I wrote this piece about three years ago. The only thing that has changed is that now I am forcing myself to stare down the beasts of self-doubt, insecurity, low or no esteem as I pursue dreams in the world, not just in my head. In part, because my son and my husband are my best, most persistent cheerleaders, pushing me to follow my passions at this not-too-late stage of my life, as I have always encouraged them (and still do). So much easier to support their dreams than follow my own...but I am trying. :-)

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So, I went to this writing class Friday night. They call it a Write in. They give you a topic and you get 15 minutes to wax poetic. Then you can read your story or not and the others tell you what you did well. No negative criticism allowed. It’s a feel good fest that is topped off with a social in the middle of the two hour class at which time you can drink bad wine, with delicious cookies and rice crispy treats (or healthy vegetables if you prefer) and talk to people you don’t know about things you don’t care about in an effort, perhaps, to feel some connection to the world you don’t necessarily feel on a daily basis. Or to get an idea for your next story.

I am not very social. I find it physically painful as I grow older to actually have to make small talk with people I don’t know. I think I had so many instances of being excluded over the years – childhood through adulthood – I kind of went some place I couldn’t be hurt. Inside. I don’t get out much.

But I like to write and I haven’t written in a while, and I got an e-mail about this Write in. I had taken a class years ago, Just Write, where we would get various topics each class and write about them in 8-11 minutes depending on the teacher’s mood. I loved that class. I found out I was funny there. And in pain. I stopped going.

So, I went to this class Friday night. The first topic was The Skinny. I wrote for the full 15 minutes and was pretty pleased with my story. “So, what’s the skinny on the new dude?” was my first line. I loved it. I thought I have a hook, there was some back story, there was a twist. And then the guy next to me read his story. I laughed hysterically at the images he painted with his words, the character I could see in the few lines he’d written, and turned my story over.

I remembered the other reason I stopped going to the writing class: there are so many good writers out there. Like actors and athletes…in addition to talent and good connections, being a writer requires a thick skin and confidence. I lack both.

Then the second woman read her story. The Skinny Bitch. Even the way she read it was hysterical. I laughed and confirmed that I would not be reading that night. Her story was chock full of “what the fuck” and things I could never say out loud never mind in a story, but it was real and made us all laugh. Although I did physically flinch the first few times it was said.

I just can’t do that. It’s not me. I was even inclined to write f*** instead of the word as I described the story…but to be true to The Skinny Bitch, I had to suck it up and say it. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

Wow. That was liberating.

And then there was the penis story. OMG. Yes, the penis story. It was double over, hold your stomach, I can’t breathe for laughing so hard funny. Absurd yet believable, with insights from an adolescent protagonist that rang true and real. But when the penis story got to penis, I buried my head in my arms. Fuck and penis in the same class? What the h***?

For the most part, I'm satisfied with who I am as a person, and I've accepted my personal traits, good and bad. However, if I had to choose something to change, it would definitely be my characteristic of shyness. I've been shy and fearful since I was a child, and even after all these years, that aspect hasn't changed. I still struggle with talking to strangers, with initiating conversation or much of anything. The most frustrating part of it is the interactions I've most likely missed out on. Despite my inherent shyness, I enjoy connecting with others, and I want to make more friends. But, the volatile mixture of shyness, anxiety, and social awkwardness, make this exceedingly difficult at times. There have been many occasions I thought about reaching out to other people, only to turn back in fear of embarrassment. I truly hope a day will come when this trait is no longer a hindrance, but one I can embrace and overcome. For now, all I can do is constantly work to improve myself and grow as a person. Really, that's all any of us can do toward self growth.

There's a whole bustling world I yearn to explore,

but I rarely leave the house.

Imprisoned by self-created fear.

I can dream,

but then I hide -

hide from what-if's,

hide from situations that haven't even happened,

hide from any slight possibility of failure.

I'm wasting away at home

with my stagnant dreams.

Imagine what I could do,

where I could go,

who I could be

if these crippling chains of worry were broken.

Ever since I was around, I believe six years old, I was constantly talking to myself in my head. I would just commentate on every action I did and what I thought of it. It was strange, but it didn't seem as such to me when I was barely old enough to understand the different strange occurrences that went on around me. Most of the times it was just staring at different objects, and bringing them to life with my little childish mind; others were me creating stories from a character I had created named "Dragon". I would zoom all around the bed room, jumping and playing out the scenes in my head. As I got older this voice began being more critical, it took on a life of its own, I had invented characters in my head. I believed that there was two little people inside of my mind, that being a microscopic version of me and any other person I met throughout life. I thought that this little version of me was in some sort of control room within my head, taking control of every thought and action I carried out. It was actually pretty nice to have this figure in my mind, I was generally on my own most of the times, and generally could't talk with any others; nor did I have any interest in doing so.

