Crisis of Confidence

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 1 minute

It’s been an interesting few days. After surviving layoffs, I find myself with both the opportunity to step into some more of the limelight at work, posting to one of the firms blogs and doing some presentations at outside events, and the need to be more visible and show the value I bring to the firm. At first, I was really excited about the opportunities, and eady to accept the new challenges. Today, however, as I finished up researching and editing my first post, I heard an old, familiar voice. The voice that seems to crop up at these moments with all the old doubts I’ve always felt about myself.

So, rather than being proud of the efforts, and looking forward to sharing what I’ve worked on with other folks, I’m feeling abject fear that the increased visibility is only going to show that I’m not very good at this.

I guess we’ll find out if that is true soon enough. 🙂

I do know, though, that voice is not the truth, and has never been the truth. It’s the voice of my childhood, always making sure that I know I’m not good enough, but I’m not a child any more, and I won’t accept those lies any more. I may try and fail at many things as an adult, and I may prove to not be very good at some things, but I won’t let the doubts of my childhood keep me from trying any way.

Share with your friends!
BlueskyMastodonThreadsLinkedInRedditTumblrBuffer

Similar Posts

  • Discussion

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Over the holiday weekend, my wife and I had a very long, very interesting conversation about relationships. Not the dating, marriage kind, but the people who you spend so much energy trying to impress. It seems like everyone has someone in their life who makes them feel inadequate, someone who’s respect you want the most,…

  • | |

    My Anger Over Roman Polanski

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Last night, instead of relaxing and spending a quiet evening watching the latest episode of Ken Burns documentary on America’s National Parks, I sat by the TV with my laptop reading about the people defending Roman Polanski, and getting very angry that anyone would try and defend someone who raped a 13 year old girl….

  • |

    Why I Took Part in the AFSP Virtual Overnight Event

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 8 minutes

    It was the stories. It was all of those people doing this in memory of someone they lost. Or, like me, in memory of the fact that we are still here instead of leaving others to tell our stories. In our day to day lives, it’s too easy to forget how many people are impacted by suicide each and every year across the country, and the world. The further in time I get away from that time in my own life, the easier it can be to put it behind me and forget about it. But, that is something I never want to do. As painful as it is, I want to remember what it was like to no longer want to be alive. When someone is in that place, I want to be able to say, “I’ve been where you are”, to recall all of the details, and be able to sit and understand. Because that is how we save people. Not by talking in hushed tones about depression, or mental illness, but by sharing the stories of people who survived and healed, and of those we’ve lost.

    Let’s face it, if you spend much time considering those losses, and listening to those stories, it is impossible to walk away without realizing that we have lost a devastating number of people to this disease. Many more than some of the diseases we all gladly talk openly about every day. Yet somehow, maybe because we don’t understand it, or are afraid of it, we keep silent. After all, it might make someone uncomfortable. Even I have, at times, kept the details to myself in fear of making other people uncomfortable, or risk having them worry about me. The more I read and heard these stories though, the more I realized that I needed to share my story, if only so that anyone who reads it would know, and maybe even understand a little bit, what it’s like to be so far down into the darkness of depression, that you don’t want to live any longer. So, with that said, let me share my experience with you, now that it’s been some 25 years, and maybe now people won’t worry so much about me. (Warning, this is about to get dark, and we will talk a bit about suicide, though I will keep those exact details out)

  • |

    Are You Telling Your “Story”?

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 3 minutes

    As an avid user of social media, and the internet in general, I’ve been fascinated watching the popularity of apps like Snapchat, without fully understand the appeal. Recently, however, I’ve blogged about my discovery of how useful something like Snapchat or Instagram’s “story” feature could be: I was a late-comer to understanding what Snapchat could…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

To respond on your own website, enter the URL of your response which should contain a link to this post's permalink URL. Your response will then appear (possibly after moderation) on this page. Want to update or remove your response? Update or delete your post and re-enter your post's URL again. (Find out more about Webmentions.)