When I was about eight years old I started pretending I was someone else. It was an escape, a way to cope with my unhappiness. That first someone else was named Holly. She was all the things my eight year old self wanted to be. She was pretty, strong, confident and smart. Whenever I had the chance to be alone, she would live an entirely different life. Said things, that I didn’t have the courage to say, and did things that I didn’t dare. When I was alone I acted out Holly’s life. As I grew older, my desires, goals, fears, needs, changed and I adjusted that other me as needed, I changed names as I got sick of one, and acted out fantasies. Growing up, I talked to myself all the time. I couldn’t break the habit. When I got my own apartment, I had the freedom to act out and talk out loud as needed. One time my brother walked into my apartment, because I didn’t hear him knock and aparently left the door unlocked. He caught me teaching an imaginary college class, using questions from the back of a book I had read. Last fall I was talking on the phone, but when I went to hang it up, I realized there was no phone in my hand. A Chinese woman invited me to tea, but when I went to respond and realized that I didn’t know chinese, that I realized she wasn’t there. Then I started calling myself in these fantasies my name. I started thinking about what my life would be like when I moved in with my boyfriend. Now I am living that life. So there is nothing really for me to really pretend anymore.
I have always pretended to be someone else in my mind. In my life I tried to do what others told me was right for me. I feel like I have never been myself, and that I don’t know who that is. About a year and a half ago, I started to realize some things about myself. It was really in my realationships with people online, and well boyfriends, that I started to understand more of myself. Now I have a boyfriend who is supportive. Who says its ok to cry if I need to cry. That its ok to be depressed if I am depressed. For the first time in my life, I feel like its ok to be myself. But what if I don’t know who that is. And when I am around other people, I don’t even know if I can do that. I have always admired those were different and yet, loved that about themselves. Even the surface things, I have wanted to dye my hair a funky color for a long time, and get facial peircings. I told my aunt about it, and she said I was too old for that. But I never got to do that stuff when I was younger, always trying to do what other people expected and needed of me. But I don’t know if I have the confidence to do what I want to do. I want to be able to look the way I want. To be silly when I want to be silly. To talk to people without worrying about what they will think. But I feel so awkward around other people. Maybe that’s because I don’t feel like I am myself. But I worry that when I am myself, when I when I find her, that she won’t be accepted. So how do I be strong and just be myself?
