Have you noticed that I'm not listening to you anymore?
You've always acted like you've got my best interests at heart, like you only want to protect me, but I'm starting to see that you're only holding me back.
On the bad days, you tell me that I'm not good enough, you flood my head with guilt, make me feel inadequate.
When I sit down to write from the heart, you always say what's the point? There are others who write better than you.
When I try to have an opinion, you tell me that I'm probably not smart enough to express it the right way.
When I give my all to my children, you're there reminding me of the things I didn't do or get right, rather than the things that I did.
When I begin to even dare think about what I'm good at, what I've been successful with or what my goals for the future are, you shut me down and find some way to make out that I've just been lucky or you tell me that it's no big deal.
When I want to organize something and I go to step out of my comfort zone, you keep me securely in it by telling me that people won't really want to meet up, that they'll not really get me or that I won't really get them.
You've stopped me from doing everyday things like driving on the motorway, like meeting up with friends, like being kind to myself. You've desperately tried to control and contain and perhaps even stop me from getting hurt, but in doing so you've caused more hurt than anything else.
I'll be honest, it's been so long that it's hard to shut you out, but after 30 years of listening to your loud and constant voice, I'm starting to learn how to drain you out and I know that in time your voice will drain more and more away until finally, it becomes just the faintest echo.
Learning to ignore you is empowering, it's freeing, it's life-changing. Instead of letting you stand in my way, blocking doors that I want to walk through, I can
finally see that I'm strong enough to push straight past you. I know you don't like it, I know it's hard to let go, but I need to do this for me. To grow and to be able to live this one and only life that I have to the fullest.
So this is a letter to you, my self-doubt, to say that I'm not listening to you anymore. I've been learning not to listen to you for a while now and it's how I intend to move forward with my life. I know they'll be days when you'll knock at my door, you'll try to be let back in when it's raining outside. You'll try to creep in through the windows, underneath the door, anyway that you can. But I won't be letting you in, even when it's pouring outside, because I know that after the rain there's a rainbow, after the storm there is calm and after an end there is a new beginning and I've been learning how to never doubt that or myself again.
