I’m sitting here this morning to say that self-confidence is easy. It’s the easiest thing in the world. It’s like a magnificent game of cards, where all the odds are on your side. Because the thing to remember is that people can’t read your thoughts. They can’s see the hopes and fears, the angers and the struggles inside. They can just see the outside demeanour. Self-confidence is keeping those below the surface, and projecting the image that you trust yourself. Self-confidence is smoke and mirrors.

Self-worth, on the other hand is an entirely different matter. Just because every muscle in my body is saying “Listen to me, I am trustworthy. I am in charge here.” that doesn’t mean that I believe it. That doesn’t mean that I care. That doesn’t mean that I consider myself of any importance.

One of my biggest flaws is humour. I learned from an early age to throw up screens of armour, and that one of the best defences is to laugh. I also learned that the best way to deal with the things I find most painful, the only way I can look at those things is to laugh at them.

“Give a man a fire, and he’s warm for a day. Set him on fire, he’s warm for the rest of his life.”

I understand that words can be a weapon. I understand that words can hurt. That’s why I use them as a defence. I use my words as a shield. I’m snide, and self-depreciating, because it protects me against the world outside. And where I laugh, I laugh because otherwise I would be crying.

If I can get the first blows in on myself, it protects me from the blows from other people. And if I look like I don’t care, if I project the idea that the tragedies around me are amusing, then people can’t break through that armour, and cannot hurt me.

There you have it…

My self-confidence is not a superpower. More often than not, it’s a coping mechanism. A pretty damn good one too. It works. If I smile and laugh and sing, the outside world does not look on me with opprobrium. Because I do that enough. I slam myself against the wall for every mistake, and shake myself until my teeth rattle. I have to, to set a good example to myself. When I am alone inside my head, the anger at my mistakes, from the most minor of flaws to the most major of sins, is deafening.

In Harry Potter’s world, there are creatures know as boggarts. They hide in cupboards, and when seen, they take on the form of whatever frightens the individual most. The way to defeat them is to imagine them as something funny. It’s to take the thing that scares you the most, and laugh at it.

The things that make me cackle most, that make me roar with laughter, they’re the things that terrify me the most. They’re the boggarts in the closets at the back of my mind, and I laugh at them to keep them there. Without that defence, I would be a wreck. Without humour, my self-confidence is nothing, because my self-worth wins through.