"I am afraid to show you who I really am, because if I show you who I really am, you might not like it and that's all I got."
Sabrina Ward Harrison
I went to an old school friend's 21st birthday party yesterday, I went and I was a complete mess on the inside. I'm not good with parties, I never know what to do. There is no manual for social interactions such as birthday parties (disregarding "self-help" books). I'm actually thinking I should cash in on that gap in the market. I would never buy it, but I'm sure some idiot would, the market has spoken! So anyway, despite my poor social skills and the fact I was surrounded by old school acquaintances, that was not the biggest problem.
Everything comes back to this idea of having too many hang ups about myself and my expectations of other people. For example, my main fear of going to this party was not so much the socialising (big factor though), it was because of what I was wearing. For occasions such as these, it is expected of females to put in that extra effort, pull out the heels you cannot possibly walk normally in and doll yourself up in a tight and revealing dress. Okay, so maybe I don't go for the revealing part of that equation, but I did for the first time actually wear a tight dress. I really regret doing so for two reasons. 1. I'm too fat and broad to wear it, with no cleavage. 2. It attracts attention. Bad attention. There is nothing worse for someone like me, then walking around a room and feeling as though people are looking at you and judging. Everyone does it, we all judge people, I know. The tight dress is just a neat example of my hang ups, all rolled up into one little black dress.
This idea of having too many hang ups isn't news to me. It has been brought to my attention that I have an irritating ability of turning everything positive into a negative. Friends will give me a compliment and at first, of course I am suspicious, I'm always suspicious. After the suspicion has faded and I have worked out there is no ulterior motive for the compliment, I dismiss it. For example a friend will say, "George, you look lovely!" My response is always something like "You're either blind, intoxicated or you need medical attention, quick!" Of course there is always the friend's response, "don't be so negative Georgie," and I reply "I'm not negative, I'm a realist." Realistically screwed up is more like it. The thing that gets me every time though, is the fact people seem to think they have made some sort of revelation, that I may have issues. No. I'm quite aware of the fact I'm unable to take compliments, criticisms (especially criticisms) or "friendly" suggestions. Rather bizarrely, I have noticed it's always my male friends who will argue or try and change my opinion. Female friends just sigh dramatically and shake their heads. The latter response is quite dull, but I'm happy with it. The former is always more interesting, albeit generally pointless, my arguments can be circular or cutting at times.
So all of this got me thinking, I'm turning 21 soon enough (too soon) and maybe it is time to learn how to accept a compliment, you know, without wanting to interrogate or stare someone down? Or maybe I should stop overanalysing what people may or may not be thinking? I can't really know. It could be because I always expect the worst of people, which I still say is for the best. If you expect the worst then there will never be any disappointment, which means no pain (well, little to no pain). Holding people to certain expectations has only ever caused me pain, but my own expectations for myself are the worst and those aren't ever going to change. Why would I set lower goals for myself? People don't think enough about the long-term consequences of their actions anymore. They really should.
Maybe I just need some sort of epiphany or something miraculous to happen in my life? To completely blow my mind away and erase all worries about how I look, how I'm perceived and whether or not people like me (sarcasm shields me from that anyway). It's not so easy to change well-informed opinions about yourself, but I suppose I can always try harder, not just try. I've been trying for years, even if people don't believe me because there is no outward change, but I have been. Hurdles are a big problem in life, especially if you have short legs. I could never be an upbeat, knock on your door type person, but I could be just a tad less suspicious and open to new experiences. I might try that.
So you see, I'm getting a bit too old to be starving (literally and socially) and I'm far too young not to be enjoying life just because I'm too frightened to be 100% myself in front of people. That's probably my biggest "hang up," myself or rather, not liking myself. Of course it's not just not liking myself, it's also not liking myself in front of others or fear of rejection is probably more accurate (I'm really not good with rejection). Is this the way I want my life to be? Of course not, but to me the alternative is even more terrifying. Fear and suspicion may seem to be bad, but really they keep you vigilant against others, they make you harder and I really need all the protection I can get. I'm all for love and peace on a global and social level, but internally I'm holding on to that fear. Openness and optimism are my Kryptonite.
Sunday 30 September 2012
Tuesday 18 September 2012
Thoughts from the heart.
You know what I am absolutely, sick to death of? Being treated like nothing or less than nothing, by people who are SUPPOSED to care. My family and friends mean the world to me, but after much reflection and based on current events and let's face it, my entire past, I have realised that it must not be a mutual feeling.
