Contemplating thinking about thinking...

Something one of my best friends said struck a chord with me about a week and a half ago but I've only got round to thinking about it properly over the last two days when I've been off work.

I've always been very inwardly harsh on myself, while portraying a face of confidence and not caring about what people think of me. But I was never aware that I was letting this get out of hand. I do have what I call "The voices" which surface when I am struggling with depression, they tell me I am fat, that my friends are talking about me and don't really like me, that I wont ever amount to anything, that I'll never have children, that I don't do enough around the house, that my husband will see all these things and leave me. But the voices are often quite dormant, leaving me with a few insecurities and niggles, but mainly fine.

On the day that this thing was said I was having a mild anxiety attack that threatened to reduce me to tears in a cafe where I was eating with friends. I was feeling that noone was listening to me, that I was uninteresting and that I was underdressed. These three things built up over the course of a few hours and I eventually took myself off to the toilets, laid my head against the wall to cool off and text my friend to tell her how I was feeling. She text me back "Are you feeling ok? I have to say, you are often very hard on yourself, but you looked gorgeous this morning!"

I started to wonder if I really am too hard on myself. If I look at myself objectionally I know I am overweight, but 99% of the time I don't care. I have always been overweight, I was this weight when I get married and the only time I've been smaller was in 2007 when I lost four stone. I put it all back on in the great will power drought of 2008... But I'm not that stressed. But when it gets me it gets me hard. I love my eyes, I think they're my best asset, and my hair is always getting me compliments. So I'm not ugly.

I dress comfortably and have two looks, comfortable in jeans, Vans or Converse, layered tops and a hoodie, or glam with long black trousers, a pretty top and almost gothic makeup. I know what suits me and I work my assests (boobs, eyes and a waist dspite being overweight) to my best advantage. So I know I'm rarely under or overdressed because I judge the situation and wear one of my two looks, dressing it up or down as I see fit (on this particular occasion I was wearing very similar clothes to my three friends).

I know that people sometimes stop listening to me. I talk a lot. I go into a lot of siatuations willing myself to keep my mouth shut, often I slip up, and so expect it when people don't listen.

But am I too hard on myself? I struggle so much with daily tasks simply because I analyse every single reaction, but to be honest, it had never occured to me that other people didn't. Do other people go through life letting things go so much more eaily than I do that they do not over analyse conversations until they find everything out that they can, do they not worry for days about tiny things? Is this why I suffer so much with my mental health? Because there IS a problem in my psyche? Ironically, I am the first to tell my friends that they're being too hard on themselves. I have talked many friends out of fits and tearful episodes, talked them up, told them to be easier on themselves, but when it comes to myself I can't do it. But I don't tell anyone, so when I tell them to do it they trust me, after all, I'm this confident being who doesn't care what people think...

I don't know the answers yet. I'm struggling even writing the questions down. I'm trying to decide if things really were better when I was slimmer, or if I just think they should have been, trying to decide if I'm too hard on myself, trying to decide if I should stop giving out the confident facade I present every day. I am trying to talk to my friends more about how I'm feeling, the day to day things, and I try to tell my husband, who insists he wants to know, but he's a whole other post for a whole other day.

So, I'm going to go away and think about what I've said, eat some lunch and finish tidying the house for Christmas. Until next time, be good to yourself, eat that extra piece of cake and do whatever makes you feel better.