Comparing Myself to Others Makes Me Feel Inadequate

Recently, a New York Times article—“America’s Hidden Racial Divide: A Mysterious Gap in Psychosis Rates”—reported on the work of Deidre Anglin, who had “spearheaded much of the past decade’s research on racial disparities and psychosis….Anglin, who is 48 and a professor of clinical psychology at the City University of New York, has published a flurry of papers with titles like ‘Racial Discrimination Is Associated With Distressing Subthreshold Positive Psychotic Symptoms Among U.S. Urban Ethnic Minority Young Adults.’”

Whenever I read or hear about someone in my field who is significantly younger than me—or even around my age—and has accomplished so much more, I feel incredibly inadequate. I can’t help but think, What did I do wrong?

And then I remember. Duh! Three decades of your life were spent consumed by severe mental illness. But then I tell myself that I should have accomplished more in the last nine years since I terminated therapy with my psychiatrist. I haven’t been hospitalized in over 10 years. What have I done since then that is significant? That is comparable to Anglin? I recently went to a literary reading with a friend. A young woman with an impressive biography read an excerpt from her memoir. I thought, I will never write like she can, so why am I trying? Why am I continuing in this pursuit of fooling myself?

I have difficulty accepting that my accomplishments are good…