Monday, October 29, 2012

Figuring Some Shit Out.

Wow, I haven't written on here in quite a while. Recently however, I have been doing a lot of thinking (eh, when do I not do a lot of thinking?). I have just been seeing such a direct correlation with events in peoples past, and the person that they are now. I mean, its quite obvious, but I think its something that I just accepted as true and never fully understood until I saw it for myself. I first started realizing it when I pieced together that the reason I am so scared (terrified) of people in masks is because when I was little, my dad used to punish me by wearing a really scary mask. That fear has stuck with me. The next event that made me see it was my friend Faline. She was talking about how when she was younger, her sister dared her to shave off part of her eyebrows. To this day, she is incredibly paranoid about going to get her eyebrows waxed because of the fear of losing her eyebrow again. The third event that made me see it is something that happened to me in 6th grade, and requires a bit of story telling.

Up until High School, I lived in Brooklyn. The way that the schools in New York City work is that you can go to any school in NYC you want to. You just have to apply to the school, and get accepted. This means that every time you go to a new school, you are with lots and lots of new people. So naturally just like all of the other 5th graders in New York, I applied of a few middle schools, and picked which I wanted to go to. I don't remember that much about 6th grade at all, but theres one event that really sticks out to me. In 6th grade, I became friends with a few girls. They created this club called the "Banana Club" (I know, so cool!). And in order to get into the club, you needed to go to the library with them, and sing the banana song. The club was legit - badges and everything! So some how, I was deemed cool enough to be in the club. I had a badge, and I would sometimes hang out with my new friends after school. I felt so lucky to have met such cool new friends. Then one day, they just stopped talking to me. I had no idea why, and I was pretty upset because these were my new friends and I wanted them to like me! One day in class, I wrote one of the girls a note asking if I had done something wrong. I don't remember exactly how the conversation went, I just remember her saying that they didn't want to be friends with me any more, and that I needed to hand in my "badge". I asked if I had done anything wrong to cause them to not want to be my friends anymore, and I am pretty sure her answer was no. Basically, they just decided they didn't like me anymore, and wouldn't even talk to me! In a sense, it was a mild form of bullying. Well, lets just say that I was heart broken. I went home and cried to my mom, and my mom got really upset. And thats pretty much how this story ends. After a while I became friends with all of the girls who didn't like me, and everything was right in the world.

However, going to college has made me learn a few things about myself. I am insanely paranoid that people don't like me. If someone doesn't answer a text message of mine or if someone assumes I am busy and doesn't invite me somewhere, I get so nervous that they actually don't want to be friends with me. I don't care as much with people that I am not friends with, but when it comes to my friends, I get so incredibly scared that they are going to wake up and decide they don't want to be friends with me anymore. And it makes a lot of sense that it would have to do with my experience in 6th grade. The fear also doesn't exist regarding old friends. For example, my best friend Michelle. I know we are best friends, and nothing would cause my to question that friendship. Its just new friendships that I get incredibly paranoid and self conscious over. I feel like this fear holds me back from making new friends. I assume that people won't like me or find me interesting, so I put minimal to no effort in developing new friendships. I leave it all up to the other person.

Another thing is (this is something that I have mentioned on here before), I feel like I still do not have a strong concept of who I am. And I don't want to put all of the blame on these silly little 6th grade girls, but it would make sense that the reason I don't know who I am stems from that event. Because I am so paranoid about people not liking me, I guess I try and seem "likable". But in trying to hard to be someone that other people like, I have completely missed out on figuring out myself and what I like. Well not completely, but some what. I am working on figuring it out little by little.

Well, thats my story. A short history on why I am the way that I am. Hopefully this discovery will help me overcome this problem, and allow me to be more open and therefore develop stronger, new relationships. We'll see.

3 comments:

  1. I totally get what you mean. It's cool you can find where certain fears or ideas stem from, though. I think that can help you eventually overcome them.

    But for me, I often have a fear my friends will stop liking me or move on to other people...even friends I've had for awhile. It's weird and I think I'm just generally anxious and paranoid about things, so I guess it's just something I have to work through. I'm getting better.

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  2. i think its good that your getting to understand yourself more. if you can find the reason why, then maybe you can learn to change your way of thinking about yourself and who you'd be happy to see yourself become not what anyone else thinks is interesting but whats interesting to you. also, i have a vague idea of who these people are but not exactly. whatevs. this is why you have me :]

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