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Blog, Blogging, Change, Family, Growing Up, High school, Hurt, Life, My Story, Problems, School, Self Worth, Smile, Stress, Thoughts
If you knew me in real life, you would think that everything in my life is perfect. Nothing will really affect me enough for me not to have a smile on my face. If you were able to see the life that I’m living behind the curtains, you would think otherwise.
When I was a child, I was quite aggressive and rude. Looking back, my behaviour wasn’t the best. My temper was even worse. This was mainly because of the type of household I grew up in and who I was hanging out with at school. I’m not proud of who I was, but I can confidently say that if it wasn’t for who I was and realizing the type of person that I was, I would never have become who I am now.
I think I started to realize that my temper and my behaviour wasn’t the best in high school. I wasn’t entirely clear of who I was until my senior year. My temper was (and still kind of is) horrendous because of the way I grew up. Growing up, I rarely smiled and I was incredibly shy. I’m not entirely sure why, but in performances and videos, I would always have a straight face on. Also, growing up, very rarely did my dad sit me down and talk to me politely and explain things to me in a calm manner. It was usually told by him through anger and with him yelling at me. It got to a point where I would just talk back which made him even more pissed because he never listened to what anyone else would say. If he’s made up his mind, there’s nothing anyone could say to change that. In his mind, everything he thinks is 100% accurate and is the truth. It was very hard for me to hid the anger and the frustration whenever others were to upset me. I would fight fire with fire. Looking back, I’m ashamed that I let my anger get to the best of me and let it control me. Even now, I struggle with regulating my emotions because I am extremely sensitive but at the same time, I don’t want others to see that.
My behaviour started acting up when I was in elementary school. I was in a school that was predominately one race and I felt like an outsider. I thought that the only way to “fit in” was to hang out with the “cool kids” and do whatever they were doing. Even if that meant swearing and fighting at the age of 11. After my best friend moved away a few years later, I decided to switch schools, and that made all the difference.
Because of these experiences, I told myself that I will smile more and I won’t jump to conclusions too fast. I don’t want people to see the sad parts of my life because I don’t want their perception of me to change. I don’t want them to know that I’m anything else than the happy and bubbly person that I try to portray myself as. But in all honesty, I’m broken. I have trust issues, I have a hard time letting people in and telling them my struggles. Just with my best friend, it took about year to a year and a half for me to be more open and honest with how I’m feeling and the things that I’m going through. It’s progress, but I still question whether I should tell someone about my problems, regardless of who it is.
The transition from who I was to who I am now is still a work in progress. I’ve come a long way to becoming who I am now or who I seem to be, but there’s still a lot of work I need to do emotionally. But something like that isn’t an issue the ordinary person would see just by having one or two conversations with me. Even if they’ve known me for years, they still might not know anything behind the smile. And that’s because I’ve done such a good job hiding it so deep down that my automatic reaction is to shut everyone out. The only way for me to get out the feelings I have inside is through these blog posts where no one knows who I am. That’s the only way I’ll feel comfortable letting anyone in.