We all have STUFF…
We put on masks and try to pretend like we don’t, like we’re a-ok and not a totally insecure weirdo. We have to comply, configure ourselves to the norm so that we’re not outcasts. Rejection is scary.
For acceptance, we exchange truth. We give up the chance for genuine acceptance for fear of rejection.
Because; if you know my truth, if my Otherness is unbearable for you, that’s a blow to my ego. If you know me too well, you can hurt me too well. If you reject me after learning the real me, that makes me feel like there’s something wrong with the real me.
As a teenager, I had A LOT of questions about A LOT of stuff. Know what I did with all those questions? Shoved them down. Never even broached them, worried that my curiosity would unearth my truths which would get me in trouble, rejected, even ostracized.
They would have preferred I conform, rather than know about life, the world, even myself. Not very self-actualized…
So, I became afraid of having adverse feelings. I became ashamed of my life experiences. I started to hate — like, reeeaallyyy hate — myself for having that stuff. Why couldn’t things have been different? Why do I have to have these memories? Why was I made to deal with this? Why was I like this? Why couldn’t I just be happy being like everyone else?
I shoved it all down, afraid of what it would say about me. And you know what that causes?
Self-destruction.
I had to re-train myself to not see those things as aberrations. And I couldn’t pretend as if they weren’t there — that would be delusional.
And I couldn’t let outside sources govern my innerworkings. That doesn’t lead anywhere good.
I had to own it all, my sadness, my successes, everything. I couldn’t try to fill up the spaces left where life had taken chunks out of me. I had to learn to love them, own them, accept them as part of me.
