Zander's Inside Voice

I found this on social media the other day. It struck me because of my weird need to take responsibility for everything. I have tried to do all of this and burned myself out repeatedly doing everything but living my own life the way I want to live. I think it’s a trap a lot of us fall into.

I have the ability to see the best in people. That makes me completely ignore the ways that they are hurting me. It can be a good thing, but not when I allow myself to be damaged because I get too focused on what could be and not what is. I am still working on this because my parents raised me to accommodate everyone else and whatever they want. Even though my mother’s mother was the same way with her, my mother was unable to stop herself from doing that to me. That makes me want to fix people and save people from themselves. Or change them too, I guess.

I have chased so many people too. Friends that I had outgrown or knew were bad for me were so hard to let go. I kept relationships alive on life support way longer than I should have. I knew it wasn’t good but I just couldn’t let go. I wanted to keep people in my life as much as possible. It was so unhealthy for me.

I tried hard in the Air Force to prove everyone wrong and control how they saw me. It went very poorly. They also didn’t care what I was trying to show them. They saw what they wanted to see and not what I trying to do. And then I tried to prove that what they believed was not accurate. Eventually I gave up trying because they didn’t want to see what I was really doing or what was going on behind closed doors with me. They wanted to write me off for a bunch of reasons. I regret all the effort I put into trying to be what I thought they wanted me to be.

The truth is that no one can see something without wanting to see it. I think it’s really hard to undo a bad first impression or what someone has decided that you are, right or wrong. I have successfully changed people’s minds about me, but it’s been rare. I think it had so much to do with me not being myself around anyone. I always felt like I was faking, so I tried to just keep quiet and play the part of what I thought I was supposed to be. That’s a theme that I continue to see over and over. I was trying so hard to be someone else and it was damaging.

No one should ever have to try to be who they are on the inside. Or cover up what’s really on the inside with something else to fit people’s expectations. I know it’s going to take me a bit to get to where exactly I want to be, but I am devoted to doing that now. I have to do it. I don’t think I can be happy otherwise. I definitely can’t go back into hiding, I can only move forward!