Our experiences in life do not shape us. How we choose to act and react to our experiences... now that is what really molds us into who we are. We mold ourselves. What we experience certainly has a large impact, but our choices are what ultimately define us.
As a kid and all the way through high school, I was a confident and fun-loving person. Those traits followed me to college until recently. I didn't lose my confidence all at once and my fun-loving nature didn't perform an instantaneous disappearing act either. It wasn't until I started asking questions like: 'why does no one like me?' 'why does no one want to be my friend?' 'why do those people hate me for no reason?' that I suddenly realized that I had slowly become a completely different person. I'm sure this will come as a shock to you, but I didn't like who I had become. It's not fun to feel insecure. Feeling alone and unwanted is definitely not the type of party I was hoping college would be. BUT, it was my party and I'd cry if I wanted to. In fact, I did. A lot.
During one of my emotional meltdowns this past semester, I started blaming all of the things I been through for the insecurities that I had. This felt completely justified in the moment.
My first semester of college was when I had my first boyfriend. Things had been going great! ...At least that's what my heart was telling me. I was so happy that someone wanted to be with me that I completely ignored his comments about how unattractive I was when I didn't go to the gym everyday... or How unattractive I was when I wore make-up. His constant comments and critiques towards me hurt, but never really hit until after we broke up. Reflecting on my first real relationship, my brain began to realize that it had been a verbally abusive one. My heart and my brain were now on the same page. Though relieved to get away from someone so toxic, it was difficult to not feel inadequate.
A time later, I thought I had found someone better; someone who genuinely cared about me. We dated and when things began to get serious, I prayed to know what to do. The answer came that I needed to break up with him because our standards weren't aligned. That felt reasonable to me and so we talked and broke up. We still cared for each other and decided to remain friends. It was later that week that I learned of the online podcast that him and his buddy posted weekly. For one whole hour, he ripped me apart. He made fun of my beliefs (which he supposedly shared), my desire to obey religious leaders, the reason I broke up with him, and the fact that I cried when we ended things. Listening to his podcast cut me so deeply, but I just couldn't stop listening. There was something inside of me that needed to know what else he had said about me. Going back to the podcast that was posted right after we started dating, I listened to every last one of them. Almost every. single. one. contained content regarding my lack of perfection. He made a mockery of the things I dream of doing, my future career, my standards, and to top it all off, he made fun of his own religion. One that I thought we shared.
After telling him that we were no longer friends and sobbing uncontrollably for a week, I got over it. (Or so I thought). There have been other instances (not quite as severe) when a person has seemed to care for me and then dumped me to the side when a better offer came along. The latest being someone who I found out had been dating three other girls at the same time as me. With each rejection and betrayal, I felt a piece of me vanish. A vote of confidence in myself. A willingness to smile and say hi to strangers passing by. A general love for people. I didn't realize it until I felt like I truly had no one who cared about me, but I had become the reason that I felt so alone.
The weight of what I felt to be exclusion, duplicity, and rejection was one that I have been carrying around for far too long. I blamed my experiences for making me an anxious person; one who is frightened to interact in social situations, one who refuses to meet new people of her own accord, and one who does not believe that anyone could ever truly care for or love her. That is the person I became, but not because of what I went through. That is who I became because of what I let myself believe. My experiences did not MAKE me think or feel anything. I LET my experiences deceive me.
Each day with each new choice, I am gaining my confidence back. Not because I have people fawning over me telling me how incredible I am, but because I am choosing to remember that I am a child of God and I have incredible worth and potential. Each day in each new scenario, I am choosing to be more fun-loving. I never got answers to my 'why' questions, but I don't need them. Answers to unfounded questions are completely unnecessary. Staying true to yourself is not easy. And sometimes the battle between what your brain knows and what you feel inside is the most difficult part, but if I've learned anything... it's that the battle can be won. You can become whoever you want to be despite your circumstances. As my good 'ole pal President Thomas S. Monson once said, "Decisions determine destiny." What will your destiny be?