There are two traits I admire above all others, honesty and loyalty. I'm not being arrogant when I say I am a loyal person, because I am and that's all I want to be. Family is forever, they're not just people you share a name with or genetics. You're supposed to care about each other and love each other unconditionally, which has been a main source of tension in my family. They don't seem to be able to love someone UNCONDITIONALLY. If you can't do that then surely it's not love? It would be just putting up with someone because you know you're supposed to, but that's not love. That's not even tolerance, because they still detest everything about me that makes me the person I am. From my appearance, to my beliefs and morals, to my more liberal ideas, they can't stand them. If they can't even bother to try and understand me, then I don't understand why I continue to love them. Maybe I'm just a masochist, but it is torturous to try over and over to get people to love you, when it seems to be a pointless task. You can't just love someone when you feel like it or when they do something which benefits you. That is just hurtful and the person knows that your love is conditional (trust me, they know) and I don't see the point of dragging people along in your life when you don't genuinely care for them. Just cut them off. However, if that is the action chosen, then it will be me being cut off, not them, because I do love them.
It's not just my family either. I've realised that some people I thought were friends were more like part-time friends. People that see me occasionally (when they feel like it), put up with me and then I don't hear another word from them until they apparently need help with something or want something. The most ridiculous part of this cycle is that I go along with it. I accept the fact that they only want to be my friend when they need something and I leap at the bloody chance, because I have to! What else am I going to do when my friends suddenly don't feel I'm worthwhile anymore to have around? When they can find someone better to replace me with. I'll admit, sometimes I'm overly generous with friends because I don't want them to go, I don't want them to find someone to replace me with. Maybe that sounds pitiful but it's honest. I know I'm not the easiest person to put up with, to befriend because I'm awkward or to love (obviously), but I do try to make myself into someone that people want to talk to.
All I know is that I'm so very tired of having my feelings and worth as a human being, trampled over without a second thought. I don't want people to tolerate me, I want people to genuinely want to be my friend or to love me for who I am. I can't spend the rest of my life feeling like I'm in a marathon against the rest of the world and that every person who passes me will replace me. If my family don't want to accept me that's fine, well it's not, but I'll get over it. If my friends don't actually want to be my friend then that's the same thing. I just can't be the only one trying all the time. I just can't anymore.
There are two traits I admire above all others, honesty and loyalty. I'm not being arrogant when I say I am a loyal person, because I am and that's all I want to be. Family is forever, they're not just people you share a name with or genetics. You're supposed to care about each other and love each other unconditionally, which has been a main source of tension in my family. They don't seem to be able to love someone UNCONDITIONALLY. If you can't do that then surely it's not love? It would be just putting up with someone because you know you're supposed to, but that's not love. That's not even tolerance, because they still detest everything about me that makes me the person I am. From my appearance, to my beliefs and morals, to my more liberal ideas, they can't stand them. If they can't even bother to try and understand me, then I don't understand why I continue to love them. Maybe I'm just a masochist, but it is torturous to try over and over to get people to love you, when it seems to be a pointless task. You can't just love someone when you feel like it or when they do something which benefits you. That is just hurtful and the person knows that your love is conditional (trust me, they know) and I don't see the point of dragging people along in your life when you don't genuinely care for them. Just cut them off. However, if that is the action chosen, then it will be me being cut off, not them, because I do love them.
It's not just my family either. I've realised that some people I thought were friends were more like part-time friends. People that see me occasionally (when they feel like it), put up with me and then I don't hear another word from them until they apparently need help with something or want something. The most ridiculous part of this cycle is that I go along with it. I accept the fact that they only want to be my friend when they need something and I leap at the bloody chance, because I have to! What else am I going to do when my friends suddenly don't feel I'm worthwhile anymore to have around? When they can find someone better to replace me with. I'll admit, sometimes I'm overly generous with friends because I don't want them to go, I don't want them to find someone to replace me with. Maybe that sounds pitiful but it's honest. I know I'm not the easiest person to put up with, to befriend because I'm awkward or to love (obviously), but I do try to make myself into someone that people want to talk to.
All I know is that I'm so very tired of having my feelings and worth as a human being, trampled over without a second thought. I don't want people to tolerate me, I want people to genuinely want to be my friend or to love me for who I am. I can't spend the rest of my life feeling like I'm in a marathon against the rest of the world and that every person who passes me will replace me. If my family don't want to accept me that's fine, well it's not, but I'll get over it. If my friends don't actually want to be my friend then that's the same thing. I just can't be the only one trying all the time. I just can't anymore.
Monday 17 September 2012
The Art Of Getting Everything You Don't Want.
I haven't updated in a while, I haven't been busy, just neglectful. So here is my blog post about getting everything you DON'T want and the way I went about it.
