Changing The Way We See Ourselves

People don’t always know what you are going through, and the way you see things or feel about yourself isn’t always how others see or feel about you. I was reminded of this or had my eyes opened to it at my recent high school reunion.

You see, I was never the popular kid or most outgoing person, and if I am honest, I am still not. However, I took it upon myself to put together my classes 15-year high school reunion. Did I mention I am terrible at planning things?  Anyways, after some research and throwing out ideas with my former classmates, we picked a place, date and time that would work best for the most amount of people without being too expensive.

When the event finally came, I started remembering many of the things that happened to me during high school and some of the reasons why I never was that outgoing. I was bullied a lot all through middle school, junior high and a lot of high school. It wasn’t until a few years into college that I found my own voice and was able to fully stand up for myself.

Between kids blocking classroom doors after the teacher left so that they could prevent me from escaping while pushing me around or destroying my artwork, to the constant mocking about my looks, yelling down hallways to start rumors that I was gay, calling me names, and giving me cruel nicknames.  I could go on and on. All of this on top of being thrust into foster care, being kicked out of my second foster home, despite them keeping my little brother, and facing additional physical abuse and name calling from my foster siblings. It was too much to handle at times, but I somehow always found a way to persevere.

When I was going through all of this it always felt like everyone’s eyes were on me in the hallways at school. It was Like they all knew what was going on with me and went out of their way to smirk or laugh at my situation. While I wasn’t popular, I had friends from every clique you could think of, but very few of them could I talk to about everything. The friends I did talk to, I would confide in while at school but very few of them were people that I could see once school ended. Without being able to drive as a foster kid, I often wasn’t invited out to events or parties or to just hang out. It was extremely isolating. In all of this though I was always optimistic about the future. I knew it wouldn’t last forever and that one day I would have a life of my own away from the barrage of insults and abuse.

Even now, I think the isolation and separation from friends has continued made it hard for me to make plans and go out of my way to ask someone to hang out. It is something I continue to work on, but even years after leaving school I am still afraid to be isolated and shunned again.

(Wow, did I just admit that. Real life therapy moment.)

Now…. Back to the reunion. Everything was going great, there were lot of people I hadn’t seen since high school that I wished I had stayed in touch with. People that were always kind to me even though they had many other friends or that I thought were “too popular” for me. One such person I spoke too and caught up with extensively throughout the night. We talked about similar struggles and challenges with making meaningful new friendships after high school. One way or another we kept going back to high school memories and people we remembered but didn’t show up for the reunion. Some of those were the very kids who bullied me for years. I started recanting stories about each bully and why I was angry at them for such a long time.

As the night went on, we discussed my book and how much he enjoyed reading it so far. Other people had had commented in different conversations about how they had no idea I was ever in foster care and went through all that I had gone through, but I just let the comments go without much thought.

I was explaining about all the bullying at school and how I endured more from my foster siblings too. I was reliving some of this and sharing the memoires with people who had seen me every day in the hallway in school and whom I thought knew everything that was gong on back then.

It never occurred to me that I never actually told many of them what was going on with the bullying or the foster homes or abuse etc. My closest friends knew, so I assumed, being high school, that everyone would have told everyone else. Rumors flew so easily, but the true stories like mine apparently didn’t.  Fifteen years out of high school and I am still learning things about myself and just how the world works. My assumptions built up more fear and resentment towards people in the hallways and the feeling that people were staring at me, snickering about me with whispers weren’t always about me and some of these memories were just ideas in my head.

It took a 15-year reunion and a great conversation with someone I was friends with but not very close with in high school to realize; if you don’t share what is going on in your life, your assumptions about whether they know or how much they know will be wrong. This friend at the reunion was always so kind to me, and in my mind, him being somewhat popular (at least to me) I never would have felt a part of his group of friends. He opened up after I shared my stories and told me he felt like he was an easy target for bullies too, but he also shared that he was shocked to hear I was bullied. Despite it feeling like it was out in the open, he and his group of friends had never seen me as the victim.

So many of us go through life holding things in, not sharing, or just making assumptions about situations that prevent us from being who we want to be. I felt so isolated and all alone a lot of high school, but this one conversation made me understand that outside of those bullies, I was partially the one isolating myself. I was so afraid to openly share my situation and home life with others that I had made excuses or stories up to justify not being more outgoing and not having confidence in who I was.

The reunion was coming to a close, and here I was on the outside looking in, my eyes began to open, and I could finally see. People don’t always know what you are going through, and the way you see things or feel about yourself isn’t always how others see or feel about you. Always worrying about how others perceive us builds up walls and creates more inner turmoil that can prevent you from being the best version of YOU!  This isn’t to say that life can’t be hard or that you should just learn to deal with the bullies in your life. But that we can’t make those challenging times we go through, even harder by walling ourselves off and now letting others know what we are going through.

You must be true to who you are and not get in your own way. Living a life based on how you think others view you, is not living a full life. If you have gone through anything similar. Just remember life is about having fun and finding your own truth and own happiness.  Let go of the past that is holding you back, start paving your future the way that you want. Share your struggles, your friends only know what you tell them. Trust that there are more good people out there than you think and if you give them a chance to listen and understand you, they just might surprise you and become of your strongest supporters.

Life is short, go live it and make some memories. Find your truth and be the best version of you, and remember that if you don’t love yourself, it will be even harder to accept the love that you deserve from someone else.