“Almost my whole life I’ve allowed other people’s opinions to carry more weight than my own truth. The unfair feeling of it all is making me want to break out of this.”

No matter how hard one tries, I would continue to argue that there is no way another can understand you as intimately as you understand yourself, even if you share every painstaking detail of your life down to the every minute. Most people are not even bothered to consider what you may have said leading to whatever conclusion they may have drawn. What they have seen, as they say, is what has not been seen is the construct of their understanding of you.
A lack of self worth is often the result of the fear of being misinterpreted and the need for approval. You end up being the person others want you to be, and in the process, you disobey your own set of rules and compromise on your dignity and self worth. There are mental walls you construct to keep yourself in control, and all that work is futile as your individuality is lost in the process. Whether you like it or not, the fear of rejection even when people don’t like you for reasonable reasons is self destructive to say the least. The mental stress of dissecting a multitude of reasons for your perceived failure and excessive control towards seeking appreciation is no less than an unhealthy practice.
Even when your first instinct is to fix how you’re perceived, you cannot control how others form their interpretations. Their opinions should not be the measure of your self worth. The same energy once spent on excessive explaining and defending can be redirected into something life changing. When speaking to yourself, you should offer the same patience and respect you would give a child or a friend. Their mistakes may be just as serious, yet you respond with compassion, something you often deny yourself
Once you’ve made a mistake and learned from it, you deserve respect and grace equal to or greater than the respect and grace that you afforded yourself. Good things come to those who wait, and it is true for people for their good character. They would not wait for their good character to be rewarded for selfish reasons. The good thing ultimately comes from acceptance of self, and the good character does not wait for the good things to come to them to practice that self acceptance.

— Hannah’s Archive, Shut Up, You’re the Only One That Knows (Substack)
full article → https://open.substack.com/pub/hannahsarchive/p/shut-up-youre-the-only-one-that-knows

Shut Up, You’re the Only One That Knows You