The Truth Untold

Chapter 2

There are moments in life when you're just sitting, staring blankly at a wall, tears streaming down your face and you feel so defeated and so lost.

And in moments like these, you start to question your sanity, your self-worth, and your purpose in life.

You wonder why you're still fighting when it seems like every single choice you make, is the wrong one. You start to re-play old memories of choices you made and suddenly, you have a hard time accepting yourself.

Anger, sadness, regret, fear. All these emotions are mixed into one and you don't know in which direction to go, who to trust, and what to do with yourself.

Well, you see.

Self-confidence, Self-Worth, and Self-esteem sadly are 3 major things with which most teenagers along with every single person in the world struggle. And if you don't have a solid foundation of trust with people like your parents, siblings, or close friends it makes it difficult to get over.

But truth be told, it is more than fine to have those struggles, it's more than fine to not be okay and it's more than okay to ask for help.

In most situations though, everyone also has their escape, be it sport, art, academics, romance, or drugs, you have that one thing that keeps you sane. And none of these coping mechanisms should be judged because if you haven't lived a minute of someone else's life you simply cannot break them down for who they are and for the choices they make. Because ask yourself this. Would you like it if people did that to you? If they come at you just because you are living YOUR life. How is it fair if you do it to someone else when you can't take it on yourself when it happens to you.?

For me, Gymnastics was my escape from the world.

When angry, I would take it out on the skills, when sad, I would put it into the emotion of the routines, when frustrated and annoyed, I would learn patience by trying a skill that required that same mindset, and when Happy, I would put in all of the energy into every single skill that needs execution.

I grew up in the gym. I started Gymnastics at 4 years old and that was my life for almost 12 years.

So just imagine the sadness when the day came that I had my last training ever. The day that I walked out of the club in tears, it's one of those moments in your life when you realize that the one thing that kept you stable all these years, can't be that to you anymore, it can't be the thing you rely on anymore. Suddenly you have to deal with all your pain and issues like a normal human.

At that point in my life, it felt to me like my entire world was rolling downhill and I didn't know when I'll hit rock bottom. But you know what's the good thing about rock bottom?. It's that once there, the only way is back up again, and keeping that in mind, I started writing more, I started to realize that I don't have to go through everything on my own. I have family, friends, and a ton of other resources.

So I ended up going to a psychologist, I started asking for help.

I Had this belief that I deserved all of the hardship and struggles, that I don't deserve being happy and that no matter what, I shouldn't even try and get better. I was so deep in depression that all of the "darkness" started feeling like home.

You know that moment when you stand in front of the mirror and you start to notice all the flaws on your body starting at the top and scanning downwards. You notice your messy hair that's maybe too greasy or dry and it won't ever do as told, your big forehead and all of the freckles and or pimples, your dull eyes, crooked or too big nose and, maybe you don't have perfect teeth, your thin/thick lips and how your awkward smile, and your double chin.

Then you move downwards, you notice your too broad/narrow shoulders, no visible collarbones, your too small/big breasts, and your rice grains for arm muscles and maybe you notice your too long or too chubby hands/fingers and how you've chewed your fingernails out of habit, and you notice that you don't have an hour-glass body. You can't see your rib cage like all those models or your rib cage is way too visible. You notice the stretch marks from your abdomen to your thighs and the way your ass would jiggle when walking, and that you don't have a thigh gap like all those girls in magazines. You notice how you don't have those nice calf muscles like all your friends and that maybe your big toe is too big or crooked.

You begin to worry about what other people think of you and start seeing yourself through their eyes. You stop looking up at the stars at night or looking at the birds flying freely during the day. You stop daydreaming, And you try to jam yourself into moulds that other people made. You start listening to that voice in the back of your head telling you that you're not good enough and you that you should give up instead of following your heart and doing what makes you happy. Instead you start to listen to the voices of others and taking their judgmental stares and words to heart, you believe every single word. And just like that you become like a ghost, invisible to your own eyes.

But have you ever stopped to think that maybe I have all these flaws because perfect doesn't exist. Where do you think the "Perfectly Imperfect" quote comes from.?

A wise human that goes by the name of Kim Namjoon once said.

"Maybe I made a mistake yesterday, but yesterday's me is still me. I am who I am today, with all my faults. Tomorrow I might be a tiny bit wiser, and that's me, too. These faults and mistakes are what I am, making up the brightest stars in the constellation of my life. I have come to love myself for who I was, who I am, and who I hope to become."

And to me, that is one of the most meaningful things to ever be said.

Until Next Chapter.

xoxo - Jay

My Truth Untold.