There is no way to entirely explain all that happened in the past month except to say that, though it was one of the hardest months of my life, I am immensely grateful for what it taught me. I realized so much through my struggles, and mostly about myself.
Learning to let myself be me, genuinely and authentically, has been one of the hardest things for me to do throughout my life, moving around and having to adapt to other people. For the longest time I didn't really know who I was because of this; I was a collage of what other people liked so that they may like me.
Now, this isn't to say that I have never been my authentic self. I simply felt limited. I was restrictive to myself, wanting to keep qualities that others saw as distasteful and negative silent and to try and get rid of them, almost silencing myself. I struggled with my own likes when I went through a time where I didn't know who I was. I put up with what other people liked because I wanted to be friends with them.
College has been hard. The transition has been much more difficult than I thought.
The first two months I locked myself away from other people. I felt an abundance of loneliness, and deeply desired to have back the normality I had worked so hard for in my last two years of high school that I suddenly lost. I was alone and away from home for the longest time of my life. I missed my friends. I missed A.
I missed who I was. I didn't recognize the person I had become, shy and quiet, put away, too busy doing school work—I tried to exclude myself with it. I only realized after a weekend mid-October when I was speaking to my mother that I was homesick. I craved my normal life back at home, the people, the comfort of having my friends around.
My biggest realization towards who I was was that I have an obsession with perfection. As much as I have tried to deny it, I am too hard on myself and unrealistic with how I want me to be. I have an obsession with wanting things, specifically myself and the things I do/create, to be perfect. I want to avoid making the common life mistakes that I have seen so many people make.
Overall, I feared letting myself be as I am.
I've been insecure about myself for a majority of my life. What I saw in the mirror wasn't what I thought of in my head. What I thought of myself as a person wasn't what others whispered about. And I constantly wrestled with perfection, trying to be the best person I could be, never stopping to fully acknowledge and appreciate the person I am now.
I was exhausted from myself after that weekend in October. And I didn't want to go back into the abusive loop. So I didn't let myself
It was a wake up call.
I didn't suddenly bounce back like I normally would with my list of resolutions, all with good intentions, with the hopes of never remembering that it happened and being better than I was than before. Anxiety has been a big part of my life, part of me, and it had subsided quite a bit the past two year but suddenly it was back and it was horrible. I didn't know what to do. My heart would begin to race at the thought of having to do anything; every task felt like a marathon and I was afraid that I would fail. I was constantly afraid of failure, and I was failing to take care of myself.
"One is a great deal less anxious if one feels perfectly free to be anxious."
At the time that I needed it most, A so graciously wrote me this Alan Watts quote in one of my letters. Once I fully took this to heart, I no longer felt guilty for letting myself not be okay for a while. Though I was struggling to understand myself, I let myself be. And it was genuinely the best thing I had done for myself.
I don't want to go into too much detail but I wanted to begin a conversation through what I have learned, and bring up different topics every once in a while, here on my little corner of the internet, on how we think and treat ourselves, because I definitely don't think we take enough care or think of ourselves kindly enough. I want to build a conversation to reassure that it is okay to not be okay.
Too many people today are immensely negative to anyone who is struggling, who doesn't feel like they have solid ground beneath their feet, or who knows where they are going. Society doesn't acknowledge much those who fight to get out of bed and do work that makes their chests tighten and sets their hearts off racing. It doesn't acknowledge that it is okay to struggle and it is okay to not be put together all of the time, or feel confident, or be productive every waking hour of the day.
It is okay to not be okay.
We all have faults. We are people.
With each day, I am feeling more and more confident and empowered in myself and who I am. I have accepted my anxiety as a part of me rather than something that is attacking me. I have been looking at myself through a neutral lens, acknowledging and not taking to heart the negative thoughts I have towards myself because I know that they are only temporary and they are simply a thought, nothing more.
With each day, I feel more and more like me, and not someone else who I feel others would like me to be.
I hope that there was something in here that helped you feel better about yourself if you have made it this far. Thank you for reading about me, and I genuinely do hope that you find something in my words that you connect to, that brings comfort to you, and I wish that you find peace in yourself too.
Take care of yourself,
Rachel xx
What's your opinion?