Thinking About Myself Too Much is Making Me Sick
My 30th Year Series #4: Why Jemima Kirke's Pithy Advice Changed My Life.
I’ve been rewatching Girls, again. This is my fourth full rewatch, which I’m aware is quite a lot — but it’s a show that shaped me as an eighteen-year-old in my first year of university. Then, again, at twenty-two, living in London and trying to ‘make it’ as a journalist. Once more during COVID, at twenty-five. And now, here we are at my fourth watch, having turned thirty a few months ago.
I can practically hear a voice asking, “So, are you a Hannah, Marnie, Jessa, or Shoshanna?” My Sun is Marnie, my Moon is Hannah, and my rising is Jessa. Probably. Actually, let’s be honest, I’m not really like any of the four main characters. I’m actually more of a mix of Ray, Natalia, or Tally.
Anyway, the point I’m floundering to get to is that I’ve been watching Girls again, which has got me rethinking some advice Jemima Kirke dished out on her Instagram Stories a few years ago. I remember seeing it in real time and thinking, oh shit. A rare moment of getting there before the rest of the internet.
When Jemima Kirke responded to an Instagram question that asked her, “What advice would you give unconfident young women?” with, “I think you guys might be thinking about yourselves too much,” it changed my life. I’m often facetious about this kind of thing, prone to exaggerating for dramatic effect. But this, really and truly, did shift something in my brain. I wrote it on a post-it note, saved the photo in my folder, and have peddled it out over the years to down-in-the-dumps friends. I even filmed a video about it.
It’s been in the zeitgeist lately, with the wonderful Vicky Spratt covering it for Refinery29 last month. In the article, she writes: “Instead of sitting on our phones and thinking about ourselves, we should go out into the world. In lieu of ordering dinner on Deliveroo, we should eat with friends. Even if briefly. As research from Oxford University shows, the more often people eat with others, the more likely they are to feel happy and satisfied with their lives.”
Jemima and Vicky are both right. We are thinking about ourselves too much. I am thinking about myself too much. Over the last three months, I’ve had a bout of the ole’ mental health struggle. In my anxiety pit, I became hyper-focused on my internal workings: remembering embarrassing things I’ve done or said literal decades ago, going over past mistakes, unpicking tiny interactions I’ve had with people I admire, thinking compulsively about how I look, picking at every tiny flaw I can find on my body, overanalysing, catastrophising. I worked myself into a doom-state where I was convinced something awful was just around the corner, that everyone I love was about to turn on me, that my brain had tricked me into believing I’m a good person when, in reality, I’m actually bad. (Ironically, it’s obviously doing the reverse.)
This spiralling anxiety can be easily traced, as it so often can be retrospectively. In the moment, it feels like drowning, like a random attack. But looking back, it was just a reaction to coming off SSRIs, pausing therapy, money worries, my work constantly focusing on harrowing topics, relentless social media, and not being treated well by a few people. A deliciously rancid cocktail.
In all this, I became even more internally focused than usual. This is a problem I’ve always had; I create whole universes in my brain and share very little of what I’m thinking with others. It’s probably why I’m a writer. But this time, I drove myself mad by thinking about myself constantly. This doesn’t make me selfish, but it is an unhelpful practice.
The things that fix this spiral are the things that get me out of my brain and into my body and feelings. It’s community. It’s helping others. It’s exercising. It’s going on long, stompy walks with my boyfriend. It’s cooking elaborate meals from scratch. It’s seeing friends and family. It’s reading. It’s not thinking about myself too much.
Jemima Kirke’s advice, to me, isn’t about calling us all self-involved. It’s a reminder that the world is happening outside. Life isn’t lived in our internal monologues, or on our phone screens, or in the merging of the two — it’s lived with other people, in other places, among other creatures. We cannot be confident people when we are constantly thinking about our self-confidence. Confidence is built, not thought.
The older I get, the more I realise that most of the best things in life happen when I’m not in my own head. That doesn’t mean my anxious, spiralling brain doesn’t creep in sometimes. It does. It always will. But now, I remind myself of Jemima’s words, of Vicky’s article, of all the moments I’ve felt happy because I was engaged in the world rather than locked inside my own thoughts. I pull myself out. I get outside. I talk to someone. I move. I build confidence by doing, not by endlessly dissecting whether I have it.
So, if you find yourself stuck in your own head, thinking about yourself too much, maybe the answer isn’t another hour of scrolling, another attempt to plan ‘self-improvement’, another round of introspection, or another deep-dive into your psyche. Maybe the answer is just... to go outside.
Really loved this piece. “Confidence is built, not thought” is something I should tape up on my wall. I often think about the fact that you build confidence just by DOING the hard things until they don’t scare you anymore. All the way from complimenting a stranger to performing on a stage, sometimes you just have to have the evidence base to know you can do things outside your own brain. Thanks for sharing your ponderings, and making me ponder too x
"“I think you guys might be thinking about yourselves too much,” it changed my life. I’m often facetious about this kind of thing, prone to exaggerating for dramatic effect. But this, really and truly, did shift something in my brain."
I felt this on a cellular level. It is so detrimental to the self and in turn, to community, to be so self obsessed even if it's masked as self-love/self betterment etc whatever the fuck you wanna call it. And once you become aware of it in yourself, you become aware of it in others and it is a great repellent. Anyway ranting atp but great piece and so true.