Be You, There’s No Reason to Hide Yourself
For the longest time in my life, I was a cushion.
For people to fall back on if nothing worked out in their lives. For people to fling me around because they couldn’t look themselves in the eye and face their own follies and insecurities. For people to spend a couple uncomfortable, somber hours with, only so they could keep the better part of their day aside for more “deserving” company — when they felt ready. For people to poke fun at, and be pulled down in sneaky ways.
The eternal jokester. The sweet, cute, reliable friend. The girlfriend who loved unconditionally. The chatterbox who could entertain till dawn broke out. The strong, independent daughter who could take all the brickbats but didn’t need to be told she is loved or cherished.
I’ve spent more than two decades doing everything right by the book — at least what one would consider “right” in terms of “being a good person” (whatever that means).
I have been by people’s side, fought for them, defended them, cried for them, kept their darkest, dirtiest secrets safe, waited on them, forgiven them, literally traveled miles for them.
All of my “good deeds” should’ve ideally have fetched me an army of people to fall back on as well, isn’t it? For people to share my worries and joy with, for people to have my back, for people to be loyal to me just as I was to them, for people to be kind to me because that’s about the least one can expect in this scenario?
And yet, as the years passed by, over and over again I would find myself all alone. Devastatingly alone.
Crying myself to sleep every night after my relationship fell apart because my “best friend” at the time chose to subtly taunt me how I was the culprit and how I sort of deserved it.
Shocked and traumatized my parents didn’t come to my defense and speak to school authorities when the English teacher in the 12th grade went off on a random mood and chose to take it out on me instead, by slapping me hard across the face. I still flinch when I think of it, I literally fell backwards with the impact.
Shocked my “best friend” would ridicule me for “exposing too much” because I was groped by an asshole on public transport — never mind I was wearing a full-sleeved, normal girly top.
Hurt and angered when I was bullied right through the first two years in the university and not one person came to my defense. I continued to be shunned and avoided like I was a faceless creature walking around in the long, dark hostel alley, fighting it out alone when and where I could. But of course, I had plenty of knuckles rapping on my door when someone wanted a shoulder to cry on, or share a secret, or borrow my electric kettle, or use the LAN in my room.
I could go on and on. But you get the point, don’t you? No matter how much I stretched myself, I was never “enough” for people. Now matter what I did for them, no matter who I became for them.
I. Just. Did. Not.Seem.To.Matter.
And I didn’t understand why this was the case when everybody seemed to matter so much to me!
Little did I realize that that was the real problem. The fact that everybody else mattered to me but my own self.
I quit trying so hard
The problem with being everyone’s go-to man or woman is that somewhere down the line you start thinking of yourself as an ace problem-solver. The one who knows how to wing it under any circumstance, the one who knows or can get the answers. The one who cares when nobody else is.
You become the giver, everyone else around becomes the receiver.
Which makes it weirdly out-of-place and uncomfortable for you to say “NO” when you really should, because you feel you would be hurting the other person.
Which makes it hard for you to say the truth out loud because you’ve spent too much time agreeing with, or at least listening to them.
And well, it then becomes near impossible for you to speak of your own needs and fears like a regular human being, because all the other humans are so caught up with themselves they don’t have time for you. Tch tch, you don’t want to interrupt them, that would look downright mean and selfish.
Also, what about all the ‘love’ and attention you were getting? You have zero brownie points in your favor, this is your only way of being in the center of things (no matter how used it made you feel at times) and feel like you matter. In some way.
See where this is going?
You continue treading the path of this unilateral relationship — where there are no limits set on how much you can keep giving, and till when, with no questions asked of the other party if they would ever step up and reciprocate the gesture — if the need arises.
And so it goes smoothly, till the day you realize you cannot keep giving, lest you drain yourself out completely.
That day in my life arrived after I was left exhausted with all the emotional demands made of me, day in and day out, with absolutely no such kindness returned. Even if it was, there was always a bigger demand to be met with immediately, cruelly trampling on my hopes of ever being seen as an equal in a relationship.
I was 26 when that happened, and I thank my parents for waking me up to this beautiful experience — through an incident I would never forget even on my deathbed. More on that some other day, but to put it briefly, the day I was officially estranged from my family was the day it dawned on me what an utter fool I had been up till that point — letting people walk all over me, letting them use my time, money and emotions without any regard for my feelings whatsoever, but most importantly, letting them define and dictate who I was.
I decided I was not going to let people define who I was.
And the first thing I did was to quit trying so hard. Trying to fit in, be liked, be thought of as funny and thoughtful, cute, sweet and all the saccharine adjectives I’d have done better without.
I quit trying to solve people’s problems.
Quit trying to look independent, strong and unaffected at all times.
Quit trying to look interesting and interested when I really wasn’t feeling it.
Quit trying to appear like I knew all the answers.
Quit trying to keep relationships together.
I let it all hang out, like the torn pages of a book left in the open to fly away and land wherever they wanted to.
Some were flung so far away I couldn’t trace them anymore. Some remained at a distance, leaving me with the option of picking up those pieces if I wanted.
I chose freedom. And some much-needed selfishness.
