I'm Not That Girl Anymore

Thank you all for your encouragement and support on Saturday. I got so worked up over the whole chair size and fitting into the seat issue that I almost didn't go to class. I'm so glad I faced my fear and found that the seats were accommodating. About an hour into the class I felt a bit of an anxiety attack creeping in but I was able to talk myself down quite quickly. Once I fully relaxed something noteworthy happened: I became the person in the class who asked the right questions and when the teacher asked questions I gave good answers. I even knew a few answers to other students questions that the instructor didn't know. I've noticed this trend more and more in my life and I look at it as a sign on my growing self confidence and self esteem.

Stretching all the way to my earliest memories of first grade I remember never wanting to answer the teachers question out of fear of being wrong and having everyone ridicule me or laugh at me. This fear of being wrong and the need to always be right was a learned response to hearing my parents in their attempts at helping my older siblings with homework. My Dad was particularly harsh and expected us to do well. If we came home from school and had to have a test signed because we did poorly you didn't dare tell him that everyone in the class failed because if you did the standard response was: If everyone jumped off a bridge would you jump off too? There were standards that were expected of us, standards much higher than average.

Over the years I would listen and absorb everything the instructor said but when a question was asked, I would rarely speak up and answer because I didn't want to draw attention to myself, even then I wanted to be invisible and just go about the day unnoticed because unnoticed meant that the bullies would leave me alone. Of course they rarely did and being teased became the normal. Of course I was far from normal. I had a troubled home life and while I didn't talk about, it showed. Other kids picked up on what I was so desperately trying to hide. I had very few friends and I longed to fit in but it would be many years before I felt like I belonged.

Fear of answering questions also led to fear of asking questions. What if I asked a question that was obvious to everyone else? I'd look stupid and they'd laugh. Again not the kind of attention I wanted when I was trying to be invisible and just go about life unnoticed.

Its amazing how all of that can come rushing back to you on a Saturday morning isn't it? I wish I could zip back in time and tell that chubby little girl who felt such a need to be perfect that she sat paralyzed in the classroom that everything was going to work out. I wish I could tell her that this was all just temporary, that these people won't matter in your future and especially that there were other ways to fill the voids in her life and that food would never fill the voids. Of course we can't change the past but I have now, I have this moment and today is the first day of the rest of my life. I can move forward with confidence and know that I'm not that girl anymore.