Ahh here he is again... he can smell rotting self-esteem for miles around. Thanks for coming when I wasn't expecting you. Like the black dog, he sits at your feet or claws at your weary legs... you're not good enough... not like her. She's more successful professionally... her other half waxes lyrical about her on Fakebook. Doesn't post up photos of her looking silly or less than perfect like mine does. She's got bigger boobs and a bank balance that's bound to be healthier than yours even though she shared one of those tiresome memes that said “I wish my bank balance was as big as my boobs”... what's the first thing that people are going to look at in your pictures?!

I wish I could find my anathema to the Comparison Monster to take me out of that narrow repetive destructive beat-up-box of thought and hover me above the situation. To know that not all you see is real on Fakebook... that it's set up primarily for many unaltruistic reasons... to hoover information up about you surreptitiously whilst attempting to sell you more products you don't need and to have “friends” that p*** you off on a semi-regular basis. It's a stalker's paradise. Fakebook is a good friend to the Comparison Monster with its airbrushing and contouring of the perfect life. But like the worst drugs, it's addictive.

Sadly this monster has sat on my shoulders or at my feet for most of my life even before albeit a simpler time pre social media, mobile phones and more sophisticated make-up techniques. I'm not sure how I shoo him away permanently like the ugly destructive thing he his. He shares a lot of characteristics with another monster... jealousy. The strange thing is I'm personally never jealous of my true friends... I bask in their success... I hurt if they hurt. The people I am jealous of or I compare myself with I have no real connection with. I don't know about their lives other than what they present to me. So there perhaps is my answer to the monster. It's like a glossy play or a film... but without the realistic or unattractive bits that many people have in a real, breathing normal life. They won't tell you about a screaming argument or a car driven off in a rage... or clearing up mess... human or animal... or the dinner that was eaten by the dog (I have had this!).

I know the logical side of me knows this already but when you are feeling low... this is when the monsters slink in through the back door. Strangely enough because I shared when I was feeling low on my own Facebook page, my many mistakes or showed stupid photographs of myself clowning around, people warmed to me and said they could identify with my writing or thoughts... that I was an inspiration. Maybe fear is a motivator for the show-offs for their omnipresent glossy presentation of everything consumed in their lives. I'd rather describe my dinner than show it to you... before of course the dog or the monster eats it!

Liz

A Moodscope member.