finding authenticity

I remember moving for uni, and it would’ve been the first time I was away from anyone I knew, completely alone in a new city. I didn’t mind that. I found that I particularly enjoyed the predicament.

But I shared my doubts with my sister, as this was something new and, actually, pretty sudden, but that’s not the story I’m telling now.

What she told me was supposed to sound like one thing, but it came out as something else entirely.

She said to me: Now you can be whoever you want. You don’t have to be yourself.

Meant as: I was struggling with severe mental health issues, of which anxiety was only the easiest one, and I carried a lot of doubt and hopelessness at the time, and there’s a whole context behind it. I understood.

But it also made me wonder who I was, and how others perceived me. I took pride in the fact that I was high-functioning, that nobody could ever sense how bad it got, that no one would ever know the extent of it. On the outside, you might never know.

So what do you mean I don’t have to be myself? Did I slip? Did the impeccable front start showing cracks? Did it start crumbling?

She didn’t mean it in any of the ways I overthought it afterwards. We had a conversation (and many to follow about this), but what I got caught in was the fact that I was tired.

At that point, yes, I wanted a fresh start, a clean slate, but I was so tired of pretending. I reached a breaking point. After everything, do I really need to go somewhere new and immediately put on another show?

But that picture-perfect editing, the people-pleasing-to-being-loved pipeline, and the panopticon (a very present and detrimental concept that rules my life) spilled into all spheres of my life.

So here’s how it started with writing, my most sacred haven. I started writing very young. It was the only thing that made people mind me or pay attention to me, so I hung on to it not just as an outlet, but also because it gave me importance.

That would mean I was essentially writing for others, already aware that what I wrote isn’t for me anymore, and it needs to get other people’s approval.

Did I cater to other people’s opinions? Of course! I wasn’t about to ruin this tiny piece of hope.

Deprivation is what that’s called.

And then later, years later, when I started to turn more inward – as I always have, running from harm and running for help – I didn’t think that my writing was safe. By then, I didn’t have the privacy that I think my writing deserved.

At the time, I wanted that one thing that would be my own. The one thing nobody can take away from me.

That’s why I created this awful, illegible handwriting, because if they can’t read it, they can’t read it.

It wasn’t a diary. I never wrote about myself. I never wrote anything that would leave a trace of me, fearing that if they were able to read it, they would find even more vulnerabilities, even more things to ruin.

But I was still trying to establish that concept of privacy, a firm boundary where only I decide what I want to share, what’s for others, and what’s for me only.

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That panopticon is scary, looming over my every thought like a strict editor. It threw off balance every distinction I had between personal and public things. How much I share about myself, how I go about doing it (I go create a blog about it), and whether I feel safe with any of my thoughts.

It’s more than the fear of being judged. Because I don’t think there’s anything to be judged, and I’m not allowing my space to become a trial, or my mind a prison, but you know, your good old probing and prying, and whatever other name it can have.

I can’t simply balance it out or accept that it can happen. This invasion of unknown origin.

I’m loud about honesty and openness because I crave that space, so I try to start with myself. But can I hide from that watchtower?

And ultimately, does it matter anyway? Whatever I put out, does it matter in the end?

I craved a community, and I craved a space I could pour my soul into, not polishing it to the expectations of the few people in my vicinity. The virtual world is a big world, so instead, I can find people who would take this unpolished version (says she as she scours the post for any errors and still makes them) and like it, too.

But even now, am I truly honest?

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