This little version of me played a role that couldn't have been played by anyone else, most of the times it was a guiding voice telling what I should do under stressful conditions and others were just a series of ideas it was trying to put together for me. I wasn't entirely in my head most of the times as a kid, I did talk with others, but I would always come back to this shrieking voice inside of my terrorized skull. As I got older, I got irritated by it, this voice was constantly making the simplest task, such as just walking, painful. I couldn't get out of my mind I was always hooked up to this little reality, where I was in control, yet I wasn't. Still I've spoken of this small voice as something that has haunted me in my past, but truthfully, it still continues going. I'm not sure if it is normal or not, but for me it is so damn obnoxious. I can't get a second to myself without another shout from the inside of my vacant skull. If I could change one thing about myself, it would be to stop overthinking, to not constantly be pulsating with ideas, left and right. It just sucks, maybe this just a normal occurrence among many, and I'm just being a fool complaining about something that is fairly common. However, I can never know without expressing it, and I can never truly know if there is any way to turn of this engine, for just a minute, to just have a tiny moment of silence.

My fear of failure. Fear of trying something new for the first time. Once I’ve gotten over the first time trying, I feel at ease.

Fear holds me back at work in the form of procrastination. Fear of saying the wrong thing to someone and then I do not communicate with them. This leads to more issues than if I just said the wrong thing.

The fear of not doing something correctly, and assuming everyone around me knows how to do it correctly, when in reality, they are faking it and just trying to figure it out themselves, even if they get it wrong.

I can sometimes be lazy and quit when the going gets tough. I get frustrated very easily.

I lack self confidence and struggle to see myself the way others see me.

But at least I can see my worst traits. So that day by day I can chip away at them, until one day they are minor annoyances.

If I could change one thing about myself, it would be my explosive anger. Sometimes I don't like to be bothered or want to converse. When I am confronted about something or hear anything I don't like or agree with, I erupt. It's a slow boiling rage, simmering inside. So much bad has happened in my life, I have never been able to control my outrage. I am never able to let go, feel that release. When someone does something, says something, alleges something, expresses something that I don't like or agree with, my face, my body, my mind, my thoughts...all feel RED.

RED, the color of anger.

The one thing I would change about myself is one of the things I actually appreciate about myself. My empathetic tendencies. I credit every part of my being, good and bad, to being an empath. When I get bad mentally I just go numb. I can’t feel a thing. When that used to get bad the way I’d cope would be to feed off emotions of my surroundings, I mean it made since if I couldn’t make the feeling myself I’d generate it by feeding off of whoever I was surrounded with. May not be my emotion, but I’m feeling something so it’s a start right? But it goes wrong when I feed off of negative emotions, when you’re desperate to feel you just take whatever you can get and the whole empathy thing doesn’t just shut itself off. That’s why I cry when I see someone I love crying or can turn my day around when I hear one of my best friends tell me good news, I adapt them onto me and base my current state off of theirs. It won’t shut off. I crave other people’s happiness so I can make my own, aka the reason I always try and make it about others when I need an escape. I’m pretty sure that’s why I get overwhelmed in crowds and don’t like parties too. Too many people and noise and my brain tries to feed off all of it at once. I just shut down. I can’t take everyone on my all at once it just gets to be a burden and I have to escape. Pretty sure this is why I don’t allow myself to get close to thah many people, when everything gets too much I resort back to being alone and not taking everyone’s energy onto me to recharge which I’m always scared comes off as being selfish by needing alone time. Or at least alone time with people who get why I can’t just get up and leave spontaneously when I’m in a funk. But the good side of this is when I do feel I feel strong. Because when I see darkness it’s pitch black I can appreciate how vivid the beautiful things are. I can listen to people tell me about their day for hours because if they get excited I’m just as excited as them. It’s a whole way to view the world that I treasure as much as I hate.

Girl with hair so frizzy,

Learn to tame the humidity in your heart,

That smokes out with billowing, fragrant,

Clouds so soft, but so impossible to caress.

