Since this page looks rather lonely and sad and I’m trying to avoid homework, I’ll share a story.
It was 5th grade, the time when girls first started experimenting with makeup and starting to buy clothes that actually looked good. One day, this boy told me, ‘Don’t even bother with all that makeup stuff. Even with it, you’ll never be as pretty as any of the other girls. Don’t even try to be, because it’ll never work.” As a 5th grader, a tomboy that cared more about my next soccer game than how I appeared to other people, I just shrugged it off. But I still believed him, and still do, to this day. As time progressed, I began to hear similar things from more people, as well as other things. Still, I was relatively unconcerned. I had friends, grades, hobbies…why should I be bothered by trivial matters? (And do you know how many free pencils you can get a year from people flicking them at you? I mean, seriously, the whole thing was working out pretty well.) Then, when I got to high school, it changed. My friends were gone to different schools, I had failed both Biology and soccer tryouts, my home life was a wreck, and it seemed like I really didn’t have anything left. I was convinced that all of this was my fault, and high school didn’t make it any easier. Everything was based on first impressions, and I became convinced that everyone thought the worst of me. I was paranoid, constantly worrying about what people thought of me, my perceptions so incredibly warped that I was defensive of almost everything. What my teachers thought about my work. What my friends thought about what I said and did. Again, I still held on to the idea that people would always think the worst of me. So, I obsessed over perfection in my work. I became withdrawn, even among my friends. I never spoke, because anything I said could be perceived wrongly and could be used against me. I became so obsessed with scrutinizing how my every action and word could possibly be perceived. I was obsessed with perfection and being unnoticeable at the same time. This led to much mental berating and solitude. This definitely took its toll, in one of the worst ways possible. However, I’m glad to say that things have been getting better, thanks to a few people that have made a huge difference on my self-perception. But I still remember that remark, and I still think it’s true. (Now, one boy’s comment didn’t exactly set off this reaction, but it was something that always stuck in my head through this and might have possibly propelled it, along with some other events. I still believe all of the negative comments to be true, but I’ve gone back to that mentality of ‘I’ve got more important things to worry about than someone’s opinion, even if it is true.’ The process is by no means finished, but I’ve finally realized that you don’t have to let what other people think get to you that way. There’s always a reason to think that you’re not worth the insults they throw at you. There’s always a reason to stand back up every time you get pushed down. And there will always be people that think a whole lot better of you than you think of yourself.
