August 15: Nobody is allowed to make you feel like shit on a regular basis

Musing on the words of princesses and First Ladies

I love that Co-Star is riffing off of a Princess Diaries quote that’s actually an Eleanor Roosevelt quote. I read this and the first thing I thought about was the iconic masterpiece that is The Princess Diaries, so my apologies to our former First Lady. I’ll make it up to her by finally reading the David Michaelis biography, Eleanor, that’s been waiting on my shelf. I bought it second-hand, and it still has the plastic covering the jacket from its life in the New York Public Library. But I digress. I found this moment in a movie that was so universally consumed to be particularly poignant. Joseph was quoting Eleanor Roosevelt to Mia and the person he was referring to, the one who he saw making Mia feel bad, was her best friend. And until Joseph told her that this wasn’t okay, Mia was internalizing the mean things her best friend said to her. She wore a hat, covering her new hair, because Lily called it her “new Lana-do”. Yes, nobody should be allowed to make you feel like shit on a regular basis. But what if that person is yourself? What happens when you’ve internalized the mean things people have said about you so much that you become your biggest bully?

The Princess Diaries, a perfect movie (Disney)

Plenty of people have made me feel like shit. I had friends who were suddenly not friends, supposedly because of something I’d done. I’ve had family members say mean things to me seemingly out of nowhere. I’ve had bosses who told me after one or two mistakes that I should have been fired. I guarantee that none of the people who come to mind when I recall these moments, moments that cut me to my core, remember what they said to me. Why would they? These were small, fleeting moments in their lives. Because these comments weren’t about them, I doubt they’ve stuck in their minds, haunting them like they’ve haunted me. Their words stung, embedded themselves deeply into my psyche. To this day they feel like scars, ones I run my fingers over to feel the difference in their texture from the surrounding skin. 

Nobody is allowed to make me feel like shit on a regular basis, except apparently me. I make me feel like shit all the time. I hold onto the mean things people have said to me and recall them over and over. Worse, I think about the mean things people could be saying about me. And imagining those words makes them real. The way that I’ve described it in the past, it’s like I think about the worst thing one friend, a friend who knows me well, might say. Then it solidifies in my mind, If I thought this, they must have, too. And when I can’t fall asleep at night, my mind regularly wanders through these moments. It’s not just touching the scars to see if they’re still there, it’s adding more.

I know that if any of the people in my life actually said the mean things I think up in my mind directly to my face, that would be it. Friendship over. I wouldn’t tolerate being around someone who treated me like that. I’d stand up for myself against those who would seek to knock me down a peg. I wouldn’t give them the permission. So why do I give myself permission to be mean to and about myself? Maybe it’s a subconscious strategy I employ to protect myself. I can’t be hurt again by mean people if I’m both meaner and better at doing damage.

But this form of protection isn’t working. I no longer consent to making myself feel inferior. And it started today. I was running a few errands, wearing my standard errands outfit of Lululemon workout crops, a t-shirt and a hat over my recently washed and still kind of damp hair. About 20 minutes into my walk, I saw a girl walking in what was effectively the same outfit. Her legs looked like what I wish mine looked like. And for a moment, all I could think was that the people around us must be comparing the two somewhat matching girls with slightly different body types. They must be thinking that I’m lazy, that I don’t work out, that I lack self-control. I was so sensitive to the thoughts I ascribed to strangers who definitely weren’t thinking about me, let alone paying attention to me.  

But, in the moment I caught myself. I thought about this Co-Star message, and the Eleanor Roosevelt quote, and Amelia Mignonette Thermopolis Renaldi putting a hat over her new hair because she too was sensitive about what people would think. And I stopped myself from making myself feel like shit. This is a thought pattern that I can’t abide any longer. Not if I want to be happier, or healthier, or saner. And it’s going to be a lot of very hard work. A ton of continuous rewiring of my brain and how I speak to myself. Plenty of moments where I may slip backwards. But if I’m mean to myself, it makes it easier to allow others to be mean to me. And that’s not how I want to carry myself through life.

Mia takes off the hat, and would you believe it? She’s totally fine in the long run (Disney)