Lydia Winters

When I originally started this Tumblr, it was during a rough time that I needed a safe outlet to express myself. I’m much happier now. Life is better. Things are looking up. So let my Tumblr from this point on contain mostly happy thoughts! 

It’s midnight right now and I’m laying in the dark. My room’s uncomfortably warm, yet that’s not the reason I am unable to fall asleep. It’s the thoughts. Swirling around endlessly in my head.

Does every day lately need to be a day of self discovery? I should erase those words because of the sheer audacity of my being unhappy with self discovery. That’s not it though, it’s tiring and it leaves me wondering… What part of myself do I need to change first?

The book I’m reading talks about how people change when the pain of their current situation becomes more than the pain (or fear) involved with change. Today I felt this first hand. A friend decided this very thing. Suddenly change became the least painful option. That’s more in terms of changing an entire situation.

What is, however, the protocol for changing oneself? AND How much should you change to fit what someone else wants?

I expect the worst of people. I’m entirely unsure when I turned in to this person. I guess in actuality I’ve always been that way. Driven by my own insecurities, I fear that I’m not “worth” it to others. Thus quickly judging their actions as portraying their true feelings towards me. I hold others to a standard they’ll never meet, because well what I require is unrealistic. As a young child, I was plagued by insecurities which translated into late nights of crying myself to sleep. Worrying my parents love for me in comparison to my sister (while this may cause legitimate distress for children in abuse situations, I had NO reason to feel that way. My parents are two of the most loving people in the entire world. Treating me with more love than anyone could ask for). Why? How have I hard wired myself in to impressing my own insecurities on to others?

As a child sometimes I felt unlovable. Then I’d project that on my parents. Thinking to myself - they must not love me as much as my sister. In adulthood, I’ve found myself drawn back in to that. If you forget something… It must mean that I am forgettable (somehow the logic of it actually being a meaningless moment of forgetfulness is pushed aside giving way to exaggerated thoughts based on being uncomfortable within my own self).

I position myself as a victim. Clearly I am not. Nothing in my life has in ANY way lent itself to those feelings. So why do I allow myself to take that role in all situations? When there are people around the world with legitimate life problems and fears that are merited.

Today, as always, I took on the role of the victim. In a conversation meant to be constructive, all I could hear was “You aren’t good enough. You’re not smart enough. You’re not worth it to me.” Obviously devastating to me. Even as I’m typing them out I feel the sting of actually making myself feel that way. Yes it’s never painless to have someone state some of the things you fear most about yourself, but without people like that you never grow. What I should be hearing is, “I care about you and respect you enough to tell you things that will help you become a better person.”

I’m allowing my inner thoughts and insecurities to rule my life, my relationships, my dreams. I need to live a “half-full” life.

I guess the first step in any process is admitting guilt. I’d say I’ve accomplished that… Now comes the difficulty of changing myself. But I know the pain of changing will be much less than the pain I’d create by staying the same.

No one else can define my worth. I want…. No actually I NEED to be different. I cannot accomplish all that I want to in my lifetime without keeping my worst most hurtful critic in check, even when that happens to be myself.

I want to live a life marked by positively. A silver lined, half full life.

Today was such a bummer of a day. I don’t even get it. Trying to sleep off being completely frustrated.