OOTD: Wearing My Heart On My Sleeve

*OOTD= "Outfit of the Day"

Wearing one's heart on one's sleeve is supposedly a good thing; it means that the person is open and honest about his or her feelings rather than being deceitful, conniving, etc. Being open and honest are two incredibly important qualities to have. That was the point of me starting this blog, after all: to be open and honest about my feelings. I need to be open and honest. Even though I made my blog public for other people to see my openness and honesty, this blog is ultimately for me.

I have come to realize in writing this, though, just how scary it is to be open and honest, and Shakespeare kind of describes it perfectly in his play, Othello, when one of his characters says, "But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve for daws to peck at." I wish I was nerdy and smart enough to have that quote immediately come to mind as I was typing this, but in actuality, I found it via Google. Like with most things I'm curious about, I decided googling the origin of "wearing one's heart on one's sleeve" could be interesting. A lot of people probably aren't all that curious or concerned about things like this, but my brain is weirdly wired and likes to know random facts. Maybe it's because I have a BA in English (wow, okay, I'm realizing that that is so cool to be able to say. I'm a college graduate!), so words/phrases/etc have always been so intriguing to me. Despite the fact that I have an English degree, though, I have never actually taken a Shakespeare course (side note: I did for approximately a month before dropping out of it ---- along with the five other courses I was taking that semester ---- but that's a story for another time. Stay tuned). Anyway, when I decided to look it up, that Shakespeare quote popped up.

The quote pretty much describes the negatives of wearing one's heart on one's sleeve, because when one is open and honest, there is a danger of being pecked at by jackdaws. If taken literally, it's quite terrifying to imagine hundreds of crow-like birds pecking away at one's heart; it sounds extremely painful, and I'm kind of cringing just thinking about it. But I'm pretty sure what Shakespeare means is that when one is very open and honest, he or she is also making his or herself vulnerable to being hurt.

Being extremely open and honest about my feelings is so SO scary, and quite honestly, it's probably one of my greatest fears ---- that probably sounds really stupid, because when one thinks of fears, the stereotypical ones come to mind: heights, spiders, needles, etc. When I was a kid (and probably up until I was about fifteen years old), I was TERRIFIED of the dark. I was so nervous that something was lurking there, waiting to jump out and hurt me. I partially blame the movie The Ring, because after seeing it, I was always scared that Samara was going to come out of the dark and kill me. As I got older, though, my fears became a lot more intangible ---- I'm scared of rejection. I'm scared of being alone forever. I'm scared of letting people in, of letting them get to know me; I'm scared of being completely and truly honest about all that I am because there is chance that I won't be accepted for it, that I will be rejected because people will think that it isn't worth trying to deal with me.

It has taken a long time for me to start being completely honest, because for a while, I was only half-honest. I wouldn't always tell my parents everything about how I was feeling... that is until I couldn't hold it in any longer; I would break down crying about how heavy everything felt to me and how I couldn't handle it anymore. Even when I started going to therapy starting the summer before my sophomore year of college, I was never entirely honest with them. It was hard to be, because I didn't want them to see that I was broken. I wanted to be the perfect daughter; I wanted to make them proud. I didn't want them to have to worry about me or see that I was struggling. So I started lying to them. After every "So how was therapy?" or "How are you feeling?" or "Are you doing okay?," I would always respond, "Therapy was good. I'm good. I'm doing fine," even though I was far from fine.

I know it doesn't make sense. How was/is it possible for me to be honest to a complete stranger about my life and how I'm feeling, but I can't be honest with the people who have known me longer than anyone ---- the people who know me in a way that no one else will ever be able to? I have been through five different therapists, five different psychiatrists, and many, many support groups (via the Counseling Center at the first university I attended). To all of these strangers, I would tell them things about myself and my feelings that I could never bring myself to tell my parents. The questions I was always asked during therapy sessions and psychiatrist appointments were heavy and deep. My responses were often even heavier, and I just know they would break my parents' hearts. I could never do that to them; I don't want to hurt them like that. I don't want them to feel the hurt and the pain that I do.

In the roughly two and a half years since I have been going to therapy and taking anti-depressants/anti-anxiety medications, I have come to realize that telling a (professional) stranger all about how I'm really feeling is easy ----- those professionals, though they became less of strangers the more appointments I had with them, were still sort of strangers. They don't, and could never, really know me like my parents do. Sure, they might come to care about me, but they don't love me like my parents do. And because of that, it's easier to talk to them. A somewhat accurate analogy would be that therapy sessions were (and still kind of are) like what going to Catholic confession in grammar school was like. Going to confession was always kind of scary, especially when it was face-to-face with the priest, but it was always simple: you tell the priest your sins and he tells you how to fix them.

Obviously, therapy isn't exactly like this. I have always talked to my therapist(s) about my feelings, what's going wrong with my life, etc, but it isn't as simple as a confession to a priest. My therapist was never able to say, "Well, go say ten Hail Marys and five Our Fathers and everything will be okay." Yes, after telling her my problems, she would often tell me ways in which I could try to fix them. But that didn't mean that I was absolved of them; they were still there, and they were still destroying me.

Therapy is helpful. Talking about it ---- "it" being everything and anything that's weighing on me and making me feel heavy ---- is helpful, because, as I've learned, keeping everything bottled up isn't good; it isn't good because when I can't hold it in anymore, I break. I crack, and the stupid, "happy" girl façade fades; my mask falls. So I've been trying to not let it all build up. I've been trying to let it out, but it's been a roller coaster-like ride these past couple years. I would and still go through periods of wanting and needing to tell my therapist everything ---- no secrets. But then there were and still are times where I don't want to talk about what really needs to be talked about, because I'm scared. Terrified. Petrified. I quite literally feel frozen with fear.

I know that I need to be so completely honest with my therapist, because if she's ever truly going to be able to help me help myself, then I can't keep anything from her ---- but I have been having a hard time telling her what needs to be said, because if I say it out loud, then it becomes real ---- it becomes a reality rather than just a secret that only I know. Saying it out loud means that I would have to admit to myself that I am more broken than I thought; saying it out loud would mean that I would have to admit that I am so completely broken, and I don't know if I can be fixed; I'm scared that I can't be. Can I? Can I be fixed? How long is it going to take to fix myself?

Wearing my heart on my sleeve is both a blessing and a curse ---- it goes along with feeling things so very deeply. I know that being open and honest is helpful, especially for myself, because it proves that I can be open and honest and, most importantly, brave. But being open and honest is also terrifying, because it means letting people see me ---- the real me, not just the me that I so often try to be. Wearing my heart on my sleeve means that people will find out that I'm not as happy and smiley as I pretend to be; it means people will find out that I am broken.

I'm trying my hardest to be okay with that --- with knowing that people will come (and are coming) to know who I really am, ALL that I am. Something inside of me knows that I need to do this. If people don't want to be associated with me after knowing who I truly am ---- a damaged, scared girl who has no idea what the HELL she's doing or where her life is going --- then I have to be okay with that, too. I can't keep trying to please everyone, because it's destroying me. I have (yet another!) quote saved on my phone that says, "You can't spend the rest of your life being afraid of people rejecting you, and you have to start by not rejecting yourself; you don't deserve it. From now on, people can either accept you for who you are or they can fuck off."

I don't think I could ever tell a person to fuck off for not accepting me; in fact, I would never do that. What I do need to do, though, is start accepting that it's okay if someone doesn't like me for me. It isn't necessary to be liked by everyone, and it's probably actually impossible. I need to stop being afraid of people rejecting me.

Above all, I need to stop rejecting myself.

xoxo,

Mag