As someone who has struggled with depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem, I fall easily into patterns of self-doubt and low self-confidence. These sorts of challenges are incredibly difficult to deal with for many people myself included because even when you feel fine, there’s always a niggling bit of self-doubt in the back of your mind.

My self-doubt does a lot more than niggle in my mind. In my first quarter of college, I didn’t go to a lot of events, meet a lot of people, or have many of the quintessential college experiences because of my depression and anxiety. I didn’t feel like I was social enough or interesting enough or enough to be the kind of person who has a lot of friends or does a lot of things. I ended up spending a lot of time in my dorm room. Plus, I had a three-person suite (a single room in a double room), so I didn’t have to spend a lot of time with anyone, my roommates included.

During the first few months of college, my anxiety had gotten worse than before and began to affect my quality of life to an extreme level, so I decided to get therapy. In my therapy sessions, we discussed a lot of my fears and self-esteem troubles that were prohibiting me from experiencing anything positive.

In those days, nights, and weekends I spent hunched over my desk, I ended up watching a lot of TV shows and among them was Agent Carter. If you don’t know what Agent Carter is, it’s basically a follow-up to the first Captain America movie about Agent Peggy Carter, the coolest chick ever. Throughout the show Peggy struggles in a sexist, misogynistic, 1940s workplace where her male coworkers constantly devalue her, but Peggy never forgets her own value. She confronts their cruelty with strength and asserts herself when her sense of self is threatened.

In the final episode of the first season, Peggy says the words that gave me the strength to confront my anxiety and depression (along with the help of my lovely therapist): “I know my value, anyone else’s opinion doesn’t really matter.”

It didn’t matter if people thought things about me when I jogged, or if I stuttered, or if I said something a bit awkward, or if I didn’t have a ton of plans on the weekend. Other people’s opinions shouldn’t stop me from doing anything that I want to do because I know my value. I know that I have worth. I know that I am capable of doing anything.

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Gwynn Hollie
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