For years people have compared themselves to others. Picking each of their unique features apart and finding something wrong with them, when in reality there is nothing wrong. They find themselves staring blankly in the mirror wondering why they can’t look like so-and-so.
Insecurities; raging like a pandemic, corrupting the minds of young teens and even children. Picture perfect models swarm the magazines, television shows, movies, covers of books, billboards, literally everything. Today’s world may be getting better with manifesting diversity with each new generation, insecurities are still there. Insecurities overthrow the minds of everyone at some point. If you say otherwise, well, you’re a liar.
As a child I was a social butterfly, I believed I was a perfect little princess. I talked to anybody and everybody, and suffered being bullied like many others. Yet, I stood up for myself but not in a rude way of bullying back. I asked why.
“Why do you bully me?” I remember asking another little girl in my first grade class. Her response was something along the lines of “I’m jealous of you” or “I want to be your friend.” It stayed like that for awhile, I befriended literally everybody and anybody, then I moved.
Even though it was just a town away, I was so little, so confused and I felt so far away. I found fitting in was not as easy as it was at my old school. I still made many friends, but I started to compare myself to others who I was not friends with. Even on the first day of school I felt out of place, like an ant in a swarm of bees. They all seemed so distant, kinda like they were miles above me in the sky, while I was on the ground only admiring them.
With every movement I made, I found myself wondering what others would think of me. I felt like I was always being watched. I felt like one wrong move, and I’d be the next playground talk.
“Have you seen the new girl? She’s so weird… What is she wearing?”
I was just a child, and still those thoughts swarmed my brain. I started categorizing cliques to see who or whom not to hang out with: hang out with the dorks and you’ll be judged. Hang out with the nerds and you’ll be used as a pawn in a game. Hang out with the populars… oh please be realistic that’ll never be me. But why? Was I not enough like them?
Then again I moved, feeling even more out of place. Eyes swarmed me as I entered the room.
“Class this is Alexis,” the teacher said. I never went by Alexis before then, but I insisted on going by Alexis. For a new start, I told myself. I was excited, scared. Within a few days, I started comparing myself yet again. Why could I not be popular? Did I look too different? Was my hair too boring? Was my outfit not it? Did I really stand out that much?
For years I found myself staring in the mirror, picking apart everything about myself. I was too skinny, I needed to gain some weight, but not too much or I’d be fat. My clothes… oh for the life of me I could not figure out clothes, and still can’t. My teeth… Why did I have an oddly sharp tooth… Did I look like a vampire… Why do they even look like that? My eyes… ugh basic brown, literally nothing unique about them.
As time passed, I found myself digging deeper into a mental rut. Caring too much about what others thought, I let that control me. I would fake smiles to seem okay, but in reality I was slowly losing it. I distanced myself from my friends more and more, afraid of letting them in the wall I spent so long building.
By freshman year, I decided I was done with what I was doing, that I would not care what others thought. I was ready to see myself as who I am and be fine with it. It took time to break down that mental wall, it wasn’t until last year where I fully committed. I talked to people I never thought I would. I let myself be who I am, whether people judged me for it or not. I learned that people don’t really care about little things, they don’t notice them. Thanks to the friends I built up the strength to talk to, I feel better about myself.
Every so often I look in the mirror and find something “wrong” with me, but I don’t let that take control. In the end, I fought the battle and won just like others. While they may still be in the battle now or ending it, everybody goes through the miserable depths of insecurities. If they put their mind to it, like any other obstacle, they can overcome it.
