Someone recently asked me about how I came to embrace my own unique individuality. I’m very fortunate to have been surrounded by a family made up of unique individuals who continually encouraged me to experiment with style, question the status quo and explore. That doesn’t mean that I haven’t suffered from a lack of confidence, on the contrary; after I landed in Manchester my confidence took a gigantic dip that was not helped by lockdown.
Over the past year or so I’ve made friends
with people who I know did not hold my best interests at heart nor hold
themselves to the same standards as I do. I have since let them leave my life
and am all the better for it. That’s not to say that I didn’t value the
friendship but that they happened at a space and time when I needed them and
felt like I could distract myself from focusing on my own dreams, needs and
desires.
I’ve gone through phases of hating myself,
hating my body, my scars, mind and the space I occupy, to phases of feeling
absolutely nothing; no joy, no pain, just a void and I’m truly glad that I can
say that I’m no longer in that space anymore. But to get here has taken a lot
of time, love, support and forgiveness. I’ve had to be kinder to myself for the
mistakes I’ve made and try to learn from them. And one of the things that I
realize it that getting to know myself is a lot of fun. I’m now in the space of
choosing my friends wisely. People, who don’t always agree with me, uplift me,
teach me things, and can match my playfulness and silliness. Life is too short
to settle for anything less. If you don’t learn to love yourself first then it
makes it harder to love yourself after other people walk into (or out of) your
life. And also confidence and self-love aren’t always constant states of being
for me. Sometimes I have to fake it, sometimes I think I might actually pass
for a functional human being, other times I couldn’t care less. But even if the
self-love is faint, or sometimes feels non-existent, I know it’s in there
somewhere, maybe in a really good cup of tea, or watching the magpies waddle
past in their feathered tuxedo because self-love doesn’t always have to be
internal, but also in the moments of appreciating the external.
Society doesn’t help. It puts people under
the pressure of needing to be cool or liked, as if being alone were terrifying. That's not to say that social rejection isn't painful in itself. I’ve never grown up with that damaging thought process (for which I’m very
grateful) but instead, was told to try my best. I also had no qualms about
being alone due to my vivid imagination and love of fictional characters. Being
different makes the world a very eclectic place to exist. If we all looked,
thought, dressed, talked and acted the same we’d all be robots. I’ve never been
afraid of people not liking me, on the contrary, I’d always been afraid of
hurting people’s feelings until I realized that if I’m hurting while doing that
then I need to walk away.
These are things no one tells you about.
Those small micro aggressive moments that get under your skin. It’s taking me a
long time for me to stand up for myself and frankly I’m still learning to and I
do occasionally chicken out (another thing people rarely admit) because I’m no
longer scared of hurting people’s feelings if the situation is appropriate I’m
more scared of not being true to who I am, and if people don’t like it I don’t
see why I should care.
Having people in my life who love me for me
(silly, childish, inappropriate and weird as I am) is a gift that I never take
for granted because I know not everyone has that in their lives. And if you
don’t the only thing I can say is be patience because the people who can enrich
your life will be worth it, also you’ll probably have to go through a lot of fake friends to
get there unfortunately. In the journey of making friends associating with
people who don’t align with how you think or feel is a normal thing, society
has also not cultivated the idea that a friendship should be spiritually
revitalizing or that we shouldn’t settle for anything but.
If you’re in a location or social situation
on your own, it can be daunting and you may find yourself clinging to the first
person who talks to you, this is also slightly normal, unhealthy yes, but also
normal, so how do you find the courage to do things on your own? You challenge
the idea that being independent is terrifying, that rejection is the end of the
world. Doing things on your own doesn’t mean you can’t ask for help, it means
you make the conscious decision to put yourself first, and this, like all
things takes practice.
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