The thing I want most in the world is to be understood. I want to be completely at peace with myself, and to surround myself with people who love and accept me for whoever I am. I want to be heard and listened to, because I’ve learned that those are completely different things. I don’t want to have to feel ashamed for not believing the things I’m supposed to, and I don’t want to feel like I should hate myself with every mistake. I believe mistakes should be stepping stones, crucial for growth, rather than boulders dragging you down.

But when the people around you are harsher critics to you than even the voice inside your head, it threatens you. It’s hard to be honest with who you are when there are so many people tugging you in a million different directions. How are you supposed to find yourself when you can no longer distinguish the voice in your head from the voices whispering in your ear? It’s hard to decipher which are your own thoughts, or the expectations of others. How are you supposed to grow if you’re so afraid of failing that you don’t even try?

There are so many outlines of who I’m supposed to be, that I constantly find myself trying to squish inside of one. I try on different molds, trying to find the one that fits best. But as I’m getting older, I’ve started questioning if there’s a mold that will ever fit. Everyone around me seems to fit in these neat, little boxes but I don’t. And so I started to lie. I lied about the things I like and the things I’ve done. I lied to people I didn’t like and ignored ones I did. I lied so much that soon I couldn’t decipher which stories were true or just figments of my imagination. I didn’t know my true passions, or what were just things that I knew I should like. I grew comfortable with lying, but I also sunk further and further inside myself. But it was easier to lie and make the people around you love you than the alternative. I became the ultimate emotional manipulator. I knew the perfect things to say in every situation to get the person I was speaking with to like me. I perfected the role of the victim. I could make people love me, pity me, or even fear me. I had so many faces that eventually I lost the original.

But I’m getting older now. I’m too old for stories and tall tales. Keeping up with all the lies was excruciatingly draining, and I was tired of going to bed with the thought that nobody in the world really knew who I was. I learned that it was better to be hated for who you are, than loved for being someone you’re not. So slowly I began to take down my walls of lies, and left my heart exposed. It’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done. But I’ve learned that the people who love me, will still love me even when I’m not exactly who they want me to be. And though it hurts when someone doesn’t like me for who I am, it’s worth every rejection a thousands times over having somebody love the real you, flaws and all. That I promise you.