Heyyy
I can’t believe I’ve actually managed to do a post a day. I genuinely didn’t think I’d manage it but here we are. I think I’ve spent so much time writing this week that I haven’t felt the usual anxiety about the upcoming month which genuinely is such a shock to the system. It feels good knowing I’m entering the month with a clear mind rather than shadowing grief and regret taking over.
Today I thought I’d discuss something that I’ve touched on in previous posts but never mentioned in full. I know a lot of people struggle with confidence, much like myself so this could be extremely useful to a lot of people.
Growing up I was a sheep, I just followed whoever I felt was ‘popular’ and I hated myself. I constantly was bullied for my “five head” (forehead) and my sir name as it phonetically begins with the word ‘cock’. I lost my confidence and here are a few moments I watched it deplete: one time on a non-uniform day I wore my favourite trousers and top in. I was 8. This girl walked in and said my outfit was not pretty enough for guys to ever like me. I was 8. I didn’t care about that, but after that I remembered it every time, I chose outfits for something. Another time we were doing PE on the fields and someone turned to me and told me my thighs were huge. I was anorexic. They were literally stick’s, but I believed them because they were my friend why would they lie?
My body image took a hit before I even turned 11, I remember standing on the scales on weigh in day at primary school and feeling overweight despite being in the underweight category. I didn’t see myself how I was at the time. I always thought I was outspoken and confident, but the honest truth is I was only that if I’d been told to say it, my words were that of my peers and it wasn’t one of my finer moments. I know body image isn’t all there is to confidence but mine was so poor that it didn’t matter about anything else as I was only as good as the weight on the scales.
When I got to high school things changed, I pretended I was confident and got myself into countless arguments for just generally being an idiot. I didn’t particularly care I just wanted to be liked, unfortunately it wasn’t that simple, and I remember most of my first few years having very little friends. I deserved it though, I was truly terrible to a lot of people. The thing is in the friendships I was in I had to change who I was to be liked, I lost myself in order to have friends which makes absolutely no sense.
I changed friendship groups an awful lot during school because I never fitted in, I had two stand-alone friends and still have them both. Other than that, I speak to a few individuals who have been part of groups I never really fitted into. I sometimes get the feeling that I’m too intensive as a friend and that’s why it’s easy for my friendships to fall apart quickly. But the continuous changing of friends wrecked the little of my confidence I had left, I never knew who my real friends were and therefore struggled to know who to trust and dealt with a lot of my negative feelings alone which obviously led to a decline in that confidence.
I was taken for a mug a lot too, mainly by boys, back then there was rarely any respect and it was rough. When my pictures got leaked, I acted like it didn’t bother me but a part of me was drained, I never knew after that if guys were speaking to me because they’d seen it or if they actually wanted to. I watched friends lose respect for me as if they weren’t doing the exact same thing just, they hadn’t been disrespected in the way I had. The problem is, especially in my school, once something like that was out it’d flare continuously. Every few months it’d be news again and it’s draining continuously having your own nudes thrown in your face for a laugh. It wasn’t funny and if you still have those pictures, which I know some of you sickos do, I was underage in those pictures and that is illegal.
When I got to university my figure was at my best place, I loved what I looked like and was content with how life was. My weight fluctuating over the years, the countless bad experiences and the traumatic experiences led to an almost complete depletion in my confidence and to this day I don’t think I’ll ever get it back. I cringe at compliments because despite thinking almost highly of myself I also don’t see myself as someone who deserves compliments. I think it’s quite off-putting how awkward I become and alongside my other flaws usually ends things quite quickly. I can’t change that though; I just don’t see myself in a positive light.
So, where am I at? I’m a confident woman when I’m being taken for granted, but otherwise it’s a completely different ballgame. I don’t know what I look like and can’t take compliments about my figure as I believe I’m lying for knowing my angles. In recent times I’ve been on a date and been told I look different in pictures on my profiles and though I never asked I knew what that meant. Picture me to real me is a downgrade and I know that, but is my confidence ever going to recover from being continuously reminded of that. Probably not, no. I can’t give advice on how to be confident because I am not, I’ve learnt to pretend to ignore anything which brings me down, but the truth is it still hits. I’m not as strong as I look, and I continuously drag myself even further down.
I hope one day I have the confidence to even like myself, but for now I’m just going to keep trying to not have a breakdown everyday over who I am and how I look.
More than a Diagnosis 