STFU, You’re Amazing

I was reading this today, and I wanted to stand up and cheer.

I’m talking about how we minimize, despise, excoriate, and abhor ourselves. How we exclude ourselves from consideration. How we martyr ourselves for others. How we call ourselves ugly, awful, incompetent, and stupid.

I don’t know exactly how to describe the sensation I get when I see a beautiful, fiercely intelligent, accomplished and skilled artist and craftswoman twenty years my senior call herself ugly and stupid… but I am realizing that I have that same power now, and it’s up to me to use it wisely. Not to give voice to the anger and self-hatred and self-loathing I feel so fiercely. Not to indulge in the kind of scab-picking hairshirt self-abnegation that we’ve been trained to crave, even though it’s so fucking bad for us and everyone around us. Even though it robs us of our power to be positive in the world, and good for other people. ~Elizabeth Bear

We are taught to do this. I remember my mom doing it. I’ve spent years learning not to do it. Flylady calls it “stinking thinking” and emphasizes kicking it to the curb.

I don’t do this [much] anymore. Friends think I’m so amazingly confident–just because I don’t do this. I never thought of it this way, though. I mostly came to it through defiance–my belief that there are enough people out there ready to put me down. They don’t need my help, and why should they have it? Treating me like crap has never helped me lose weight, get smarter, try harder…as a motivator, it just sucks. And it makes me feel like crap besides.

It was hard. My inner dialogue sounded like “come on, you idiot. You were stupid enough to say you could do this, so you effing well do it. Now. No, you’re not going to bed till you freaking get it done.” Now it’s more “come on, girl. You can do this. You’re smart and awesome, and you can do this.” Guess which works better to get things done?

In February, I turned 42. People told me I was “just a baby.” Others said things like “Happy Birthday! So you’re what, 21?”

Proudly I told them I’m 42. It’s a significant age! As Elizabeth Bear said of herself, I finally feel like a grown-up. I can handle things. After twenty years on my own, I feel like I’ve got this. And it’s a great feeling.

So, friends, you can stop trying to take it away. I appreciate the sentiment, but I am forty-two FANTASTIC years old, and I’m proud of it and me.

And you should be proud of you. You’ve made it this far. You’re clearly a person of taste and discerment (or you wouldn’t be reading my blog, right?) Let up on you. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt, just like you do your closest friends and maybe even strangers.

STFU. You’re amazing. Deal with it.