Anxiety
I'm really shit at communicating.
I thought that I was decent at expressing myself for quite a long time - I've been a shoulder to cry on for quite a few people in my short lifetime and I would say I give some pretty good advice. That was until it became more and more apparent to me through the frustrations of my loved ones that I rarely let people in on the whole truth as to what really goes on inside my head, not other peoples. Instead of voicing things, I'll just kind of par it off as something that doesn't need to be worried about or awkwardly laugh about it whilst desperately trying to convince them and myself that "everything is fine" or that "I'm just not having a particularly good day today."
The reason I'm like this is because, when I hit the age of about 13, I began to be very critical towards myself. I started to see myself in distorted ways and expected things of myself which were almost impossible to achieve; as you can imagine, this is where the self-loathing began. In my very early to late teenage years especially, I had a habit of simply telling people what they wanted to hear or, more realistically, what I thought they wanted to hear. The thought of being judged for who I really was genuinely petrified me. I was scared of being judged not only for my overall physical appearance, but for my mental health and all of the exasperating things that come with it. For such a long time, other peoples opinions of who I was as an individual majorly impacted me in such a destructive way and I became obsessed with how other people perceived me to be.
This was simply all down to my anxiety. I still sometimes feel as if my whole body is riddled with it, it doesn't ever seem to want leave me and it definitely shows no remorse. It makes you believe that every goddam thing you do is being analysed and assessed. You end up becoming so paranoid that you try and conceal all of your emotions and start flat out lying to people about them just incase you scare them all away or you accidentally convince them that you're straight up insane. All sorts of problems arise from this that can't just be swept under the carpet; I found that the combination of being obsessed with how I looked, dressed and acted to the world a long with pretending that I was mentally stable caused a shit tonne of confusion within myself. I hoped that these thoughts would vanish with age. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be liked. I didn't want to be pushed aside for being crazy. I created this facade and I stuck with it for years and years. No one really knew and that's how I liked it.
But it's all a trick. Pushing your mental health to the back of your head and never prioritising time to help yourself heal does not do yourself any favours. It is easy to get wrapped up in what society wants us to be, but ultimately I have learnt that you most probably will wind up being miserable and feeling incomplete living in this way. A very good example would be distracting yourself with trends, social media and popularity which is all only a temporary relief from the harsh realities of depression/anxiety/other mental illnesses and, of course, life. These factors eventually can actually manifest themselves into anxiety and/or paranoia disorders - when we derive a sense of worth based on how we are doing relative to others, we place our happiness in a variable that is completely beyond our control. It's easy to get sucked in to the deceitfulness of Instagram, Snapchat and all of the various other social media platforms, but I think it's important to remember that everyones posts are glorified, polished version of themselves online. We do this purposely because we feel obligated to sharing the highlights of our everyday lives and we end up hopelessly searching for gratification from people that don't always have any impact on our lives whatsoever.
Avoiding conversation or any type of communication that relates to one's thoughts will never enable you to express who you truly are. The world isn't always as kind as it could be, but creating a whole different person inside yourself in an attempt to shut down the darker, more troubled parts of your life will only cause more anxieties. There is so much that I have learnt about mental health as I have grown older and the biggest is self care; I would be lying if I told you that I loved myself and that everything is fine and dandy, but I have sure as hell learnt how to be kinder. I'm not talking about the more consumeristic-types of self care, but real compassion to heal yourself within. Nurture a more compassionate inner voice. Find a way that helps you to express what it is that you are going through.
You're not going to mend a lifetime of twisted thinking by pretending you are someone else. A filter on a selfie is not going to erase your worries and doubts. Let yourself open up about these feelings and you will start to notice that you're in fact not shit at communicating, you just needed to be completely honest with yourself.
I thought that I was decent at expressing myself for quite a long time - I've been a shoulder to cry on for quite a few people in my short lifetime and I would say I give some pretty good advice. That was until it became more and more apparent to me through the frustrations of my loved ones that I rarely let people in on the whole truth as to what really goes on inside my head, not other peoples. Instead of voicing things, I'll just kind of par it off as something that doesn't need to be worried about or awkwardly laugh about it whilst desperately trying to convince them and myself that "everything is fine" or that "I'm just not having a particularly good day today."
The reason I'm like this is because, when I hit the age of about 13, I began to be very critical towards myself. I started to see myself in distorted ways and expected things of myself which were almost impossible to achieve; as you can imagine, this is where the self-loathing began. In my very early to late teenage years especially, I had a habit of simply telling people what they wanted to hear or, more realistically, what I thought they wanted to hear. The thought of being judged for who I really was genuinely petrified me. I was scared of being judged not only for my overall physical appearance, but for my mental health and all of the exasperating things that come with it. For such a long time, other peoples opinions of who I was as an individual majorly impacted me in such a destructive way and I became obsessed with how other people perceived me to be.
This was simply all down to my anxiety. I still sometimes feel as if my whole body is riddled with it, it doesn't ever seem to want leave me and it definitely shows no remorse. It makes you believe that every goddam thing you do is being analysed and assessed. You end up becoming so paranoid that you try and conceal all of your emotions and start flat out lying to people about them just incase you scare them all away or you accidentally convince them that you're straight up insane. All sorts of problems arise from this that can't just be swept under the carpet; I found that the combination of being obsessed with how I looked, dressed and acted to the world a long with pretending that I was mentally stable caused a shit tonne of confusion within myself. I hoped that these thoughts would vanish with age. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be liked. I didn't want to be pushed aside for being crazy. I created this facade and I stuck with it for years and years. No one really knew and that's how I liked it.
But it's all a trick. Pushing your mental health to the back of your head and never prioritising time to help yourself heal does not do yourself any favours. It is easy to get wrapped up in what society wants us to be, but ultimately I have learnt that you most probably will wind up being miserable and feeling incomplete living in this way. A very good example would be distracting yourself with trends, social media and popularity which is all only a temporary relief from the harsh realities of depression/anxiety/other mental illnesses and, of course, life. These factors eventually can actually manifest themselves into anxiety and/or paranoia disorders - when we derive a sense of worth based on how we are doing relative to others, we place our happiness in a variable that is completely beyond our control. It's easy to get sucked in to the deceitfulness of Instagram, Snapchat and all of the various other social media platforms, but I think it's important to remember that everyones posts are glorified, polished version of themselves online. We do this purposely because we feel obligated to sharing the highlights of our everyday lives and we end up hopelessly searching for gratification from people that don't always have any impact on our lives whatsoever.
Avoiding conversation or any type of communication that relates to one's thoughts will never enable you to express who you truly are. The world isn't always as kind as it could be, but creating a whole different person inside yourself in an attempt to shut down the darker, more troubled parts of your life will only cause more anxieties. There is so much that I have learnt about mental health as I have grown older and the biggest is self care; I would be lying if I told you that I loved myself and that everything is fine and dandy, but I have sure as hell learnt how to be kinder. I'm not talking about the more consumeristic-types of self care, but real compassion to heal yourself within. Nurture a more compassionate inner voice. Find a way that helps you to express what it is that you are going through.
You're not going to mend a lifetime of twisted thinking by pretending you are someone else. A filter on a selfie is not going to erase your worries and doubts. Let yourself open up about these feelings and you will start to notice that you're in fact not shit at communicating, you just needed to be completely honest with yourself.
"Know and believe in yourself and what others think won't disturb you." - William Feather
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