Hey, how do I stop being so judgmental and thinking I’m better than other people when I know I’m really not?
I know this is an issue for me, and I’ve tried to ignore it, but I can’t. Sometimes I feel like I’m better than everyone, and other times I feel like I’m the worst person ever. I’m constantly going back and forth between feeling superior and feeling inferior, and I don’t know where it comes from. I’ve been like this since I was a kid, and I want to change before I get any older. I’m a teenager right now.
Honestly, I mostly feel this way about other girls. Sometimes guys too, but mostly girls, and I’m a girl myself, so I don’t really understand why. When I see another girl online, sometimes my first thought is something negative, like, “Wow, she’s ugly.” Then I immediately regret thinking it.
It’s especially bad when I see girls who are confident. I feel this automatic dislike toward them, sometimes even hate, and I don’t understand why. Maybe it’s insecurity, but I want it to stop.
I never say these things to people or post them online. It all stays in my head. But I still don’t like that my mind goes there in the first place. I want to change. I just don’t know where to start.
The first thing I want you to understand is that having a mean thought is not the same thing as choosing to be a mean person.
Your brain can throw something at you before you have consciously decided anything. The important part is what happens next. And right now, what happens next is that you notice the thought, you don’t like it, and you don’t act on it. That’s actually where change starts.
But I don’t think ignoring these thoughts is going to work.
You need to get curious about them.
You said something really important: confident girls seem to bother you the most. Pay attention to that. When you see a confident girl and immediately think, “She’s ugly” or “I hate her,” ask yourself a different question:
“What about her feels threatening to me?”
Maybe she has confidence you wish you had. Maybe she gets attention you want. Maybe she looks comfortable in herself while you’re constantly measuring yourself. Maybe somewhere along the way you learned that other girls are your competition.
The insult might not actually be about her at all.
And that swing between “I’m better than everybody” and “I’m the worst person ever” sounds like you’re constantly trying to figure out where you rank. Above them means you’re okay. Below them means you’re worthless.
That’s an exhausting way to live.
The goal isn’t to convince yourself that everyone else is amazing and you’re amazing too. The goal is to stop turning human beings into a ranking system.
Someone else can be beautiful without you becoming ugly. Someone else can be confident without you becoming less important. Another girl can get attention without taking something away from you.
When the judgment shows up, don’t panic and don’t punish yourself for having it. Catch it. Then challenge it.
“She thinks she’s so pretty.”
Okay. Why does that bother me?
“She’s annoying.”
What specifically did she do?
“I hate girls like her.”
What am I afraid she has that I don’t?
Do that enough times and you’ll start discovering what is underneath the judgment.
Also, be careful about turning this into another reason to hate yourself. Calling yourself horrible because you had a cruel thought is just the other side of the same problem. You’re still ranking somebody. This time it’s you at the bottom.
You’re a teenager. You are still learning who you are, what you value, and how you want to treat people. You caught this pattern early. That’s useful.
Practice noticing other girls without immediately deciding whether they’re prettier than you, uglier than you, cooler than you, more annoying than you, or better than you. They’re just people. So are you.
And if this pattern feels overwhelming, causes you a lot of distress, or seems connected to things that happened when you were younger, talk to a trusted adult, school counselor, or therapist. Sometimes we need another person to help us understand the rules we learned about ourselves and other people.
You don’t have to control every thought that enters your head. You do have to decide which thoughts get to become who you are.