The Real Me

Disclaimer:

I am no expert, all I can speak about are my experiences, my insights and my coping mechanisms. I’m sharing what I have found helpful along my own healing journey. I hope you can take something from this, even if it's only something small. So here goes.

Mental Health is a big and broad subject with many differing opinions and views. Awareness is spread by many in many different forms. People struggle in their own way, some can express it and some cannot.

But I do believe we all need an outlet. I used to have a mixture of ways that I used to vent to cope when struggling with my mental health. Admittedly some were very toxic and bad for me, and others were quite creative.

The creative ways in which I used to “vent and cope” would be creative writing, this could be in the form of poetry or just expressing my feelings/emotions/thoughts in a written piece. These pieces that I wrote I kept very private. I never showed anyone for a long time. I started to use the creative tools on social media to create posts/videos/reels to express myself. I first started on Instagram, when I first started I would never fully let my guard down. I would hold back and not fully express my authentic self.

I now try to stick to more creative ways of expressing myself, feelings, emotions and thoughts. This is my outlet.

Below is something that I wrote a while ago.

The Real Me.

I been hiding. Truly I been hiding all my life. The real me a few people know. Even they have had a limited version of me.

Fear has ruled my life and acceptance has always been what I have strived for.

Fear of not being enough.

I have tried for so long to be enough for everyone. For my mother, for my brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, for my friends, for my brothers of different blood.

Enough for my kids and the ones I truly gave my heart to.

At times I have failed. But mostly, in comparison, I have succeeded and am still on a journey of becoming better.

I know Mum is proud of me, I just need to go see her more.

I always was enough for my brothers and sisters, just need to remember which are worthy of me and my time.

The nieces and nephews that are in my life choose to be, I am their uncle and will always love them. That is enough.

I know I'm enough for my friends, I just need to see them more.

For my kids, I got a bit of a way to go yet.

And for the ones I truly gave my heart to, I wanted to be enough for you so much, I changed who I was. I suffocated the person inside of me and like a chameleon I became a version of your vision.

Being accepted by my peers, by my family, by society, by the ones I loved and the ones they loved.

Because I have always known I'm different. I have always seen things differently, always felt things deeply. And you could say highly perceptive and sensitive. Always looked for deeper meaning and had a romanticised view on life. All of these things have always made me feel like bursting, as I wanted to express my interpretations of my life experiences in the most creative ways or express myself with such vigor and eloquence that it gets lost in translation or confused with something else.

I'm still shaking all the remnants of all these chains off. Because ultimately, this "need" to be enough for everyone else is a weight, that need is a chain, it's heavy and I just can't carry it anymore.

So I'm breaking those chains by realising I am enough for all of those who I wanted and more than that. I'm enough for myself and to actually ask myself the question.

Am I doing enough for me?

Because when I'm not, I'm definitely doing more than enough for others.

Written by Yaya Shah