How to not feel like a loser

A guide by your friendly, neighbourhood girl.

Song of the post: Shine by Pentagon

Last week, I finally got my first dose of the vaccination. And just as I had been gloriously recovering from my slump, I had to go get jabbed. I worked up the nerve to ask the nurse to stab me in the right arm (non-dominant) instead of my left. And it was one of the best decisions I ever took because my right arm had hurt a lot (and still does) and I can’t imagine how much worse I would’ve felt if I had gotten the jab in my left arm.

Today, after nearly a week of falling sick with fever and body aches and sleeplessness, I finally worked up the courage to use the strength in my one good arm to wash my hair. My hair was simply falling and it was sticky and I felt icky and slightly disgusting. So I stood under the shower and watched as my medium-length hair moved in little swirls before making their way to the drain-filter. Were they glad be finally out of my skin and rejoiced when they met the others? I don’t know.

I felt better, for sure. But was it worth the fatigue my left arm has felt all day? Still debating.

Which brings us to feelings. Today afternoon, I took a long, unintentional nap because I didn’t feel like doing much. My laptop was charging and the thought of lifting it with the wires, moving it around so that they don’t tangled and I don’t get electrocuted made my hand ache instantly. So I napped and thought about what a loser I was for not being able to lift a laptop or move the dining table chairs so I could just sit there and do my work. (Work meaning futile job hunting, finishing up my stories that will probably never see the light of day and catching up on fanfiction or video updates from artists that I like.) And that pushed me down a spiral of all these negative feelings of inadequacy and incompetency and lack of ambition and whatnot. The usual stuff. But these come and go. Feeling like a loser was new.

But was I really a loser? And what made anyone one? Who really “wins” in life? Who really loses? Is there a secret recipe to win that only few of them have and the rest don’t so they’re all deemed losers (apart from privilege, of course)? I really don’t have answers to any of these. But I did try to understand why I was feeling the way I was and tried to not feel that way because being a “loser” isn’t a permanent state at all.

(These are some things I noticed while I was navigating through these feelings and thought it might help. I am not an expert so these are just things that helped me and may not work for you.)

Step 1: Allow yourself to feel like a loser. We’re all human and we all have a finite amount of energy and it’s okay that we use that for something like dancing your ass off to your favourite song instead of halfheartedly submitting an application. If it makes you feel like a loser, let it. Let it wash over you but don’t forget how much you smiled when you decided to learn to twerk to the beat and felt like you achieved something that you didn’t think you could five years ago. That is not loser behaviour.

Step 2: Believe that you are not a loser. Because you aren’t. Take a deep breath, hold it, and exhale out all the feelings of loser-dom. At this point in time and age, the only thing really winning at life is the stupid pandora. So, there is no question of winning or losing with us humans when all of us are just simply trying to survive.

Step 3: Think of what is making you feel this way. Whenever my therapist used the term “reflect”, I used to mentally gag because two years ago, I did not know how to reflect. But now I do. I do more than reflect these days, I overthink a LOT (and will have to learn to dial that down a notch) and I know to reflect. It usually helps me when I write down about these feelings, how they came about, what kind of circumstances were around the “origin” of these feelings and just let that flow until I feel better. Then I look at the whole thing and figure out the point that brought about these feelings and see what I can do. Sometimes I can do something about it but many times, they’re out of our hands. Feelings of helplessness and hopelessness come about but you can decide whether or not they’re welcome to stay.

Step 4: Repeat step-2. Also, drink a big glass of water.

Step 5: If you still feel like a loser after 4 steps, take a nap. A nice, hour-long nap, curled with your favourite hoodie or stuffed animal, and waking up with the post-nap glow that is usually otherwise impossible to achieve usually does the trick for me.

Step 6: If the nap doesn’t help, or if you don’t like taking naps, getting some sun would be great idea too. I hope the weather is nice enough that there is some amount of sunlight that falls on your skin and help you feel alive. Usually for me, a few minutes of fresh outdoor air helps. Don’t forget to mask up!

I don’t really know how to do the closing of this kind of post so I’m just going to say, take care!