is nothing that should make me feel like this, but it's a thought that keeps coming back to me, and when it does - it puts me on edge when I talk to him, like I need to prove that I'm worth dating?

 

I hate feeling like this; and it's made worse because I don't come across like it to people who know me. Precisely because of the whole "proving I'm worth something" thing, I have tons of hobbies, I'm a confident speaker, I'm successful in my career, I am confident in my ability in quite a lot of skills. I come across as someone who is self-confident and enthusiastic and composed even when I'm not and that makes it much more difficult to talk to people about feeling insecure.