ASYD - Day 49 - And the test results are in: Need help ASAP

I joined a divorce support group last week at a local church. I'm not Christian, nor do I believe in a lot of the Christian tenants, but this church seems much more of the "love thy neighbor" type than the "stone the prostitute" type. The group isn't overly religious so far, and regardless, I need the support. I feel like I'm failing at this whole being single thing on my own.

The group bases its meetings on different chapters in a book called "Rebuilding: When Your Relationship Ends". There are issues with this book, for sure, starting and ending with the level of privilege and lack of diversity that's shown in the examples provided. I'm finding this to be a theme with these types of books, mostly because they're nearly all written by older, white men, but that's an argument of a different sort.

Anyway, the group suggests that you take a survey when you first start meeting with them, and then again once you've gone through a full cycle of 15 weeks (i.e. the full 15 chapters in the book). Partly because I love self-assessment tests (only reason to read Cosmopolitan really), I was a good girl and took the test.

Um. Yeah.

There are some results a girl just doesn't want to see.

I think it's important, for context, to understand how I saw myself three years ago:

• Confident and self-assured in my own body
• I knew that I wasn't a svelte, model-type woman, but I also knew my own attractiveness and self-worth even at 50 pounds overweight.
• Confident and self-assured in my personality
• I have known my whole life - thanks, Dad! - that I'm not everyone's cup of tea, and for the most part, I was really okay with that. Not everyone had to like me so long as I knew that I was a good person and there were those who did think I was pretty okay, if not pretty awesome.
• Competent and capable
• Curve balls were a dime a dozen when raising four children, and I felt fully capable of at the very least mitigating their damage, if not outright dealing with them forcefully. 
• Emotionally Capable
• As a heart-on-my-sleeve person, I knew that I would always feel stronger and more obviously than the average person, and I also knew that this gave me a leg up over the more emotionally quiet folks out there because I always, always, always moved through those feelings because I simply wasn't built any other way.

That was three years ago, before The Year of Hell began. Before the death of a dear friend, then the death of my mom, moving away from the house I raised my kids in, the death of my marriage, losing my job, my youngest leaving home, and a full-on health crisis. All in less than 12 months. 

That'll leave a mark.

And it did. I mean... damn... these results... They just freaking hurt to look at.

It's a 66-question test that gauges where you are on your personal path through the loss of your marriage. It breaks it up into six categories: Self Esteem/Self-Worth, Emotional Disentanglement, Anger, Grief, Rebuilding Social Trust, and Social Self-Worth. Each score is 1 out of 100, and a low number indicates "areas for improvement".

None of my scores are over 50%. Not one of them. Only one comes even close, and that's because my friends are amazing and I recognize their love for me.

*sighs* Here we go:

• Self Esteem/Self-Worth - 1%
• Emotional Disentanglement - 17%
• Anger - 20%
• Grief - 9%
• Rebuilding Social Trust - 1%
• Social Self-Worth - 42%

My overall score: 5%

Three years ago I knew who I was. I knew what I wanted, and how to get it. I knew that while not perfect, I was a positive force in this world.

Today, I'm struggling to remember what it feels like to look in the mirror and be happy. Not even bone-deep happy, just not freaking bone-deep sad. The kind of happy that comes from being comfortable in your own skin. I was that once, and now, I'm not comfortable breathing. And this test shows it. It shows how little I value myself, and how little I trust beyond myself.

I do understand that this is an assessment of who I am right now, seven weeks out of a relationship that was never going to work, and two years out of a relationship that was ripped from me. I get that this is a road map for me, a way forward. It still sucks to think about how far I've fallen. I mean, it's not news to me. Not really. But ... you get it. It just sucks.

This is supposed to be a way to see where I should start, and since everything but "my friends freaking rock" is so low, I don't know that it does that. Clearly my trust in self and others is the lowest, so probably start there? If only I knew how.

Because my friends freaking rock, I know I'm going to get a lot of "I love you as you are" comments, which are incredibly sweet. But if those were going to do the trick, I'd be right back where I started because I've gotten hundreds of those comments over the last few years. I appreciate them, and they keep me going on a lot of days, but it's not enough to fix this.

No, this has to come from inside myself, from my own assessments and understandings. I have to see myself differently than I do today, and that's ... jeez, it feels like such an impossible task. I simply can't see what all of you see right now. I'm trying. 

I think need a better road map. 

For those interested in taking this test yourselves, it's here: https://www.afterdivorcesupport.com/self-test/ I get nothing out of sharing it, and I have no idea of its validity. It's just the one my support group recommends. Fair warning, you'll get a call from the guy who created it, Nick, but I didn't answer, and then a couple of days later he sent the results via email anyway, with an offer to talk about it - No Obligation! - if I wanted to call him. I don't, but thanks, Nick. I appreciate your concern. :)