How You Use Projection To Compare Yourself Negatively To Others

What you tell yourself about others usually involves projection.

What’s projection? It’s when your mind thinks something or “projects” something onto others without any rational evidence.

It’s the story you tell yourself that you decide to believe is true. And people who struggle with insecurity usually tell themselves stories where other people have it more together, are more talented, or are more at ease than themselves. The projected “fact” or comparison could involve many things.

This story I’m about to tell you could only happen in a small town therapist’s office. Like mine. But it’s absolutely true.

It tell it to people who are struggling with seeing themselves negatively, hearing an inner voice that’s constantly telling them they are less than the others around them.

 

A story of completely irrational but regularly occurring projection… 

Jane was a client. And the story she told was what happened when she took her daughter to school every morning. She described this chaotic scene. She rushes in, because they’re always late. As they head to the classroom, she calling out “hello’s” to everyone. knowing everyone’s name, and asking how someone’s mother is, or how the soccer game went. She’s tall, laughing that she towers over everyone or feels as if she does. “I always looks like I just got up,” she explains, because she takes no time for herself and has been taking care of children from the minute she awakens.

Yet Jane is secretly very insecure.  She hides her insecurity by being gregarious and “all about other people,” yet she is well-liked because of it. People feel cared about by her.

Jane confides in me. “There’s a woman, I think her name is Lois. She comes into the school every morning, holding her child’s hand. They are calmly talking to each other, as she walks him into his classroom. She looks like she’s been meditating all morning, she’s just so serene. Her child knows she cares about him. I’m afraid my daughter thinks I care more about everyone else than her. Why can’t I be more like Lois?”

Switch to another session the next week.

Another female patient.

Here’s her description of taking her son into the same school.

“I don’t feel like I fit in anywhere.  When I take my son to school, for example, I clutch his hand tightly, and all I can manage to do is talk to him. I keep my head down and after I deposit him in his classroom, I walk as quickly as I can out of the building. There’s a lady there that always looks so friendly. She’s talking to everyone. I want to be like her.”

So I ask, “Lois, how long have you been this anxious?”

True story.

I so wished I could tell them they were talking about one another. Obviously I could not. But I did find a way to talk about projection. I did find a way to talk about what good things they were creating, even though they could only see the bad or the vulnerability in themselves.

But I have my own story of faulty projection to tell.

A professor/friends asked me one year to join a masters level musical theatre class. At the time, I hadn’t taken acting since high school. And I was in my mid-40’s. But I’d been a professional vocalist and had been in a few shows.

My fellow students had been in hundreds of shows between all of them.

But I screwed up my courage, and attended a couple of classes. I tried to make conversation with the grad students, all of whom were very nice, but were 15 to 20 years my junior. They seemed so comfortable in their skins, loose and funny on stage, their voices like something you’d hear on Broadway. The story I told myself?  “I’m their worst nightmare — the person who’d gotten out of the music business and become something else. The person they don’t want to be “when they grow up.”

I called my friend the following Monday morning.

“Amy, I just can’t come anymore. You’re so great to believe in me. But I’m really intimidated.”

She started laughing, and said, “Do you know that I have all the grad students over to my house on Sunday evenings?”

“No…”

“You know what they were saying about you last night?”

“No….”

“That you’re intimidating…”

I gasped. Me? Intimidating? I’m not intimidating!!!

I had to laugh. That whole projection thing was at work – on both sides of the fence.

What to do about your own projection… 

If you struggle with feeling bad about yourself, or inferior in some way, please consider that you may be projecting things onto others that aren’t accurate. Seeing them as having far more confidence than they have truly, for example.

We all have vulnerabilities. Some of us admit them. Some don’t. If you do, you can work on them, try to better them.

Try this exercise. Ask ten or more of your friends (you can tell them a therapist asked you to do this…) to think about one word that describes you, and send it to you. Ask them to please give it some thought — you’re working on yourself. You may be surprised about what comes back.

It’s time for you to believe in yourself. Acknowledge your strengths.

It’s time to see the you that others see.

Other offerings from Dr. Margaret

You can hear more about mental health and many other topics by listening to my podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Subscribe to my website and receive one weekly newsletter including my weekly blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed group, then click here and answer the membership questions! Welcome!

You can order my book entitled Perfectly Hidden Depression  here!

Its message is specifically for those with a struggle with strong perfectionism which acts to mask underlying emotional pain. But the many self-help techniques described can be used by everyone who chooses to begin to address emotions long hidden away that are clouding and sabotaging your current life.

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Photo by Nicole Cagnina on Unsplash.