Dearest reader: let’s talk low self esteem

Hello my dearest Reader ☺️☺️

I know it’s been a minute since we talked here … and I feel I owe you. Haha, I actually do owe you big time, starting with several follow up stories on “my daddy ain’t the devil" … and I apologize I’ve kept you waiting so long. I own up to not keeping my word, I admit my inner saboteur has been having a field day telling me how “I can’t even keep my word on a few articles let alone dream of having a blog".

I’ll admit I wanted to delete the comments I’d written under that “my daddy ain’t the devil" article promising to publish the follow up on the day I made the comment, so that the world wouldn’t have a record of my “failure" to deliver in public… but I decided to keep the comment. First to teach inner child about owning up to our shortcomings, that deleting the comment so there’s no record of “my failure” doesn’t change the fact that the actual promised wasn’t delivered, and deleting the comment wouldn’t have changed that fact. So, instead of trying to appear put together to the public, let it stay and bear witness to the fact that in life we fail, but we can own up to our shortcomings, forgive ourselves and proceed from where we left, there’s no other way around it, and that’s a beautiful lesson just by itself.

That said, the follow up to the article is coming soon.

For today, today I’d let you in a little bit more, and share here with you a love letter I wrote earlier to God…and before you go running off because you aren’t into that “ God and faith stuff"… I’d like you to just stay and read the letter. You don’t need to believe to see the kind the conversations one can have with God.

I am a person who’s struggled a lot with trusting God. Actually I have been ashamed of sharing my faith in God publicly because of fear that certain people I used to hold in high regard will think less of me for being a person that believes in God, let alone sharing it.

And you may be wondering “Seriously, Risper, you have held back sharing something so fundamental and key to your identity so you can impress some people?” Yes, yes I have been ashamed of God. Yes I have been ashamed of the gospel. Yes, I have been ashamed of being a person of faith. And yes I have been such a sucker for validation that I’d rather deny or underplay how important my relationship with God is before some people, than admit that I am a believer and have them despise me.

Let me explain myself:

See, first of foremost, I have struggled with a chronically low self esteem since I joined high school, Alliance Girls High School. I am mentioning the school intentionally to form a foundation for what I share in this article and the next two.

Alliance Girls being a national school, anyone who’s Kenyan and has gone through public education in Kenya probably has an opinion about the school itself, and the people who attended the school. You, dear reader, probably already have an opinion about me just by virtue of knowing the the school I attended.

People are likely to assume a lot of things about people who went to schools like Alliance Girls. Some hate such schools and the people who went there with a passion, for whatever reason.What I’d encourage someone who hates people who attended such schools, is examine “what are you so threatened by?” Often times what masquerades as self righteous gate is actually just a mask for feeling threatened, unsettled, uncomfortable.

Some assume that people who went there are proud and entitled snobs who “tweng", speak a lot of English (haha I’ve heard this one a lot), and think they are better than others. And Some just despise such schools and it’s people and that’s just it. May be you dear reader could actually be one of the people with one of these opinions… and that’s totally cool with me, I just need you to keep reading.

Then there’s another set of assumption about people who went to such schools as Alliance Girls, or may be it’s the expectations people have about people who went to such schools. It is assumed that someone who went there should have it together, they know what they want in life and they go for it. It is expected such people are confident, have high self esteem… hell it can even be assumed that they have such high self esteem to the extent that they come off as proud, or that they are actually very proud. It is assumed or expected that such people have more luck in the world than others, and may be they do … it makes sense why mentioning that one is or was at a school like Alliance Girls draws so much opinion… because it is all based on assumptions. And these assumptions feel so real and so true to the person holding the assumption, their assumption is literally their truth. And unfortunately, this is how so many people also operate: they have made so many assumptions in life, lived and believed those assumptions for so long, and now their assumptions are their truths, and they cannot even tell apart their assumptions from reality. An example is how you could be hating someone who you’ve assumed certain things about and you aren’t willing to change your mind about them no matter what.

