Hey there,
I’m back yet again with the ramblings and inner workings of my mind. You might be thinking, “what now?” since my mind is perpetually moving a million miles per minute, and I will continue to share what goes on up there. I want to take a moment to talk about something I refer to as the “Compare Snare.” You maybe already guessed that based on the title of this post. This is something I’ve created in my head that puts meaning into the continuous cycle of toxic comparison we face in today’s world thanks to social media. Whether we admit it or not, we are all comparing ourselves to someone or something. The house, the car, the body, the clothes, the career. Someone else has it, we want it, why are we not good enough to have it? The epitome of the grass is always greener… The list of comparisons goes and goes and goes on some more. It’s human nature. We see the latest trends on Instagram and TikTok, think about it for a second, then scroll right past them and don’t think about it again. Until we see a stranger on the street wearing the hoodie that was trending on TikTok. Then we see our friend with the same hoodie. Now all of a sudden that jealousy ping is slowly rising up. You gotta have the sweatshirt right!?? I know in my experience this is true. This happened to me recently with the Comfrt sweatsuit trend. I saw it online; yeah cool, it’s a sweatsuit. I saw my friend wearing one; omg that looks so cozy, I gotta have it! Aaaaaand, now I have 3 of those damn things. I have zero regrets about having these cozy wonderful things, but c’mon… I was heavily influenced by social media and friends. I was comparing myself to some imaginary level of comfort that others had that I did not. Comparison made the decision for me to purchase those 3 sweatsuits. All of that ENTIRELY unnecessary. Did I need 3 Comfrt sweatsuits? Absolutely not. But was I comparing my life to those who already had them? Absolutely yes. I was comparing my comfortability to theirs. A level of comfort I was convinced would never be achieved without owning one of these sweatsuits. So I had to have one. The ever-present snare drum beating in my ear. The snare drum that’s always lingering in the background and I can’t seem to get rid of it. So, I want to talk a bit about what this looks like for me, and how I overcome and silence of that drum. (Mostly).
As a child, my life was hectic and a little chaotic to say the least. I compared myself to friends and other people at school from a very young age. I mostly had the experience of growing up in trailer parks, but my family moved around a lot, so there was a fair share of apartments, townhouses, and single-family houses; all very brief, and always ending up back at a trailer park. I learned to become this sort of chameleon with every new move. I became an expert at making new friends and adapting myself to the different cultures of every school. I climbed to the top of social ladders, found trendy clothes at thrift stores, and presented myself with a bubbly and approachable demeanor. All the while dying a little bit inside with that comparison snare beating away. I would visit friend’s houses for birthday parties or sleepovers and feel a sadness rise up in my chest. I was homesick for something I didn’t even have. I was comparing my broken family to friends who’s parents had been together since birth. They grew up in the same town, going to the same schools, and had the same best friends for the duration of their life. They didn’t live in trailer parks. They didn’t have to move schools every couple of years (or less), and recreate a life and make new friends. I found myself feeling extremely jealous. And jealousy is one of the worst things that can arise from comparison. Jealousy is ugly and it can turn you into an ugly person REALLY fast. Trust me, I know. By the time I was in 10th grade, I became that ugly person; ugly with jealousy and toxic comparisons. I was hardened on the outside.
I spent the year and a half prior to 10th grade surrounded by wonderful people. The friends I made in the second half of 8th grade into the first half of 9th grade were good people. I briefly lived in a small town, and these friends welcomed me like family. I’ll never forget my first day; the counselor walking me into the middle of the science class that would soon be mine. The teacher stopped the class, and as I stood up in the front of the classroom introducing myself, everyone beamed at me. All of the students said hi, and after class I had a group of people surrounding me asking questions and asking me to sit with them at lunch. I didn’t think it was real life. I was actively comparing this school and these people to my previous one. Not that the previous one was bad, it was just different. More suburban. People weren’t as tight knit or “nice.” But by allowing this snare drum to continue beating in my mind, I villainized my previous home because my new home was seemingly better. This was a damn Disney Channel Original Movie for crying out loud. People like this didn’t really exist. But they did exist here, and I finally felt like I was home.
