A Day in the Life of My Brain

Mindfulness is a meditation technique intended to free oneself of excessive and (in my case) often shitty thoughts. It involves being completely in the moment, a calm awareness of one's physical presence and all the feelings and thoughts that go along with it. It is also an element of the ACT therapy that—when I can afford it—has really helped me with my anxiety.

During mindfulness meditation my thoughts sometimes wander, like stray cats, from my breathing. When this happens I'll simply say "thinking thinking" to myself, and then return to focusing on my breath. I've noticed that these thoughts tend to run in a loop—that their contents dwell on similar themes: fear of not getting something I want, fear of losing something I have, and most frequently, the fear of not being enough (coupled with self-destructive ideas about how to remedy that).

This fear of not being enough plays itself out in my thoughts all day long, like a tape playing on loop that was implanted in my brain at an early age. So I decided to try an experiment wherein I record these thoughts and feelings over the course of a day—a day in the garden of low self-esteem, you could call it. This was hard work, because I have a lot of shitty thoughts about myself—so being vigilant was like a full-time job. Because I am a written learner, I thought writing them down might hold me more accountable. Perhaps others with low self-esteem might identify some of their own negative thoughts here and be able to distinguish them from truth.

So, here is a day in the life of my mind:

8:03 AM I don't deserve to eat breakfast. I need to save my calories for later.

9:04 AM People are going to be able to tell tonight that I have disordered eating when I eat all the soup and vegetables out of my ramen but not the noodles.

10:05 AM I should be writing about politics or global tragedy or something. No one gives a shit about my food issues.

11:01 AM People are definitely going to judge this article.

11:02 AM Sometimes I don't even recycle and just throw out something recyclable, because I'm a lazy shit and have compulsive tendencies about getting trash away from me at certain moments.

11:39 AM I'm definitely the worst.

12:08 PM Did that email I sent to L make me seem self-centered? Should I have said "I hope you had a nice July 4th"? But doesn't it seem fake to wish someone a happy 4th so many days after the fact? Do I really care if she had a nice 4th? I doubt she cares about my 4th, even though she said she hopes I had a great 4th. Maybe she does care. Maybe there are people who actually care if people they barely know, with whom they only engage professionally, have good holidays. Am I inhuman for not caring?

12:27 PM The security guard in the parking lot where I eat my diet cheesecake in my car every day thinks something is wrong with me, and he's right.

1:52 PM Something about me suddenly looks very wide. Or, like, bulgey or something.

1:55 PM I'm definitely getting fatter.

1:56 PM People are going to judge me for writing about getting fatter as though it is a bad thing. I should include a note that says I don't judge anyone else's body, it's just my own that I hold to an impossible standard as a result of persistent childhood messaging from my mother that the world would reject me, and she would be deeply ashamed of me, if I gained weight.

1:57 PM I'm a grown woman. How am I still controlled by my mother's messaging?

2:41 PM My skin looks old.

3:04 PM It just seems wrong that I exist.

3:59 PM K thinks I'm needy and am a pain in the ass to work with. I need to prove I'm chill. Do not text her back right away.

4:02 PM Why did I text her back so fast?

4:39 PM I'm gross.

4:47 PM Is there anything I can buy that will make me less me?

6:11 PM T is going to think I'm just using her for her parking spot, because I'm not inviting her to dinner.

6:23 PM In inviting T to dinner she was probably like, Whoa, we just hung out the other day. Take it easy. She thinks I'm weird.

6:25 PM Is this even an article? My editor is going to be like what the hell is this shit? I can't believe they still let me write this column. They'll probably stop soon. I'm just waiting for that email.

7:18 PM I'm basically a giant zit.

8:37 PM I wish I was thicc and confident in my thiccness. I'm trapped in an old paradigm of aspirational thinness.

8:46 PM Do I even deserve to be alive?

9:12 PM At a time very shortly in the near future, none of my clothes are going to fit.

9:13 PM I'm scared to include some of the worst things my mind is saying about my body and its right to exist, because people might say it's too triggering or that I am "romanticizing" self-hatred. I wish I didn't live in fear of an internet mob, like a great tidal wave, swarming me with takedowns.

9:14 PM Write whatever you want. No one is even going to get this far in the "article" because it sucks so bad.

9:38 PM To much fucking hummus on that cracker, bitch. Watch your step.

10:03 PM I'm going to be an old woman who is the hanger-on at other people's Thanksgivings and regret never having children.

10:05 PM Is it bad that I don't like children?

10:08 PM I should include a note in this article that says it's not that I don't inherently like children, it's just that I feel annoyed when a kid is doing some stupid thing and a mom looks at me expecting me to smile, like, "Look at what I shit out! Isn't it adorable?" I should also include a note that says I probably feel this way because I never experienced the kind of unconditional maternal love wherein the mom is just enamored of you no matter what you do. Thus, my disdain for annoying moms and their annoying kids serves to pre-empt any feeling of sadness regarding what I, myself, never had.

10:43 PM Do I even deserve to be nice to myself? My tax dollars pay for drone killings.

11:12 PM Nature is judging me.

11:46 PM I am…loser.

*

So is knowledge power? I'm not sure. One thing I learned by doing this exercise is that my low self-esteem falls into even more distinct categories than I previously thought. Within the realm of the fear of not being enough (or in the case of my body, being too much), there are three sub-divisions I can see: body dysmorphia, being judged by others, and an existential guilt regarding whether or not I deserve to exist.

I've also discovered that it's basically impossible to be aware of all of my thoughts in a given day. There were many times throughout the day when I would feel shitty about myself and then not remember why: like the sting of an insect bite after the bug has disappeared. That sting, I've realized, always does have an insect that incited it. If you're feeling shitty, the feeling most likely originated in a thought.

If you are concerned about your mental health or that of someone you know, visit the Mental Health America website.

Buy So Sad Today: Personal Essays on Amazon , and follow her on Twitter .