Girl with a few teeth imperfect,

Continue your smiles,

Even when they don’t smile back.

Girl with a rounded frame,

Learn that size is just the distance,

Between one side of yourself to the other.

Your West and East coast attractiveness,

With Midwestern friendliness in the middle,

Something they all like about you but,

Where that stomach you hate is.

Why are you like this?

Girl who promised herself,

That she’d never look pretty,

By nature and makeup skills,

Just got a compliment on her makeup.

Isn’t the universe funny that way?

Why are you so funny that way?

Girl who cries to herself at night,

After laughing herself breathless all day,

Wonders how it’d actually be breathless.

Says she can’t stand herself,

Berates herself with insults,

Like a soldier in combat with his reflection.

Girl, learn to take their compliments,

With a smile on your face.

Understand that you matter,

As we all do in the end.

Everything that I do is under scrutiny not from supervisors or others at all but for myself. My exact thought process whenver taking on something new is, how I can make it perfect. Perfection is eluding yet is the end goal for everything, which leads to countless nights spent crying over what I should be and wondering if I will ever be good enough for what I have been taught I am capable of. The thing about it is is that the toxic self talk stems from what should be good but has given me as a person so much potential that if I don't live up to it there's really no point to my existance.

If you were given the ability to be the next Einstein would you be able to handle the pressure with all of the standards you are held to and all of the greatest minds of all times, you are supposed to be the next. This gives you a lot to fill and even the slightest bit below perfection is seen as a failure.

I realize I sound like an idiot but still, if I can't rise above the rest then what am I doing.

If I could write a list of all my flaws, my secrets, and my bad habits, the paper would go on and on and on. I could write about my depressions, or my fears. I could ink my pen and the words would tell of all my regrets in messy curvise hand writing. In all honesty, despite all the good in my life, it's tarnished by my mistakes. However, none of this I would change. I like to think that my mistakes are my own, and my regrets enrich my soul with a sweet treat of melancholy. So, if there were anything I would actually change of myself, it would be the only thing I was born with that was never my decision to make. I want to escape from my ADHD.

For those who don't know what ADHD is, it's attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. This means that I have trouble paying attention, focusing on long tasks, and may be prone to impulsive actions. An example would be like jumping out of a car that is barely parking because my body is so impatient it wants to leave already without thinking of the consequences. Or, squirming in my seat in an hour and half long lecture while my legs start twitching and aching, and my limbs almost want to jump off and run away from me. Or, like the times I'll be sitting with my friends in a conversation and my mind floats away with out of context thoughts.

Although I do complain about my ADHD, when I compare it to other disorders, even I sometimes think maybe it's not that bad. Except, sometimes I have so much trouble focusing, I can't even tell someone what I think or how I feel. I end up closing myself off because my thoughts are running so fast, I can't even spit them out. My mind and my body are sometimes not in sync. I might think I want to make tea and eggs for breakfast, and when I step into the room, my mind is already on what I plan to do for the evening that I forget what I wanted to make for breakfast. It's because of my ADHD that my grades are a roller coaster in my academic life. Even if I love school and learning, I can't concentrate long enough to enforce my efforts.

On worse occasions, my ADHD makes me unaware of my surroundings. That's why I'm an easy target for people who decide to snatch my wallet out of my purse or my pockets. I wouldn't really notice it anyway. It's the reason why I don't notice the stalker on the corner of the street when I walk home from school until someone else warns me of the danger. That's what makes ADHD unnerving for me is that I lose sight on the important things and I'm full of distractions. I have to put in an enormous amount of effort to get anything done lest I forget what I had wanted to do in the first place.

ADHD is a really awful mindfuck, that forces me to live in a world inside a world. My mind is constantly in the clouds. I'm extremely reckless, and it makes me inconsiderate of the consequences of my actions. I hurt people unintentionally, and I have to bite my tongue so I can actually take the time to think of my words carefully.

Overall, despite my ADHD, I try not to let it take over my life. Over the years, I have forced myself to slow down. I think before I talk. I plan out the details on paper before I continue with an assignment. I'm trying to be an independent person, because the thing about ADHD is that it can make you frightening dependent. If you can't focus long enough to finish an education, to finish a career, or even remember an order, you can't function in a working society. I want to be independent though. I want to be able to think and care for myself. So the next time someone thinks I'm an easy target because my head is in the clouds, I want to be able to look them in the eye and tell them I noticed this time.