Now, I need not say this; I wasn’t home. We moved again about 14 months later when I was in the middle of 9th grade. The time i spent with these people, who I’m still not 100% certain were real, was incredible. There were family dinners, sleepovers, homecoming celebrations, long lunch tables, a friend group like no other. And when I say that, I mean it. You don’t always see a group of early teen girls with little to no drama. I think maybe the biggest set of drama was me having a crush one someone that one of the other girls in my friend group had a crush on. Big deal right? Maybe to middle school girls it is a big deal, but looking back, I don’t think it was that big of a deal. I think we ended up having a dual crush and moving on. Anyway, not the point. The point is, I was enjoying this time with my friends and their families so much that I stared to dread going home to my own reality. I was embarrassed to have friends over, even though at the time we lived in a pretty decent sized log cabin style house at the time. It was the family dynamic that embarrassed me. My mom was (still is) a yeller, my step-dad was an alcoholic, my grandma smoked weed in the basement, and my asshole of an uncle lived with us. (Sorry Bud, you were an asshole then, and you’re still an asshole now. Some things never change.)
So, I wanted to continue living in this alternate reality that wasn’t mine to have. The more time that passed, I found my appreciation for all of these wonderful qualities turn into a bitter jealousy. It started small at first, but it grew into an ugly monster. Like in the Berenstain Bears book ‘The Green-Eyed Monster.’ The book about jealousy, obviously. My hardening shell didn’t really come out all the way during my time living here, but the snare drum was beating in my head. Louder and louder. And it grew faster and faster. I became a little bit sassy towards the end. But then we moved. We moved only 2 towns over (which was about 20 miles) but my friends and I were convinced we would still see each other all the time, but when you’re 13, it just doesn’t work out that way. You can’t drive, and the distance wasn’t bikable. (Not a word). My current friends had friends in this town and basically tried to “set me up” with some friends at the new school. Compare Snare coming through. These people are so good that they make friends at other schools? Of course they did. These artificial friendships concocted by my nice friends were a nice gesture, but it simply didn’t work out. They were superficial friendships. Pity friendships. Aww, poor girl doesn’t have any friends of her own; let’s be nice to her. And this new place was the single most hated experience I had with a new school. There were a few welcoming students, but the town was bigger, which meant more people to stand up against. A few nice people befriended me, but I was made fun of by others. I actually made a “friend” who lived right down the street from me, and I was so relieved to finally have a good friend at school. Joke was on me. She talked to me outside of school, but when we got to school she pretended she didn’t know me and ACTUALLY made fun of me with her group of friends. It was awful. And you know what? I still continued hanging out with her outside of school. I was desperate for acceptance.
This particular school and time in my life is what continued to make me “hard.” My soft, sensitive, vulnerable self on the inside became guarded and also trapped by this armor on the outside. I was the tin man. I was empty on the inside. I was only at this school for about 3 months before we moved again, but it felt like a lifetime of torture. To this day, if I drive through that town, I get this pit in my stomach. Which isn’t very often THANK GOD! This place is where I became a loner who acted like I didn’t give a damn what people thought. When in all reality, I did care. I was comparing myself and trying to measure up to some arbitrary standard that I decided this school had set for me, and it ate me alive. I was so sad. I felt like I had no one. I started participating in risky behaviors like smoking cigarettes and promiscuity. And it all went unnoticed. My step dad was so deep into his addiction that he either didn’t know or didn’t care. My mom was always working, just trying to make ends meet. I felt invisible. Again, I was comparing my life to the lives of teens on sitcoms, movies, and friends’.
TRIGGER WARNING: SENSITIVE CONTENT COMING!
When we lived here I attempted suicide. I truly thought that was the only way to end my pain. This was my first bout of mental health treatment; a prelude for the rest of my life. My mom is pretty supportive now, but I just remember being shamed for it at the time. What is so bad in your life that you want to kill yourself? As an early teen, there are already enough hormonal changes happening, then add mental illness. Again, I found myself comparing to those without mental illness. The ones who just wake up “happy” and start doing stuff. By the way, is that even a thing?? I still wonder about that (comparing myself maybe??).
