Why I Am No Longer Being Self-Deprecating
Last night was somewhat of a turning point for me. After several rough days, which turned into one breakdown kind of a day, I have had enough. I have had enough of feeding into the intrusive, the racing, the negative, and deprecating thoughts. This came after I recorded my ‘video a day,’ which I have been doing since the beginning of the year because my memory is not the best and with last year going through collective trauma, there are genuine weeks and sometimes even months I don’t remember. Now, I want to remember them all, the good, the bad, and the downright ugly and messy.
Yesterday, was downright messy. I watch it back today and I can barely get out words of how I have been feeling, trying to talk myself through everything I have been thinking into oblivion, and I don’t want to be like that again. I am not saying it won’t happen, but I actively don’t want to be like that. A lot of the thoughts were around my self-worth, from feeling useless because I am not at work to thoughts around self-image because of the lack of purpose to dress for the day I am pretty much living in oversized jumpers and pajama pants. It also doesn’t help that it also nearing that time of the month so my skin is freaking out and hormones make everything feel a hundred times worse.
I then napped, and I had an energy I hadn’t felt since the beginning of the month, and this was reinforced in my dreams. I woke up to these words running in my mind.
I choose me. I choose to make myself happy. I choose to celebrate me. I choose to give to myself first before I give to others. I choose me because I owe it to me.
I got up out of bed today with a spring in my step. I showered, I did my morning routine and then I watched some tv with my sister. I got the tasks I have been meaning to do over the weekend done in an hour. Now I am here, with my ‘bad b anthems’ playlist playing 6 inch by Beyonce and I feel powerful.
Why? Because I saw this tik tok this morning, and it was this girl talking about how damaging self-deprecating humour can be because they soon manifest into self-deprecating thoughts, and it can be very difficult to get them out of your head. She talks about the turning point where she was like, I am not doing this anymore. This happening when she was having so many racing thoughts, so many self-deprecating thoughts while she was at work that shouted ‘STOP.’ And that was how I felt last night, how I felt watching yesterdays video. I am done putting myself down because no one else is telling me the things going on my head, only me and I have the power to stop that.
So every time one of those thoughts, I have now just taken the attitude of replacing it with something else, something positive. One of my favourites was when I started my masters and things ever got tough or I was just talking my masters with my best friend who was also studying, she would refer to us as “hot girl scholars,” as a substitute for Megan Thee Stallion’s ‘Hot Girl Summer.’ It gave me confidence and it was a way we made each other feel confident.
But, on a serious note, this self-deprecating humour can have a serious impact on how you view yourself because if you constantly make that your primary source humour and humour on yourself, you can subconsciously reinforce that as the ‘real’ view of you, which is really not you. That self-deprecating view I can guarantee you is not how other people see you. Your friends don’t see you like that, they see the best in you, so you should also see that. You should tell yourself that.
Tell yourself that you are ‘hot girl’ or whatever your preferred pronouns are. For every negative thought, turn it into a positive, even if you don’t believe it at first it will soon stick. Just as those self-deprecating, and negative thoughts first stuck with you, these positive ones will soon replace them. I know this works in part because when I actually do put human clothes on, by this I mean jeans, I am like yeah this body, this body is THE ONE.
Also, be mindful of the content that you are consuming. Whether this is who or what you follow on social media. I keep my Instagram feed mostly to my friends and then pages on mental health, spirituality, anxiety and self-love, alongside a hefty amount of frog and cat meme pages. Similar with my Twitter account too, I created a private account to vent my thoughts and to get away from the seriousness of my main Twitter account, which is focused on news and politics, sprinkled in with friends and professionals.
I have found YouTube to be great recently. Anna Akana and Rowena Tsai’s videos are my favourites of late. Anna takes comedy and acting to talk about serious topics from therapy, mental health and relationships. Her videos are no more than four minutes long and contain short bites of information in a simple and humorous way. Her honesty and vulnerability are what make her easy to watch and there is no bullshit to her words because she talks about the negative behaviours she has displayed, but also how you can beyond them.
Rowena follows a more vlog style, I want to say (I am not YouTube proficient in that way). My favourite series is her ‘7 ways’ and she does one on insecurities, and once you learn and acknowledge that the media and commercial companies play on your insecurities to sell you things, you can slowly begin to unlearn things. Especially, around beauty standards, as a South Asian girl, I am not the beauty standard and never was. Growing up I had to deal with thick eyebrows (even the monobrow) and body hair being very visible as a desi woman, as well as being a curvier woman. I honestly curse whoever gave me such visible and thick body hair but made the hair on my head fine AF.
Now, the trend of thick eyebrows is in, parts of me become the beauty standard, being thick or curvy is in, soon it will probably be out and then back in again. But once, you start to realise it is just the media and fashion/beauty industry’s way of capitalising on your looks, you can start to let go.
At the end of the day, once you start giving yourself the validation that can come with others reactions to self-deprecating jokes and behaviours, you start to care less of what people think of you because you already believe all the good things about you. That’s when you’ll step into your power. Now, it isn’t going to be easy, I know it isn’t I have flip-flopped between the two positions, but when I feel bad I let myself feel it and then I say what I like about myself, not what others do and based only on my perception of me. I look at pictures of where I looked good but also felt good. Sometimes it means putting on a little makeup, putting on human clothes and going outside to remind myself that I am THAT bitch.
Links
‘bad b anthems playlist’ — https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5WmyqiIScU19zSmceyNosc?si=MvWd2LkNTyOXSRwfJ15NRA
Anna Akana — https://www.youtube.com/c/AnnaAkana
Rowena Tsai (specifically the insecurities video) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7g4dsm6ku0&list=PLcou5MbftfZLGclwcsEaFBmZD8flrQDrS&index=4
