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bookishbeautie · 5 years

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My Journey to Self Discovery

So this post was originally posted on my website here. The main reason I am reposting it is because I want to set up the blogs theme and I need some content to be able to see what everything will look like.

But I am also very proud of this. Even though my thoughts are all a mess and there is no structure or proper grammar, I am proud that I have finally made my first post.

Friday, November 8th 2019. 1:15 AM

Anxiety has seemed to cripple my life for as long as I can remember. Many of my family members who may read this may disagree as they generally think am an outgoing people-person.

The truth is, it is only around very select few people that I tend to open up and have more confidence. Over the years the number of people I have in my trust circle has shrunk considerably.

I have never been one to have many friends, so it’s not like I ever really had a huge group of people around me, but all the people I thought I trusted and knew well enough to have in my life until I was well into my old age has shrunk all the way down to zero. The only people I really consider close enough to trust would be my family.

This doesn’t mean that all these people left, there were a couple people that I had considered to have left (and I don’t blame them), but for the most part it was all my doing. But nevertheless there is still the emotional pain from these loses that I never seemed to have processed.

I have never had a steady sense of self. There is not one thing that contributed to this, but I do place a lot of blame of the bullying I endured while I was growing up. I grew up wanting to please people. I wanted people to like me. So when people didn’t like me for whatever reason - whether it be because I dressed a little more tomboy and alternative than all the other girls my age, or because of my taste in music, or even just because I seemed to be the sore thumb of my grade. The bullying never stopped. At one point I found myself asking what I needed to do in order for them to just leave me alone

I got a whole list of things I needed to do. And I pretty much had to change everything about myself. And let me tell you, I tried. I asked people I considered friends how I could accomplish

This moment has always stuck with me.

This seems so silly to talk about now when this happened like 15 years ago, but these are still memories that weight on my heart and seem to prevent me from moving forward with my life.

I have such a fear of judgement and abandonment, I have based almost all of my life decisions around those fears.

Because I would give into my fears, I slowly gave them more and more power and didn’t notice that in return my world was growing smaller and smaller. I started reaching out to people less, then would rarely reply when someone reached out to me. I started going out less and preferred to stay at home. If I made plans I would cancel them last minute even though I would then be swallowed by a wave of depression knowing that I was doing more damage than good giving into the anxiety

And this pattern has happened for years. The more independence I have gained with age the more I seem to isolate myself. I give too much power to the voices in my head that tell me I am not good enough and that I shouldn’t even bother participating in life because happiness is not something you deserve.

And it is so hard getting out of that mindset when every molecule in your body believes that and has believed it for the majority of your life.

Of course I want to better myself. Of course I want to live life for me and achieve all the things I dream about at night. I want to travel the world and carve my own path in life. I want to have a family. I want to make a name for myself. I want to pursue my passions. Yet the dreams I have always had did not match the expectations and family and most of all society. I have never fit in a mold, I have always done things my own way, yet I have now had the courage and the strength to stick up to all the voices that are telling me I will fail or that I am not good enough.

The past un-dealt with fear has festered for so long I can barely accomplish anything. Whenever I do start a new venture or hobby, the passion comes on life a tidal wave. I could stay up for days straight brainstorming new things, but when it comes to actually sitting down and putting genuine effort in, I panic.

The voices in my head start getting louder. I have the voices of my parents criticizing me for not ever finishing anything. The voices in my head of my peers who laughed and mocked any time I did put myself and my work out there. I felt like I could never make anyone happy.

But thats the exact problem.

I have lived my entire life wanting to make other people happy thinking that peoples opinions of me will equal what I am worth. While I have craved to life an independent life solely for myself, my actions have done the complete opposite.

And now I am a 26 year old girl who is still living in her teenage self’s head.

But that’s where this blog comes in. This beautiful blog that I have been trying to start since May 2013.

For reference, it’s now November 2019.

That just tells you how shit I am at doing anything.

But I am tired of living this way. Im tired of living in the past. I am tired of giving weight to the opinion of people who don’t matter in my life. I am tired of worrying about what everyone thinks of me and thinking I need to get others approval of myself if I am ever going to be happy.

I hope that through this self discovery journey I am able to connect with others out there who may have had similar experiences. I am hoping to learn how to trust other people and let people in. I am a very emotional person but it seems when it comes to friendships I have built up walls too high for me to scale.

But most of all, I hope I can use this blog as a journey of transformation. Right now I know my head is a jumbled mess, but I am hoping that the more I just right and document how I am feeling and what exactly I want out of life, I will slowly be able to paint a vivid, colourful, exquisite life for myself.

I'd also really like to learn grammar. I know this must be painful to read.

Baby steps.

Lisa

#firstpost blog mentalhealth lifestyle discovery selfdiscovery recovery anxiety depression life

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