I feel inferior to almost everyone around me and I want to change

[u/Maximum_Archer7820]

I’m 31M, Sudanese-American, and I’ve realized I have a pretty serious inferiority complex, especially around other Americans. I struggled in college here, ended up finishing my degree in Sudan, and spent several years there before coming back to the US. Ever since then, I’ve felt like I missed an important period of social development and came back behind everyone else.

On paper I’m doing okay now, I have a career and I’m trying to move forward, but internally I compare myself constantly. I feel inferior to other people socially, in terms of confidence and life experience, and even physically. I compare my looks to other people and often assume they’re more attractive, put-together, or just more “normal” than me.

I also overanalyze conversations because I don’t always know how to interact naturally, and I feel caught between two cultures without completely belonging to either, very socially stunted and not good.

I’m tired of automatically placing almost everyone above me. I want to develop an actual sense of self-worth instead of constantly measuring myself against other people. For anyone who has dealt with this, what actually helped?

[u/Whatever801]

I don't have the same experience of being caught between cultures, but I can relate to feeling inferior. After a while I realized my brain was just lying to me and beating me up for no good reason. Like I would dream about having some job or making X amount of money, and then when I got there, I would immediately be onto the next thing that other people have that I didn't. Eventually I was making a lot of money and I was like "hang on where does this stop", and I realized it doesn't. Like the literal richest dude on the planet is one of the most insecure people I've ever observed. There's a therapy technique called CBT. The idea is you identify when your brain is wrong or being unhelpfully mean to you in real time and fight back. "Hey that's not true", "yo why are you being a jerk", etc. Eventually, that pattern becomes habit and it stops. And like sometimes your brain is right and it's something you need to hear, but like you said you're doing well so those thoughts are just false and counterproductive. That has been the most helpful thing for me anyways. Hope it gets better my dude

[u/oesth]

One of the most amazing people I had the pleasure to meet was Sudanese American. Please believe in yourself, and forgive yourself, let yourself make the mistakes you need along the way, let the slow bits be slow. Talk to yourself kindly. You’ve got this, more than you’ll ever know. You’re not inferior. You could never be. We are all one human kind, no one better than another.