I guess, in the grand scheme of things, there could be worse things than giving off the impression that you are capable, strong, and confident. However, when it is a complete mismatch from how you actually feel inside, you can walk around feeling like you are duping everyone into believing you believe in yourself completely when, really, you are constantly overthinking your every move and wondering if you are good enough. This is your struggle, your Everest…
1. You try to be completely honest about how you’re feeling or what you are capable of, but it gets lost in translation somehow. You’ll be like, “I’m really doubting myself right now,” and everyone will be all, “Oh, but you’re fine, right? You’re you! You’re so confident! You’ve got this!” No, you do not have this. No, you are not fine. Why does your face lie to everyone?
2. While other people have a case of Resting Bitch Face, you have a case of Resting Confident Face and everyone assumes you are incredibly capable of everything while never ever doubting yourself, which is just kind of like… insane to you. Honestly, what does your face look like?
3. Trying to express interest in someone you like is the worst thing ever. You come off completely cavalier about them, but your inner monologue is this: Do they like me? OMG I hope they like me. No, they don’t like me. How could they like me? I’m over this. Fuck dating.
4. Nobody knows that your reality consists of overthinking everything you’ve ever done in your life. You don’t even know how you sleep or get anything done because of all the noise in your head.
5. People will ask about your big achievements and be in awe and you’ll say, “I doubted myself the entire time,” and they’ll kind of laugh it off and think you’re joking. But you’re not joking? Seriously, why doesn’t anyone believe you?
6. You’re the most sensitive person ever trapped in the body of a person who looks like they’ve never been fazed by anything ever. Everyone thinks you have your chill, but you have never had your chill. You are the actual opposite of chill.
7. You don’t cry easily, but sometimes you wish you could squeeze out some tears so people would take your feelings seriously. Like, you actively have tried to make your chin quiver in public, but you just cannot do it.
8. You do a lot of things very well because you’re in competition with past versions of yourself all the time, so it actually gives the illusion of confidence and incredible forward momentum.
9. …Except what nobody realizes is that the forward momentum is based entirely on the fact that you are paralyzed by self-doubt and the only way to free yourself is to keep doing more and more.
10. …And you’re EXHAUSTED. Seriously, do you ever stop doing things?
11. On the off-chance that people do offer you compliments, you don’t believe them and will spend hours overthinking said compliment until you have to forget it was even given to you because it’s sending you into a Doubt Spiral.
12. Then, when you get into a Doubt Spiral, you feel like you’re letting yourself down, as well as everyone around you, too. And hey, guess what, that’s the worst feeling.
13. To be fair, you do have brief periods of feeling very confident, which tends to make you more social. So, every time you are in your most confident state, you hang out with your friends and keep reinforcing this idea of yourself.
14. …It’s a cycle that you. cannot. stop. perpetuating.
15. Even when you do confide in someone about how much self-doubt you feel, they sort of eschew your feelings, because they’re like, “But wait, you do so much and never seem that fazed by doubt, so this is really all in your head. Can you give me advice on this thing btw?”
16. …But you are so fazed! So, so fazed! And you can give other people believable advice, sure, but when you say, “I don’t know what I’m doing!” they don’t believe you at all.
17. …Nobody believes you. Ever. Unless they’re believing that you believe in yourself.
18. People always ask you, “Where do you get your confidence from?” And you look at them kind of stunned like, uhhhhhh? I don’t? Everyone thinks it’s false humility, but you genuinely feel like you’ve just always been hard working and lucky, but never *confident.*
19. At the end of the day, whatever. People are going to think you’re super confident even though you are basically being swallowed alive by self-doubt. You’ve tried to tell them. You’ve tried to communicate your fears and doubts. But no one believes you. So, you are just going to continue being you and being consumed by doubt and hopefully one of these days you will live up to the confidence other people assume you have! 