So anyway, when I started receiving treatment for depression and anxiety, things (as they do), got worse before they got better. It was that game of medication roulette (comparing to people who don’t have to take medication). It was that zombie like state of being (comparing myself to people who don’t eat brains). It was the hospitalization (comparing myself to people who aren’t “crazy”). It was the mood swings (comparing myself to those who are level-headed). And ultimately, it was the development of my biggest insecurity to date. So naturally, I continue to compare myself. What am I doing wrong? What am I doing right in terms of my mental health? Social media is a blessing and a curse, because you can build community around mental health, but you also start to heavily compare your life to those who seemingly have it all put together, despite having a mental illness. They don’t have it all together by the way, none of us do. We’re just really good at pretending (winky face).
And there it is, the word “pretending”. That’s the one I get hung up on. Pretending can be so strong. For the littles, it’s so strong that they have the ability to get lost in it and have a great time making hamburgers out of dirt for 2 hours. And for us bigs, it’s so strong that it can destroy your life. We sure can get lost in it alright. Pretending to be “okay” when you’re really in a deep dark depressive episode. Pretending your life is perfect and posting it all over social media. Pretending you have more money than you do because you’ve got a large credit limit. Pretending that big conversation doesn’t need to happen with a loved one after a disagreement. Then comes pretending it doesn’t affect you when your post doesn’t get any likes, when you don’t get invited on the weekend getaway, when you hear a ridiculous rumor about yourself, etc… The pretending piece is why I hate the “fake it till you make it” concept. While that saying does hold wisdom, it also holds us to a standard of perfectionism to strive for.
I was on the “fake it till you make it” path for a long time. I gained a lot of progress and accomplished many goals during this time, but when the faking it act became too heavy to carry, I crashed and burned so hard that all the progress made during my “faking it” was wiped clean. So glass half-full vs. glass half-empty; Half-full would sat that I learned what I was capable of, trials made me stronger, I know what to do differently next time, and blah blah blah. Here comes the half-empty right? Because it’s easy to beat ourselves down and COMPARE ourselves to how others would have handled the situation, or even how our past self would have handled it differently. Half-empty would say: you were just being weak, you were just being lazy and you could have kept going. There are a lot of other things my half-empty half-assed brain says to me, but I’ll just leave it at that for now. The point is, faking it until making it can be both a positive and a negative. Because what are we “making it” to exactly? We’re making it to this thing that we so desperately want out of comparison.
Compare, compare, compare. Isn’t that technically what we do all day long? We compare the prices for groceries and gas. We compare this outfit to that outfit. We compare our parenting styles to that of our friends. We compare our current self to our past self, or maybe to our future self that we so greatly want to become. We compare things without even thinking about it. So how do we quiet that compare snare when it’s doing more harm than good? No. Seriously, I’m asking, because I have yet to figure it out. But I will touch on some things that do help me quiet the drum.
- Limit Social Media: I’ve deleted all social media apps on my phone and even deactivated some accounts that no longer serve me. I set aside “scheduled” social media time if I want to peruse for a bit, but I have to physically log in which adds a barrier. And the human brain ain’t like barriers.
- Write About It: Now this one isn’t for everyone. Maybe just those of us who have the brain of a squirrel. But I write (obviously). I journal about whatever I’m spending my time comparing myself to. Sometimes I create short stories about these things, or even use it for a main idea for novel writing. I don’t know why, but it helps.
- Pray: Can I get an Amen? Give it to Him. He will listen, and He will take it.
Soooooo, to wrap things up, I’ll just say that the moral of the story is that we all compare ourselves and tell ourselves we’ll never measure up. But that’s not true. So stop it (me included). There wasn’t too much advice on this subject in here, and also- I’m sorry it turned into my middle school sob story… not really sure where that came from. But as always, thanks for listening.
Talk soon,
Corrah