Unfortunately, in the same way, we also have adopted harmful thinking patterns based on half truths and insufficient information, and these thinking patterns are driving us to depression. Some of us have things they believe as the truth about them yet it’s not even their own thoughts but it’s the voice of shame that has been running their psyche since they were kids, and now they can’t let themselves free because what shame has been saying about them has been so loud and has been said for so long, they don’t believe it could be wrong what they think. Eg, believing that you’re ugly because your shame has been saying in comparison to everyone else you’re are ugly… “you have big pimples on your face , you have “upara"(receding hairline),you have “kitambi"(big tummy), you are too dark, you’re too skinny, you’re too “heavy”, you walk funny, you’re poor, you have money, you speak with your mother tongue accent…” and so “you’re insufficient, you’re in imperfect, you are ugly." We have believed that because we are not perfect, then we are somehow less worthy… less worthy of love, joy, peace, good friendships etc … I know you could be thinking, “but a low self esteem is not an assumption.” …

Low self esteem is a result of faulty assumptions my friend, like how we assumed we are not as cool as the cool kids in high school and so we had so self esteems based on not feeling cool enough because our shame said we were not and we believed it and yet I’ve just told you shame never speaks from a place of whole truth…

Anyways back to Alliance Girls high school and my low self-esteem. Except on the first day of reporting to the school, since then to the very last day in that institution to after the school, I’ve struggled with low self esteem. I mean this was a school with people so smart, smarter than me my shame said… people from such rich families and here I was on a scholarship… girls so pretty, so talented, so well-spoken, so confident, such go-getters, so well connected to the boys at Alliance Boys High school and I didn’t even have a friend from there … girls so good at literally almost everything.

“And here you are", my shame said, “ Here you are in the glory of all your poverty from Kirinyaga. Here you are, you unworthy and ugly girl, you’re short, you have no boobs, you have ugly pimples on your face(acne)… you can’t swim and yet everyone else can( an untrue assumption told to me by shame by the way)… you’re not as smart as so and so… you’re bad at acting because you have no experience yet some in your drama club have been acting all their primary school life, what chance would you stand against them. Just drop out of every club you pathetic thing… you don’t belong there. The people who belong there are people like Julian and Grace and Christine and Judy … because they look right, and they come from the right places, and they come from the right families, and they have the right skills. They are perfect. They are good. They are okay. They deserve to be in those clubs, and in doing big things in school, and take up leadership. You my dear Risper, do not belong, do not deserve, do not qualify… just save yourself the humiliation and not step into places you’re not worthy of being in"

My dearest friends, my time at Alliance Girls High school was probably the most miserable time of my life. My shame was so loud, my inner critic so loud, my internal language so harsh and unfair and demeaning as you can see from the above… I cried so many times before evening preps. I’d go to the field near the swimming pool before evening preps, which was very far from the tuition blocks, pretend I’m going for a run before prep as the “healthy” girl that I was… but what no one knew is that I was going down there to cry, so I can cry in private. So I could cry without anyone seeing me cry and know that I am weak yet I pretend to be this strong unshakable outspoken confident girl. I used to go ask God what was wrong with me, why wasn’t I like other people, why wasn’t I as pretty, why wasn’t I born in a place with more money, why was I ugly, why didn’t I have any friends from Alliance boys high school yet the girls I was comparing myself to and wishing I was like had all the things I wanted.

I remember the pain and emotion with which I cried in that field at Alliance Girls high school… all I wanted was to be something. I had been dreaming of joining this school, here I was and it was now my nightmare! I just wanted to do the things I had been excited of being able to do because Alliance Girls had the resources, but my mind was so wound up in shame, pain, comparison, insecurities, low self esteem and feeling like a failure. All I had wanted to do when I got to Alliance Girls was join the drama club, learn how to swim and swim in this my school’s real life swimming pool ( I’d never been to a real swimming pool before Alliance Girls), join the scouts team and do well in school work. That’s all I ever wanted.