1. Short-term friendships
There is absolutely no point in forming short-term friendships in my opinion. Everyone I made friends with in school is still my friend. That could be because I don't trust people easily or generally because I don't in fact, like people much at all. So how do you get short-term friends you wonder? Well, it's easy. You can do this by joining a group and creating a 'friendship' based on some ridiculous lie or mutual interest in a band you have actually never heard of. These methods tend to work throughout high school and University and can last from about 8-12 weeks. That's enough time to be seen having a friend before you can move on to the next victim. Remember, if you're going to form a friendship based on lies, be outlandish and inventive! I've had some of the worst ones thrown at me (though I didn't know it at the time) and although I think those people are now complete jerks, at least they were creative. Kudos to them.
2. Have people think you're a pushover (and then becoming one)
This would be difficult for the more charismatic people amongst us, but not for me. I'm naturally shy and quiet around strangers, definitely introverted and for some reason that leads people to believe you will do whatever they say. For me this only extended to some of my friends and my elder sister. My sister has a way of making you feel guilty (more on that later) for not doing what she wants and she's very good at this particular act of manipulation. Most of my teenage years were spent bailing my sister out of trouble with my parents or even strangers sometimes. This is probably why I was so outwardly defensive to other people outside of my friends and family group, like my teachers or my peers. So if you want to actually be a pushover, just do whatever you're told and keep telling yourself it's for the best. That can last up to 5 years if you do it well.
3. Being thin and depressed
I have a wealth of knowledge on this particular topic. To be thin and depressed all you have to do is have absolutely no self-esteem and to be told you're worthless countless times, then you'll start believing it. You will do whatever it takes to prove people otherwise and that is a great motivation for starving yourself, until you can't ever look at soup the same way again. I haven't been able to go near soup in years. This starvation will also increase depression or create it, if you're not already there. There are some repercussions though, starving also leads to isolating yourself from the outside world, not being able to go out socially with friends and having no life outside of food. Also, hospital visits are common. This starved way of life can last for a while, until you run out of energy or life to keep going. The psychological effects and depression can last a life time.
4. Having an unhealthy amount of guilt
Back to guilt. If you were raised Catholic, you already have an inbuilt sense of guilt for everything you have ever done. If not, you just need to be blamed for everything that goes wrong in your parent's lives. After a while guilt becomes second nature, it motivates you not to do certain things, or more likely, to do everything people ask you to do if they complain enough. This isn't like being a pushover, this is just staying alive to serve other people's emotional manipulations. Guilt lasts a lifetime.
5. Being lonely.
Being lonely is not the same as being alone. If you are skilled at feeling lonely, you could be at a party or anywhere surrounded by people and you will feel completely lonely. It's like being detached from everything going on around you, you really need to work at it. The ways in which I came to be lonely, fairly frequently, was by mainly living in my head. I tend to overanalyse things until I think I am legitimately insane, replaying conversations and memories over and over again. You also find yourself increasingly lonely if you have nothing to say to other people. I don't see the point in making small talk, so if I have nothing to say, I say nothing at all. Cut out the small talk and avoid people, that's a sure way to feel lonely.
So those are my top five tips at getting everything out of life that you don't really want, but you may end up doing. Regret is probably number six.
Thursday 6 September 2012
I set new words unto an old refrain.
"Life goes on, within you and without you."
The Beatles
It is truly a devastating moment when you realise, that no matter how hard you try, you will never live up to other people's expectations. The more rational person would say that you should not live your life trying to please other people, that you should live for your own happiness. I'd like to consider myself a rational person and I would say that it really is not easy to shrug off other people's opinions. I could care less about what people think of the clothes I wear, the things I do, but I can't stand living with the knowledge that I've let someone down. I have though, my family especially, I can't be what they want me to be. They expect someone pure, intelligent and successful, someone who is going places. I'm just not that person, but there is no one else I can shift these expectations off to and truly I wouldn't wish them on anyone I know.
There are a few instances in my life when I truly believed I had achieved something, only for that moment to be ruined by someone or by myself. When I received my HSC results I was in London and was quite pleased, until I got home and was told promptly by my father that I could have done better, if only I hadn't made myself so sick. "If only," that should be inscribed on my tombstone. Again, after my first semester at University when I thought I had been doing fine, only to discover that compared to my friends I had done so poorly. I'm still doing quite poorly, but I gave up on trying for my degree a long time ago. Aside from scholarly pursuits, in life I measure up even worse. Constantly being compared to your very beautiful, very thin and very social sister is never easy. I refuse to even try and compete with her anymore, she's much more than I could ever be. I'll always be the black sheep of the family; the quiet one in the corner or the weird one, who constantly argues against racism and homophobia (so I must be a lesbian!), I'll never be the golden child. I'm not sure I would want to be.
