This may come as a surprise to some, but one of my biggest mental health struggles is my self doubt. For as long as I can remember, I have always had a hard time gathering the confidence to do a lot of things. While I've grown tremendously in the past few years and am less doubtful than I used to be, I still have a very long way to go. I've always been somewhat of a negative and generally anxious person, and I've been hurt by a lot of people, so all those factors combined make it difficult to not be so doubtful, even though sometimes I tend to give off the idea that I am a confident person.

My self doubt is closely related to my anxiety, and it manifests in a lot of different ways. Here are just some.

Every week, it takes me forever to decide on what to write about for my Odyssey article because I don't think any of my ideas are good enough. This normally leads to me sitting in front of a blank screen for at least an hour.

When I am texting someone, it usually takes me several minutes to type a response because I overthink what I'm going to say.

If I think I know how to do something, but I am not completely certain, I will procrastinate doing it as long as possible in fear of messing something up. If someone is doing something with me, I find myself asking, "Am I doing this right?," "Like this?", "It's this, right?", etc. way more than necessary.

Even when I know the right answer when a professor asks a question or have something to say during a class discussion, I normally will not say anything because I think that I will sound dumb or not be able to back up what I am saying.

A lot of times, when I get upset, I get frustrated with myself because I try to convince myself that I don't have a legit reason to be feeling the way that I do.

I have a hard time giving myself credit for any of my accomplishments because I think that they aren't important or not a big deal.

I apologize for everything constantly, especially when I am unsure of something.

I believe that it is important to be open and honest about things like this, even though I am terrible at it in practice. I know that I am not the only person on Earth, or even in my life, to experience higher levels of self doubt. It's sometimes hard to believe, though, because there is still a huge stigma that surrounds people talking about their mental health.

It's so much easier said than done, but we should all try a little harder to be open and honest about our struggles and how we are doing and feeling because maybe it will help all of us feel a little less alone.