#serious-thoughts Most new people I meet are usually surprised at first when I start opening up to them about my cripplingly low self-esteem and insecurities. I think it's because I generally come across as a bright and seemingly-confident person when I interact with others in real life. It's easy for me to start conversations and I *feel* like I have some sort of persona that drops peoples' guards easily? And then, when they become disarmed, they become exposed to my close friend's story on Instagram and suddenly she is rambling about the most outlandish things. And then they're like ohhh ok she's literally clinically insane. I'm a huge gigantic overthinker and I feel like I always have been. I've been trying to unpack this a lot recently and I know that a lot of the reason is due to the expectations that were placed on me when I was younger. I wasn't particularly pushed to succeed or anything, but I was constantly a point of comparison. Oh, your cousin is much more talented. She can play the violin and you can't even play any instrument. How come you're so fat compared to your classmate? She's much prettier. Why can't you be as smart as your neighbor? It's not anyone's fault that the adults surrounding me didn't know any better but it is now unfortunately my responsibility to overcome this. So anyway, the point is, one of my major vices is jealousy. This eventually translated to me having crippling insecurity in my early relationships, *especially* when it came to other girls. When my first ex hung out with his (really, our mutual!) female friends, I felt absolutely sick. One of my other exes was particularly attractive and got a lot of attention from other women and didn't do a good job in enforcing his boundaries. But these voices in my head are just the same ones I've heard constantly when I was younger. She's prettier. She's smarter. She's more athletic. She's more talented. You can't amount to her. I think insecurity is caused by a lack of trust in others sometimes though because of this, as well as lack of confidence in myself. When I started having more trust in these relationships, the actions bothered me a lot less because I knew at that point I was the one being chosen. It doesn't matter when I think about the other girls and what narrative I come up with. And I can't control the actions of the other girls, but I can choose how I can react to them. Progressively, as I grew older, I hope I became a bit more tempered in this. I still do get jealous, but it's not really the fault of whoever my partner is, and I don't really need to overreact. Sometimes I'll say something to my them, but I know that this is something I need to work on constantly. And recognizing it is a step towards growth.