It's so very hard to know what people want from you, but it's even harder to realise you can't deliver. I'm not smart enough, I'm not pretty or social enough and I never will be. When you realise you have failed so early in life, you develop some way to cope with the overwhelming sense of despair. I've always had a sort of masochistic streak (only towards myself), a belief that I deserved some sort of punishment for failing. It would be crazy of me to go out and ask someone to hurt me for being so lousy, so it always ends up being me who does the punishing. Whether it be dieting to the extreme, closing myself off from people or other more harmful means, I've always known that I deserved everything I have done to myself. Although I may not have deserved everything other people have done to me, it's more comforting for me to believe I did something to deserve being treated so poorly, than to accept the fact someone has hurt me just for the sake of it, because they could.
I am truly a sensitive person. By sensitive, I mean I'm like a sponge. I absorb what people say about me, how they feel about me and what they expect of me. I'm not someone who can just forget about an argument or an insult, I have a terrible habit of replaying these sorts of things on a loop in my head for days. It's always the people you care about the most who can hurt you the worst and perhaps it's because I love them so much, that I can never forgive or forget what they have said. If only I could switch my mind off, life would be so much easier.
So I am a living embodiment of disappointment for my family. I'm proof that a person can in fact live carrying around that knowledge and still function, barely. If I have to punish myself, more than any person ever has, then it is because of this. I can't function and still attempt to try if I am not punished for my failures, the only reason I would try again, just to give myself some time before I fall inevitably back into despair.
I know that most people can get themselves back up again without the need to hurt themselves or avoid the rest of the world, but I can't and I'm sorry. If only trying was good enough, maybe then I would be good enough.
The Beatles
It is truly a devastating moment when you realise, that no matter how hard you try, you will never live up to other people's expectations. The more rational person would say that you should not live your life trying to please other people, that you should live for your own happiness. I'd like to consider myself a rational person and I would say that it really is not easy to shrug off other people's opinions. I could care less about what people think of the clothes I wear, the things I do, but I can't stand living with the knowledge that I've let someone down. I have though, my family especially, I can't be what they want me to be. They expect someone pure, intelligent and successful, someone who is going places. I'm just not that person, but there is no one else I can shift these expectations off to and truly I wouldn't wish them on anyone I know.
There are a few instances in my life when I truly believed I had achieved something, only for that moment to be ruined by someone or by myself. When I received my HSC results I was in London and was quite pleased, until I got home and was told promptly by my father that I could have done better, if only I hadn't made myself so sick. "If only," that should be inscribed on my tombstone. Again, after my first semester at University when I thought I had been doing fine, only to discover that compared to my friends I had done so poorly. I'm still doing quite poorly, but I gave up on trying for my degree a long time ago. Aside from scholarly pursuits, in life I measure up even worse. Constantly being compared to your very beautiful, very thin and very social sister is never easy. I refuse to even try and compete with her anymore, she's much more than I could ever be. I'll always be the black sheep of the family; the quiet one in the corner or the weird one, who constantly argues against racism and homophobia (so I must be a lesbian!), I'll never be the golden child. I'm not sure I would want to be.
It's so very hard to know what people want from you, but it's even harder to realise you can't deliver. I'm not smart enough, I'm not pretty or social enough and I never will be. When you realise you have failed so early in life, you develop some way to cope with the overwhelming sense of despair. I've always had a sort of masochistic streak (only towards myself), a belief that I deserved some sort of punishment for failing. It would be crazy of me to go out and ask someone to hurt me for being so lousy, so it always ends up being me who does the punishing. Whether it be dieting to the extreme, closing myself off from people or other more harmful means, I've always known that I deserved everything I have done to myself. Although I may not have deserved everything other people have done to me, it's more comforting for me to believe I did something to deserve being treated so poorly, than to accept the fact someone has hurt me just for the sake of it, because they could.
I am truly a sensitive person. By sensitive, I mean I'm like a sponge. I absorb what people say about me, how they feel about me and what they expect of me. I'm not someone who can just forget about an argument or an insult, I have a terrible habit of replaying these sorts of things on a loop in my head for days. It's always the people you care about the most who can hurt you the worst and perhaps it's because I love them so much, that I can never forgive or forget what they have said. If only I could switch my mind off, life would be so much easier.
So I am a living embodiment of disappointment for my family. I'm proof that a person can in fact live carrying around that knowledge and still function, barely. If I have to punish myself, more than any person ever has, then it is because of this. I can't function and still attempt to try if I am not punished for my failures, the only reason I would try again, just to give myself some time before I fall inevitably back into despair.
I know that most people can get themselves back up again without the need to hurt themselves or avoid the rest of the world, but I can't and I'm sorry. If only trying was good enough, maybe then I would be good enough.
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