I am 20 years old. I have never really loved myself. It comes in waves, some days I love myself and others I hate myself. At 20 I am finally finding the things I have always loathed about myself as quirks. I was 12 when I started to hate myself. At first I just hated my body, the shell to my personality. After a while I started to compare myself to others and I started to hate my personality too. I became quiet. I would never talk unless spoken to in attempt to keep other people from judging me. I was so caught up in what others wanted me to be and who my peers will accept that I lost myself.
I hated my body. Everything about it; my face, my hair, and especially my body. I was so focused on "fitting in" that I threw away myself and my health. I would do anything to "fit in" with my peers. I changed my style and personality to go along with whatever is "popular" that week.
I am 20 years old and I am just starting to love my personality again. I still find it hard to talk to people. Small talk is my worst enemy. I would rather talk about life, death, dreams and every other "deep" conversation than the weather or how your day went. Ask me how I am doing and I will always say fine, great, good, awesome. Except none of those are actual feelings. I lie about how I am not to make you feel better, but to make me feel better. Saying the words "I am fine" out loud gives me hope that maybe I am fine.
I am 20 years old and it has taken me 8 years to accept myself enough to let other people in. I always rejected the idea of being "different" when deep down I hated being like everyone else.
This idea of "fitting in" is absurd. There is nothing to "fit in" to except for your own standards and morals.
It has taken me 20 years to realize that pretending to be someone I am not is just hurting me more than "fitting in" and having friends. What is the point of pretending to like different things just to appease people who would never talk to you again if they found out what you really like.
But that isn't the worst part. The worst part is we expect people to like all the things we do. We expect people to do everything the same way we would. And if they don't, we judge them. And we all care about what other people are judging us on. "Does my hair look good", "I can't leave the house in sweatpants because other people might think I am a bum".
Be the person you want to be. Dress the way you want to dress. Talk how you want to talk. Listen to what you want to listen to. Watch what you want to watch. And don't let anyone tell you you are lesser for not liking something they like, or for liking something "weird". As long as you are happy with yourself nothing else should matter.
I am 20 years old and I am just figuring this out for myself. I am working on loving myself and thankfully I have people who care about me, but not everyone does. Think before you speak. Think before you post on social media. No one is the same and that is how it should be. Think about how your words could be hurting someone else.
Think. Love. and don't judge, because it just hurts everyone involved.
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