I originally wanted to write a post in which I convinced myself that I was dumb. The reason I wanted to do this was because I thought that all this pain I was experimenting came from considering myself to be smart, thus if I was able to convince myself of being dumb, there would no longer be a dissonance between what I think of myself and what is currently happening in my life.
I started reading a great book just a couple days ago "Mistakes were made (but not by me)" written by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson. It is a fantastic book about cognitive dissonance. In a few words, we never regard whatever we're doing as stupid because we've found a way to justify it. Regardless of how dumb it looks to everyone, or how dumb it really is, we think we are right because we've mentally ran through all the possibilities in order to take the "best" decision. I thought it was all great until there was a part that got to me. Cognitive dissonance might also work the other way. If we start believing we're dumb, we'll start justifying everything around us that way, we'll also start distorting reality in order for everything to fit into our vision of ourselves. They give a great example about a woman who has a low self-esteem and believes that she is unlovable. Then of course, she meets Mr. Right, he starts getting serious and she feels pleased for a while, until the dissonance hits. She will wonder what is it that he sees in her, she'll believe he's not in love with her but rather with an erroneous idea of her and as soon as he gets to know the real her, he'll dump her. That way, unlovable restores consonance in her brain. Right after that, the paragraph that made me realize that perhaps I don't think of myself as this bright scientist but rather as of what I REALLY think of myself, was the following:
"...Most people who have low self-esteem or a low estimate of their abilities do feel uncomfortable with their dissonant success and dismiss them as accidents or anomalies. This is why they seem so stubborn to friends and family who try to cheer them up. "Look you just won the Pulitzer Price for literature! Doesn't that mean you're good?" 'Yeah, it's nice, but just a fluke. I'll never be able to write another work, you'll see." Self-justification, therefore is not only about protecting high self-esteem: it's also about protecting low self-esteem if that is how a person sees himself."
I've always been told or I should say, I've always believed that talking about my success might make people envious and generate negative thoughts, thus talking about my success was a bad thing, something dirty and selfish. I never thought that it would end in my self-esteem being down by the floors. So I'm going to talk about myself in the best way I can, trying to convince myself things are Ok and that I will make it through because I'm a capable human being. But of course, since it's a little bit weird, I might just write it in a weird way.
She was good looking, despite of all the flaws she managed to find in herself. That's why every time she was walking and people would stare at her she would feel so uncomfortable, she thought they were mocking her, looking at her flaws. But that wasn't true and she knew it, because despite of what she told herself in front of the mirror, sometimes when she wasn't paying attention and she had an unexpected glance at her reflection, she would get herself surprised about how pretty she was. Of course she always found a way to justify it, "it's just all the make-up I'm wearing, just the way I did my hair today, just the fact that my thoughts are nice and nice thoughts always get reflected inside-out". However, I am beautiful and I shouldn't feel bad about it. I am allowed to be beautiful and I don't need to justify it to me or to anyone.
She was in grad school, fast track PhD in science, chemistry to be exact. She was convinced she got into the program out of luck, because she had been an exchange student there and her grades the second and third terms were really good, showing that she could make it despite the fact that she had a rough beginning. But of course, the admission committee was unaware of how easy those 2nd and 3rd term courses were. She had somehow managed to convince herself of this. She had read a book about impostor's syndrome but it wasn't really good at helping her solve her problem. However, I am in a competitive program and I got in it because I am smart and I have all the qualities that candidates require to accomplish it. I am intelligent, I have good achievements, I can learn and I do it because I want to do it.
Lately that hadn't been as much of the problem as the fact that she had changed advisors and that was something really hard to do. It felt to her like backstabbing, but it wasn't. It was a good choice and she should feel happy she made it because she wouldn't have been able to stay much longer with her other boss. It didn't matter whether things were working or not before or whether they are working now. She is intelligent, she will find a way. It is true that it might seem to her as if she wasn't doing enough, but she was doing what was right for her at that time and that is perfect. It is true, she was doing great work and learning at her own pace. Not only about chemistry but also about time managing and ego, about dealing with other people in an office and administering her own house. She was a successful adult, I am a successful adult and I deserve to be happy, I deserve to enjoy what I'm doing because it's ok, if I don't I only harm myself. It's ok to be me and go at my own pace, enjoying any results that arise and standing up to other situations that might not be as pleasant. I am here to learn, and I know that if a 5 year old, or 10 or 15 year old, even a 20 year old me saw myself today, not knowing it was myself, I would be proud and I would be inspired, I would want to be like her because that's what I was working to become after all, and I am happy for myself, I just need to make sure I don't forget.
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