It started with a lot of Nos
The best part about choosing Yourself is the freedom that comes with it. The freedom of knowing you are the person you ought to, and need to impress first. Which means, You set the benchmarks of what is right, how much you can do, how much you are willing to bend yourself for something or someone.
The worst part — you need to, and have to start letting people down in a lot of ways they don’t see coming.
This usually starts with saying “No” more than is comfortable for the people-pleasing You to come to terms with.
This could mean you’re saying no to the 4 am parties your friend wants you to come to, because you would rather curl up in the bed and read your favorite book.
It could mean you’re saying no to the friend who’s asking you to cover her tracks because she’s two-timing her boyfriend.
It could mean saying no to the friend who thought nothing of dropping by at your place late at night to share her sob story, after ignoring you for months and months. Or the rude manager who thinks it’s okay to drown you under a pile of work just when you’re getting ready to wrap up for the day.
There are plenty of situations where you would need to exercise self-restraint and say NO to. These could vary from person to person — it’s all about what your individual boundaries are and how willing (or unwilling) you are to play around with the rules.
Sometimes you may end up saying No to a lot of useless relationships/things in your life you feel serve you no more, in a way totally erasing them from your life.
And that’s okay too. In fact, that’s more than perfect for a fresh beginning.
I began saying a lot of Nos because I was sick of what my life had become because of all the times I kept going,”Yes!”.
The funny thing is — once you keep asserting ‘No’ more than murmuring the feeble ‘Yes’, people are going to get increasingly resentful of you. They will try to drag you back to the compliant creature you were before, so they can twist you around their little finger as and when they want to.
Emotional blackmail, sending you on guilt trips, pretending to be extremely interested in your life, are some of the signs you might come across in this phase.
But this is the hardest part. If you survive the resentment, distance, name-calling, bitchiness and indifference, and in some cases an excessive show of care and understanding even, you will have successfully put yourself on the road to self-realization and strength, two qualities that will hold you in good stead when all the hypocrisy around melts away.
You will no doubt, find yourself alone. But this will have been a choice You made instead of something that was thrust upon you.
You will be alone, but feel empowered.
I started saying No, and I made sure I stuck to those Nos.
That gave me the courage to start saying ‘Yes’ to the parts of me that were buried/hidden till that point of time.
And Then I Stopped Hiding..
If you want the moon, do not hide at night
If you want a rose, do not run from the thorns
If you want love…
do not hide from yourself — Rumi
A major reason why most people do not express their real selves is because they fear being rejected. Human beings are social animals, after all. The need for societal approval is as primal as the need for food. And that’s okay, there is nothing wrong with wanting to belong to a community, to an ideology far greater than oneself.
But how many times do people stick together in a pack because they truly want to and not because they’re afraid they will be alone, and stand rejected if they showed up their true selves?
I believe, if left to their own devices, and in environments where they can be more themselves, most people would not even walk down some of the paths they eventually do, setting off some irreversible blunders.
When I spent my days being the cushion to people’s dirt, grime, weaknesses and darkness, I ended up forgetting my real self.
The thoughts, opinions, values I was made of and stood by.
The boundaries that separated me from others — a healthy necessity.
I kept being everything to everybody around, and nothing to my own self.
I did that because I wanted appreciation, and love, for being a “good person” maybe? Little did I know “good” can be subjective and change meanings as per the context and motives. That I was intelligent, smart, creative and funny and didn’t need to try so hard and fit in like a piece in people’s puzzling, chaotic lives just so I could find acceptance.
I kept going round and round in circles, looking for love. Everywhere, in each person I met. But myself.
Once I realized what a doormat and a non-person it made me look like, I stopped doing that.
I started calling out friends and peers on their hypocrisy and speaking out my mind more often on things/issues I had a different perspective on.
Their favorite actors, music, travel destinations, food choices were no longer my default favorites.
Told my friends I wanted to shave my head off (because I really did) and got ludicrously stared at, but didn’t change a word of I’d said.
Chose the career I wanted to, looking past my parents’ emotional blackmailing. No more accepted their truth as mine, or their mistakes as my responsibility.
When push came to shove, I even walked out of relationships and situations that had long gone stale.
People who knew me now knew what to expect from me, but also, what I expected from them. It was no longer going to be a sorry one-way street.
The more I stopped hiding, the more I got the courage to be Myself.
And the more I got to be Myself, the less I needed to hide.
The more I fell in love with myself, the less alone I felt.
I am hardly on the way to total enlightenment or anything of the sort, but yes, I’m grateful I no longer am the naive girl who spent more than two-thirds of her life hankering for other people’s love and acceptance.
The interesting bit about showing yourself as you are to the world is that the world, eventually, comes round and accepts you for who You are. And even if it doesn’t, who cares? But if and when it does wake up to your presence — the real You — a new relationship is born, where you are seen as an equal, not a standby to be summoned on a whim.
So quit hiding behind those self-esteem issues, behind that mask of politeness and diplomacy when you really just want to be raw and honest, or that pretense of being ordinary and average for the fear you might be taking over someone’s shine.
Don’t hide, own your shine, don’t let anybody tell you you’ve got to be someone you’re not.
