Okay so I’ve NC for this because I use the site a lot and don’t want to be identified. I apologise in advance for the length.
I’m having huge issues with confidence and I wonder firstly if anyone else has been where I am and if you have what you did about it. I feel crippled with self doubt and no confidence and I don’t know where to begin.
So in my twenties I had a successful career (where I met my husband) and I was a very confident person. I’m no raving beauty but I was outgoing and interesting and just felt like a proper person, you know? Life wasn’t perfect but I didn’t doubt who I was. From as soon as I met my DH we were very happy and life wasn’t exactly a bowl of cherries but it was good.
I have three kids, all born in quick succession and who are lovely. They’re 8, 6 and 4 and par the baby stage and becoming proper people and they’re amazing, I know I’m lucky to have them. I had some problems conceiving the first two but once that was overcome things were okay. I did however have some health issues in pregnancy that have never really gone away.
As a result of the illness, which has gotten worse over the last ten years, I had to give up work. I worked part time at first but was killing myself. I wasn’t devastated to leave the job but I was sad to leave something that I had previously been great at, even if I wasn’t anymore. Since then I’ve had a couple of jobs here and there, done some freelance work, had some success. But my confidence is shot. This year I had a contract not be renewed- because of Covid in theory but my confidence at that job wasn’t great and I never felt like I became good at it and I believed it wasn’t renewed deep down because I’m crap. I’ve now just been ghosted by a client for some freelance work (that I had been doing for a couple of months and I thought was going well and the client had indicated was going well) and I just feel so, so useless.
My kids are lovely and healthy and I’m so lucky, I know that. My husband is amazing and kind and I’m so lucky he earns enough that my not working much isn’t an issue. I have good friends and a lovely family and I own my own house and I am just starting a prestigious Masters at a decent uni that I know I was lucky to get on to. I also have been awarded higher level PIP after a long struggle that I’ve really fought for and I know I’m lucky with that too because it gives ke some freedom. But when I look in the mirror I just see this huge failure who’s flitting around uselessly, over forty and with no career anymore and just this string of failures. Can’t hold down a job, isn’t good at anything, is ill and tired all the time.
I feel like I’m stuck in this feedback loop of thinking I’m not good enough and I don’t know how to sort it out. I didn’t used to be like this. I feel like a layer of skin has been taken off who I used to be. I see friends and ex colleagues juggling heavy duty careers (in my old profession, some of them) with motherhood and acing it and I just think why couldn’t I manage any of that?
I am very down and don’t know how to solve it. Any help or suggestions will be very gladly taken on board. I feel quite stuck. I have spoken to my DH about it but he always just says I’m being daft and I’m amazing etc, which is lovely and I believe he really thinks that but I also feel resentful because he’s got his full career with no health issues and garners respect. Meanwhile I’m just this useless lump on the school run. I want to know how to feel like me again.
Thanks if you got this far.