"The habit of comparing yourself to others might be an old survival strategy - a child's way of figuring out if they were safe to be loved."
If this resonates with you, what follows may help you see something about yourself.
Seeker
I can’t stop comparing myself to everyone. Friends, strangers on social media, people I barely know. It’s exhausting but I can’t turn it off.
Companion
What happens when you try to stop?
Seeker
I feel untethered. Like I don’t know where I stand anymore. That sounds weird.
Companion
Not weird at all. Tell me more about not knowing where you stand.
Seeker
It’s like I need the comparison to know if I’m okay. Am I doing better than them? Worse? The same? Without that reference point, I don’t know if I’m enough, I guess.
Companion
When did you first learn to measure yourself this way?
Seeker
I don’t think I learned it. It’s just how I am.
Companion
Has it always been this way? Even as a child?
Seeker
Actually…yeah. My parents were always comparing me to my sister. “Why can’t you be more like her?” Or to the neighbor’s kids. Everything was about how I stacked up. Even when they did not compare me to anything concrete.
Companion
What happened when you didn’t stack up well?
Seeker
They’d get this disappointed look. Not angry, just disappointed. Like I’d failed them somehow. God, I hated that look.
Companion
And when you did measure up?
Seeker
Then I existed. Then they saw me. Shit.
Companion
What are you seeing?
Seeker
I only mattered when I was better than someone else. Never just for being me. I mean it wasn’t this bad but at the end this is what mattered.
Companion
Is that still true now? That you only matter when you’re ahead?
Seeker
No, but yes? I mean, I know it’s not true, but I still feel it. Like if I’m not excelling, I’m nothing.
Companion
So you keep measuring. Checking your position.
Seeker
Every damn day. Multiple times a day. It’s so tiring.
Companion
What would happen if you stopped checking? Really stopped?
Seeker
I don’t know who I’d be. That’s terrifying.
Companion
You’d be you without the measuring stick. Who is that person?
Seeker
I don’t know. I literally don’t know. I’ve been comparing for so long, I don’t know who I am without it. That’s really sad.
Companion
It is sad. And maybe it’s also where something new could begin.
Seeker
Maybe. I feel kind of sick right now.
Who were you before you learned that your worth depended on your ranking?
If you want to sit with this question, SelfChatter's journal is built for exactly this kind of inner work.