A “Spring Cleaning” of Self
I was thinking about my own identity today, contemplating what components make up me in ALL my silly glory. So, what is the essence of my own humanness? Honestly, I’m still not entirely sure and I don’t know if I expect to ever fully know. A decent part of my life at this point is sorting and sifting through pieces, trying to figure out which ones make sense to me. I wrote a poem about this once. It felt like I had this giant box that was packed to the brim with a broad collection of knick-knacks. However, much of the contents did not belong to me. There were things I just randomly stuffed in there without much thought or had let be shoved in due to my lack of boundaries.
These days, I’m realizing how many things in that box don’t fit quite right or don’t serve me. I’m discovering that, as I got older, I wasn’t really forming my own identity. I was mostly just trying to hide my strangeness and be a chameleon in groups of people. I was usually hoping people wouldn’t notice something was off. That they wouldn’t detect that there was an underlayer of struggle behind my bubbly, try hard persona.
As someone who tried to conceal their neurodivergence, I often wore masks and boy oh boy did I get practiced at mask juggling. The disguises just ended being a part of who I was at the time. I have always loved acting and truthfully, I put up those fronts to protect me. I saw how mean people could be to the “weird girl”. So, I adopted mimicked behaviors that made me seem more “normal”. And I think I got away with it for the most part (as far as I know at least) but I only have my own perspective to rely on.
To be candid with you, “normal” doesn’t work well for me. I was the most miserable when I was living my life in shoulds instead of what made me happy. The self I pushed down and who I try to be true to now isn’t always likable. She naturally stands out. I exude eccentricity and ridiculousness. I like dressing to draw attention to myself and doing things just for the sake of seeing stranger’s reactions. Sometimes I make cat noises and get hyper and loud. Occasionally, when I get excited, I stim. It feels pretty satisfying to be able to do that around other people now. Growing up, stimming was something I only dared do in private. I remember squealing out loud and hand flapping when no one was home. I love how my own voice would echo across my parent’s house. It was satisfying to release all that pent up energy.
I’m not sure if I will ever know exactly who I am, but I feel more “me” than I ever have. I’m not just existing to never rock the boat. I am taking steps to be more honest and open without fear of everyone’s opinions being more important than mine. It’s a struggle for me and I still take steps backwards out of anxiety and fear a good portion of the time. I hope that I can have the courage to boldly be myself and to continue to build on seeing my own worth as human being. I look forward to noticing how things in my own life shift with changes in perception. One of the things I wish for myself is to have to strength to see what serves me and what doesn’t. Cheers to continuing to grow!
-WhimsyCat