How would you describe yourself to someone?
I feel like my personality isn’t something I understand at all these days. At 26 years old, I’m just now learning that my personality has been a combination of me using my trauma responses as my personality; I’m still learning and am about to hit full brain development. I’m interested to see where things go from here, but the following is what I understand so far:
1) I’m not actually anti-social like I thought I was for so much of my life. I don’t actually hate people; I’ve just been treated so badly, especially during my younger years, that I’ve gotten so picky about the people I spend time with.
2) My past trauma and my mental illnesses don’t need to define me. Yes, I have mental illnesses and a neurodevelopmental disability, but that colors my personality, it’s not everything there is.
3) I don’t need to hate myself forever for the things I’ve done. I need to focus on how to become better instead.
4) I’m worth working on improving. I don’t have to be perfect to be worthy of having that improvement worked on.
5) Whether other people choose to forgive me doesn’t define whether I’ve improved or not. Even if I become a great person, some people I’ve hurt can’t forgive me.
6) Medication is the best decision I made. It saved my relationship, my friendship…and probably my life.
I’m a complicated person, but we all are. While the notion “we’re all special” sounds nice, I find it harmful more than helpful. When I realized that my feelings aren’t as unique as I thought, there’s a sense of peace in that. We’re all struggling.