Dear reader, let me disabuse you of any assumptions you may have had about spaces like national schools ( people going to universities abroad ect )… you think the people there are fine? They may be, but let me tell you, for the most part people there are screwed up messes. They are as human as they come, except that they have the added disadvantage of people expecting so much of them.

I really really really really tried dear reader I did try, but my shame was just too loud too defeatist, I wasn’t able to rise above it … by the time I finished Alliance Girls I had not joined scouts or learned how to swim. The only club I managed to join was the school drama club, and this I joined in my third year there ( form three), and I joined out of fear that I had indeed my time there was running out and I hadn’t done any of the things I’d wanted. I figured yes, I was a failure, but at least let me be a failure who went out having at least done one of the things I had wanted. I mostly joined to see if I could salvage myself from being the failure my shame had declared me to be

I have allowed myself to call myself a failure in the latter, but I’d like to distinguish here that that’s what I was telling myself then. My shame was so loud, and unfortunately I had no idea that there is a difference between me and my shame. I believed that the voice of my shame was actually me, my voice, and I believed that I was the one telling myself all those mean things.

Unfortunately, with shame, it’s language is so angry, so mean, so vicious, it tears you down and apart until there’s nothing remaining. You run on fumes because your own mind is an intolerable house. I joined drama club on fumes, because even there my shame made my life unbearable. It was so loud about how I was “Such a failure, joining drama club with form ones when you’re a form three. You’re so pathetic really, you’re learning basics when you should be a pro by now?! You had all these years since form one to have joined, and being the pathetic you you are you couldn’t do it. You think by joining now you’ll redeem yourself? No, no, my dear Risper you are not redeemed. What you are is a failure. You can’t redeem yourself, you had your time, and you didn’t do anything with it, confirming my point once again, that this- you joining the drama club now- won’t save you from the fact that you have already failed".

When I say I’d cry almost every evening before preps my friends, I wasn’t kidding. How could I compete with a voice so loud? How could I convince it to let me breath? How could I get up from under such a loud saboteur when I didn’t even know that what it was saying wasn’t true about me? I didn’t know to distinguish the voice from the girl me who had been so excited and happy and confident and hopeful and with big happy dreams and aspirations when I joined the high school. So I would go cry ask God to help me to not be so mean to myself, I’d ask him to just help me be a bit kinder to myself… I would then just cry loudly toward the tap at the edge of the field while the wind carried my tears, wash my face, dry the water and apply lip balm and look put together as I entered our class for the evening preps

The people who knew me in school would actually have told you that I was loud, and mean, and capable of sharp words( especially in form one) … they would have said I was confident. And I did appear confident. I know because I used to pretend to be confident so no one could see how afraid and scared I was, I used to cover up for my insecurities by being mean to others (early on in form one) … and then when I decided to be a better person and not be mean to others( from form two, 14 going to 15 years of age) that angst and mean language was turned inward, and made for what I consider to have been the roughest season for my mental health. I am actually pretty sure that my time at Alliance Girls is what laid the foundation for my depression during campus.

Look, my dearest reader, I hope that story has demonstrated the power of assumptions. The power of the assumptions from which our shame talks to us. And how damning and destructive it is. I hope you note how important it is that you do whatever you have to do to learn distinguishing the voice of your shame, your inner critic from you… I hope you see how shame spirals and builds on itself. It is shame that discouraged me and told me I was not worthy and deserving of the things I wanted to be and do, like swim, be a scout and join drama club, and so I didn’t do them out of feeling so down and defeated. And then this same shame attacked me and ridiculed me calling me a failure who could not do something as basic as join those clubs, and then further declared that even if I joined drama in form three that couldn’t save me from the stench of me as the “failure I already was".

I may not get into the details here, but I hope this story helps you understand why I may have been a person that looked for external validation to feel worthy.

In the next article, I share the poem I wrote to God and explain a bit of my seeking of validation, and why I have even been “ashamed of the gospel”.

See you in the next article ☺️.