Self-Esteem

So on the tail of a speculative stage management post, I suppose I'll post a fairly personal spiel.

Occasionally I play Starcraft II with friends (Boyfriend and Will most often).  I don't play competitively, we play against computers (when I'm playing).  But I still have the tendency to get upset over my perception of the competition.  Will and Boyfriend play Starcraft a great deal more than I do and that shows in our skill levels.  I get frustrated that my army is frequently obliterated or that their scores are frequently more than double mine.

Well, recently after a rather frustrating game for me, Will mentioned (not in these words, but I think this was the essence of what I needed to here) that maybe it wasn't just a problem with competition for me.  Maybe I was equating success in games to self-worth.  I rejected the notion at first.  I've always been competitive and that seemed to be all the explanation I needed.

But I'm not good at just taking a surface thought (of mine) at face value.  Why was I competitive?  Why was winning/do well so important to me?  And I slowly, over the course of a couple weeks, began to realize how deeply my feeling of self-worth was tied into my achievements.  I had to do something successful to make myself feel good.  I couldn't just be happy being me, I had to push myself. I had to be the best, the winner.  Or I had to be perceived as smart, or competent, or capable.  My sense of self-worth was and is deeply tied up with how other perceive me.

Now (I haven't done a post on this, though I've meant to) I am very careful about the face I present to various people. With my closest friends (and to some extent these days my family) I'm just me.  Not really putting out a persona at all.  At work, I'm serious, competent, calm, and in control.  I present myself that way because those are the traits needed for my job.  Now, those traits aren't manufactured.  They are very much part of me.  But I've realized that not only do I present myself that way because it's necessary, but also because if someone doesn't think of me as competent and capable, I tend to feel awful about myself.

I've always thought I had high self-esteem.  I don't care about what people think of me.  I know I'm capable person who does the best she can.  And I suppose that is true to some extent.  If I cosplay something in public, I don't really care what strangers think of me.  But the people I know?  The people that I interact with?  Those are the people who I crave approval from desperately.  I'm constantly surprised when someone praises me, because in my head, it's truly not deserved.  Why would someone praise me...ever.

I need to work on this.  I need to be okay with myself.  I hate realizations like this.