Fighting "Fat Talk" In Your Head

So lately I have been super busy with school and what feels like a million things and sometimes when I get frustrated, it's easy to resort to self-criticism. One thing that I have to work very hard at is school. I have ADD and so I learn a little differently. It takes me a little longer sometimes to really digest information and I have to pay extra attention to staying focused and organized. Sometimes I get upset that it seems like for me to get the same grade as the person next to me, I have to put in a lot more time and work. Or sometimes the way a test can be worded can make it more difficult for me to pull out information in the way I learned it because of how I make connections when I am studying, and I don't do as well as how I feel I studied. In those situations sometimes I just want to be negative or get down on myself because it can feel like an uphill battle. But I keep reminding myself that as long as I did the very best I could on something, and I am putting in the time and effort, I need to be proud of that and recognize that if I hadn't done all that work, I wouldn't have done as well as I did. And my mom tells me not to worry about what other people are doing (she calls it putting on my horse blinders) and focus on my own personal efforts so that when I look in the mirror, I see someone who is a fighter and a dedicated student, which is how I should define myself, and not just by a B versus an A. I am proud of how hard I work in school and try to look at the persistence and the patience my ADD has caused me to develop as a blessing. See, "fat talk" isn't just about our bodies. It can be about anything that we identify in ourselves that makes us feel vulnerable, or that is easy to criticize when we can't figure out how to deal with other emotions or frustrations about the issue. This video from the Dove Self-Esteem project is a great reminder of how easy it can be to speak negatively about ourselves to ourselves and how important it is to keep our self-narrative positive, because we are only hurting ourselves if we don't treat ourselves with respect.