How I swap self-comparison for self-compassion

Topics mentioned: perfectionism, body image, anxiety, depression, social media, self-esteem

About: For Meg, self-comparison started with pressures at school, uni and on social media. She explains how her eating disorder recovery gave her the tools to choose self-compassion instead.

This blog contains reference to eating problems. Please do not read on if you think the content may be triggering for you. If you are currently struggling with your mental health, please visit our find help page for information, advice and guidance on where to get support.

In a society that doesn’t seem to let us sleep – with rising pressures from every direction and an increasing use of social media – it makes it almost impossible not to get caught in the trap of self-comparison. We all engage in self-comparison with others, but who defined what it is to be successful, beautiful, or have the most “ideal” body?

These distorted ideals that we compare ourselves to lead to low self-worth, as we compare ourselves to unattainable ideals. So, let’s try and swap self-comparison for self-compassion and give ourselves the kindness we deserve.

Self-comparison can take hold of people who often, like myself, have mental health challenges that coincide with an internal critic – like a small bully with a big voice sitting on your shoulder. You compare your flaws or your lowest moments with others’ best angles, poses, or successes. No wonder this makes us feel inadequate.

I know how it feels to constantly worry that you're not enough, or that you're less worthy than other people. But when I stop and consider the evidence, I realise it’s only myself that these beliefs come from. A constant need to compare yourself to others and having no leeway for faults is unachievable.

This took up most of my university years, and looking back I lost so much time to comparing myself instead of actually living. I look back at photos of myself in first year and sometimes I can't even recognise that person. So different from the person who used to go out, see her friends and have a work-life balance because I wasn’t stuck in such a self-depreciating cycle of comparison fuelled by pressure.

By the end of my degree, I was struggling to take even ten-minute breaks, compulsively needing to entertain the ever-rising pressures from professionals and myself. I thought if I allowed myself any time for self-care, I’d no longer live up to these absurdly high standards. This was my second depression episode I’ve experienced at university and the role comparing myself had in driving my mental health downwards is unbelievable, and something I would not wish upon anyone else.

Sadly, academia is not where the self-comparison ends. The rise of social media has made it all too easy and accessible to compare ourselves to “ideals” of others. Comparing our entire selves, flaws and failures and everything in between to the glamourised glimpses of others, and not stepping back long enough to realise that this comparison is just not equal.

The digital age has fuelled the fire of comparison, and for people like me who suffer from an eating disorder (as well as anxiety, depression and OCD in my case), it has made it ten times easier to engage in self-critical self-comparisons 24/7. It can satisfy the critic in your brain while making you feel smaller and smaller.

Body image comparisons, tips for “healthy eating” and diet culture are all too easy to stumble upon online. Even if we don’t actively participate in these “trends”, the messages become internalised. I think the danger is that sometimes we don’t even realise we’ve internalised these messages into how we view ourselves.

Without the constant reminder to compare myself, I can focus on recovery. Along with professional help from my dietitian, psychiatrist and psychologist, recovery has involved a lot of personal effort to put self-help exercises in place throughout my day. While I know this is personal preference, I use lots of:

• grounding exercises
• breathwork
• self-compassion journalling

They are part of my recovery that has helped me notice my emotions and together with therapy, enabled me to behave by my values rather than by my negative voice.

How social media portrays a person isn’t always transparent and whole. This awareness is something we all need, and something so important to teach young people. We all mask our reality online and instead broadcast our best sides, in a secret war of beauty, success, intelligence, we forget that inside, we are all doing exactly the same thing. No wonder our generation is tired.

Instead of feeding our internal critic, why don’t we show ourselves the compassion we would show others? No one is perfect, no one person has the perfect body, no one diet is “good” or “bad”. These things are not black and white and everyone is unique.

Something I’ve learnt through recovery is that when it comes to body image, there is no one-size-fits-all, no perfect ideal. If you believe there is, you will constantly be searching, constantly fuelling that disordered voice.

Instead, let’s show ourselves some kindness, appreciate everything we are, including our flaws, because at the end of the day that is what makes us human.