I struggled with making choices most of my life. Maybe I didn’t when I was a child, but as I grew up and realised I wasn’t like everyone else, I started struggling more and more. It’s not like I never wanted to make choices that made me happy, of course I did, but it wasn’t a simply binary problem. It wasn’t make a choice that makes you happy or make a choice that makes you unhappy. In fact, I would argue, the reason I have struggled with choices my life isn’t because I didn’t know what choice I wanted to make or what was, in my opinion, the right choice. It was all about other people.
When I was in school I was in trouble a lot, sent outside to wait in the hallway or teachers complained that I cheated or misbehaved. I was bullied. I was mistreated by people I believed to be my friends. I never understood why, but I did understand I was bad. Broken. A freak. Someone who needed to not be seen or heard. I needed to be invisible, always quiet and always do what I was told. I needed to not be too smart or to good at something, but also not be bad either. Not too pretty, not too ugly. Not too boring, not too exciting. I needed to fit in. I needed to be completely and unmistakably average.
If I was good at that, then no one would bully me, no one would be mean to me, no one would blame me for things I didn’t understand how I was related to. I would simple be one in a crowd of many. I was literally hiding in plain sight.
The thing that happens when you start making choices, not based on how you feel, but on how you think the people around you feel, is that you start to forget to listen to your own feelings. Maybe forget is not the right word, to me it was an active attempt to suppress all that I was because feeling was too painful. It was better not to know I wanted to do one thing, when every sign around me told me to do something I didn’t want to – because I knew that to fit in I couldn’t be myself. I had to be whatever people wanted.
The most ridiculous part of all that was that I didn’t know how to distinguish who wanted the best for others and who wanted the worst for others. I didn’t chose who I was friends with, because even to this day, I don’t really understand how people become friends.
I never knew if someone was being friendly, rude or joking with me.
Over time, I have become better at reading people, but I am not perfect. I trust very few people in my life, and I don’t know how I am ever going to trust anyone else. I barely trust myself.
Friendships are strange. Some people will say only nice things to each other, but when they are talking to others, say the most horrible things about people they hugged and called friend just moments earlier. Some people never say nice things to each other, but only nice things about the other when they talk to someone else. Some people say only nice things, but act mean and cruel. Some people say many mean words, but act with great compassion.
Why can’t people just say what think and feel? I don’t understand any of us.
Even today, I am terrified of being seen or known. It doesn’t matter if it is by my family, by friends or colleagues or by complete strangers. I am afraid, because I spent most of my life hiding who I am, because I believed it kept me safe.
Now, when I was very young I was in a situation where a boy my own age tried to strange me. I’ve known as long as I can remember that death isn’t just an abstract concept, because that day I thought I was going to die. It’s not like I understood at first what was happening, but when I lost consciousness I thought I wouldn’t wake up. It wasn’t a frightening experience, because all I remember was this white, soft yet very bright light and the only feeling that was real in that light was pure love. The purest form of love I ever felt. I remember the face my mother made when she saw me – it was the most terrifying face I have ever seen her make, even today. The fear came later for me.
I understand that my case is special, not everyone has an experience like that when they are around 5 or 6 years old. I think children can be far more perceptive than people think and pick up on a lot of feelings that adults don’t realise. So, even if most kids don’t have near death experiences, they can still experience trauma that can scar them for life – PTSD when you are a child is not impossible. I have seen it in others, not just me.
What I am trying to say, sometimes we make a choice as children – something that might seem unimportant and like something we can easily grow out of, but then we don’t.
I made a choice to be hidden, to be average and unnoticeable when I was 10 years old and to me, it wasn’t just because I was afraid because I was bullied and mistreated, it felt like life and death. I did it to survive. I fought hard every day of my life to survive.
I am 37 years old now and I have been actively trying to hide myself away for 27 years. I know I have made a crazy amount of stupid choices only because I was afraid of other people and how they might react, but in spite of that, I still struggle to make choices for me, choices that make me happy or make me feel good about myself. I still try to ruin things for myself, because I want to survive.
Hiding or pretending to be like everyone else isn’t what kept me alive though. I never was and it never will be. I am not saying I should never have done it, because I was afraid a lot as a child and hiding made me feel safer. Not safe entirely, but more safe. It was good, for a while, even if it didn’t make me feel happy or good at all.
Now, it’s different. Now, it doesn’t make me feel safe. I am still afraid, but hiding doesn’t help me at all. It only makes me more sad, because I want to make choices that feel right to me, choices that make me happy. I want to be alive and happy. Is that too much to ask when I am not like most people? The world is build for other people, sure, but I want to create a space for me and people like me. I want us all to feel safe without struggling to fit in and hide in plain sight.
The first thing I can do is work on making the right choices for me. These days, it’s not my first instinct. Probably, it won’t be for a long time. I am too used to suppress my feelings, suppress my voice and my heart. It takes awareness and focus to make choices that are good for me, because by now it almost feels like going against my own nature.
You may ask, why did you even suppress your feelings and yourself? Why not just pretend and still remember yourself at the same time? Easy. Because it hurt too much. If I could feel myself while making choices that didn’t feel right, it hurts far more than when you make those same choices without feeling how you actually feel about it. You just do what you have to and ignore that pain inside you often enough and suddenly, you hardly feel it at all and then you can make all the bad choices you want and it hardly hurts. Of course, it makes you numb in most every way. I don’t recommend ever doing something like I did.
Be yourself, love yourself and trust your own judgement. Treat others with respect and compassion, but don’t break yourself to fit other peoples ideas of what you ought to be.
Sometimes people don’t even say anything, but the way they behave towards us is enough for us to change our ways to make them happy. As long as it makes us happy too it fine, but when it makes us unhappy or depressed, then it’s time for a change.
I need a change to happen now. I want to move on from hiding. I want to be seen and heard and known. I want to be free. I am afraid, but it’s time to let go of the past. It served a purpose because I felt safer, but it doesn’t feel safer to me now. There really is no reason to keep breaking myself for other people – especially because I am not sure if anyone really need that from me or want the broken me. A true friend can only be a true friend if they truly know us, not if they only see whatever illusion we show them thinking it is making them happier. Thinking, if we are seen, then… then what? We die? It’s over? I don’t really know what I thought would happen, but I know what I felt would happen. I felt I would hurt others because I am not good enough, kind enough, loving enough, compassionate enough – not enough.
I have struggled with that feeling for years. I have reached a point where I can’t live like that – I need to be enough the way I am. I feel like I am enough for me. I am happy with who I am; a person, far from perfect, but trying my best every single day.
That has to be enough.
