My Insecurities and Me

Sometimes I wonder how well people actually know me. Can they see the insecurities through the façade of confidence that I try to put on? Does my loud-mouth, extraverted chat distract people enough that they don’t notice how I feel? I guess this is my way of putting it out in the open, and finally talking about the insecurities and anxieties that have been present in my life for as long as I can remember.

My biggest insecurities are ones of loneliness, exclusion, and the assumption that most people don’t actually like me, regardless of what they say to my face. These insecurities are something that are rooted in my childhood; I was always the weird kid, the one most people didn’t like. Many of my childhood memories are of bullying and exclusion – always the one left out. It didn’t help that I struggled with normal social interactions, my overbearing extroversion meant that I struggled with other people’s boundaries. It’s taken me years to learn how I can act around others, and let’s be honest, it’s something I’m still learning.

Throughout school I didn’t have many friends, I remember in my fourth year of secondary school I would sometimes go to the library to play on my phone during lunch, as I didn’t have anyone to talk to. The problem wasn’t that I had no friends, the problem is that every friend that I did have was part of a friendship group with people who really didn’t like me. So I always was excluded, always left on my own – no matter how hard I tried to fit in. Outside of school was in many ways even worse. The only friends that I saw regularly outside of school between the ages of 11 and 17 were Rachel and Lee, the latter of whom I knew from primary school and lived up the road.  If it hadn’t been for them, my early teenage years would have been spent dealing with devastating loneliness. Even with them I gave serious consideration to attempting suicide. Including one time when I raided my parent’s medicine cabinet for a planned overdose. Fortunately thinking about my parents meant I never went ahead with the attempt. My early teenage years have left me with a constant fear that loneliness is around the corner, and a creeping anxiety that only a few people actually like me. I’m so grateful for my family, and the few friends that I actually had – because I don’t know if I’d even be here without them.

In my final year of secondary school things improved drastically. I came out, made new friends (some of whom had been my bullies previously), and started actually seeing people outside of school hours. I went to University and became friends with a huge amount of people, I was the kind of social butterfly who knew everyone and I loved it. But… insecurities are hard to shake. The fact was they were still there; I was just better at hiding them – especially from myself.

Whilst University was an overwhelmingly positive experience for me, there were times when events helped to reinforce my fears and anxieties. My friends who lived in my Halls (who I was very close to) didn’t want to live with me in second year. Those who I lived with in my second year didn’t want to live with me in my third year. There seemed to be a theme, and the theme was me. Events like these helped to keep alive the anxiety that most people don’t like me, regardless of what they said to my face.

My involvement in the student movement was actually quite affirmative at the time. Whilst the student movement is at times vicious, and undoubtedly has a negative impact on the mental health of many people involved, my own experience was at the time very different. I finally felt a part of something bigger than myself, people asked for my opinions, looked for my support on a range of issues, actively sought me out and befriended me, they included me. I made some great friends during my two-year involvement, friends I thought would be around for a long time. But then my world was turned upside down and I was forced to resign my position in August 2016. Whilst I now take full responsibility for the actions that led to my resignation, it still had a devastating effect on me. I was absolutely humiliated by the whole experience, and even passing by the Students’ Union would give me anxiety. I largely cut myself off from everyone I knew through student politics, out of fear of having to explain my resignation – something that I was so desperately trying to avoid. Even some of my closest friends still don’t know why I suddenly left. To make matters worse there was silence from most of my friends in the student movement. Apart from those I knew from Manchester, only the President of NUS Scotland actually made a real effort to reach out to me and make sure if I was OK. The silence from nearly everyone else just brought back that old idea that nobody liked me. Nobody had ever liked me.

Unfortunately, my anxieties aren’t going anywhere, and if anything they seem to be getting louder. There have been several times over the last six months when someone has said or done something that has triggered my anxieties to overtake my mind and body, and I enter some sort of depressive state where I struggle to move or speak. This has happened at work more than once, and I’ve had to sit on the floor of the toilet until the mood passes, which has taken anywhere between a few minutes and an hour.

These triggers aren’t people being nasty or mean to me, they’re perfectly reasonable actions that you would never expect to illicit my kind of reaction. And yet, they do. So I’m going to try and get to grips with my issues, and the first part is being open and honest about them.

Some of you might question why I want to publish this in a public blog and post it on my Facebook. You might think that it would be better if I were to talk about it privately, or publish it anonymously. However, I believe this is the best process for myself. I’ve always been someone who prefers to be open and public about things, and that includes my anxieties.