I'm a girl in my 20s

The palms of my feet are scarred from the slices of these tiny sharp shells. The eggshells that covered the ground I walked through when growing up with my mom, the same shells that scared me into staying in an abusive relationship with a man 15 years older than me, the same shells that silenced me because I didn’t want to lose my boyfriend. As a survival instinct I learned to be silent when these sharp shells would wound me.

If you ask anyone who knows me personally, they would tell you I am in most ways, fearless. That I’ve managed to overcome as much as they know and still crack a joke or two. This is something I’ve learned recently, when my friends and I took a girls trip; my friend Ash and I convinced our two friends that the hotel was haunted. It didn’t take long for our friends to be convinced but I decided to tell them after an hour that it was just a prank. They felt relieved but one of the things that was mentioned, among their annoyed giggles, was what convinced them the most was the fact I was the one who was scared. I was surprised when they mentioned this because to me it meant they see me as, fearless, they see me as the shell I made myself out to be.

I present myself as this on purpose, in hopes that people don’t look at me and think I’m easy to take advantage of. Maybe it stems from the fact that I was bullied throughout my school years and constantly left out by my friend groups so I put up a shell that made it seem like I didn’t care and was unbothered. Maybe it strains from my mother toughening me up because she didn’t want me to be weak. Maybe it strains from having so many people walking out of my life.  But one thing I know is true, behind the shell I am deeply scared.

I used to like being perceived as mean or a bitch. It’s easier to define yourself as something hurtful before others can, so the effect of it doesn’t mean as much once you overtake it. I convinced myself I was a mean girl, I’d walk around knowing my face was unapproachable in public on purpose. I would walk around the halls with earbuds blasting metal music so no one would bother me and I wouldn’t hear them if they did talk about me. I knew it wasn’t what I really wanted but I feared the opinions of others.  I was okay with being perceived as this because it meant no one would try to mess with me and being unbothered felt nice. 

The people that have gotten through this tough shell took the time to understand why this shell was there, but once uncovered they’d crack it into pieces leaving me to rebuild it with stronger glue for the next person. It’s not ideal. I discovered how much I hated this shell by accident when speaking with my therapist last week. I had not realized this shell was so cementitized by my past. Speaking with a professional about this, I learned that by saying I was a bitch or a mean girl is in a way excusing my actions because I’ve convinced myself that I was this way so I must act this way. If I wanted to soften this shell I’d need to do the opposite of what I’d been doing, I’d need to show people my authentic self. But remembering my authentic self meant remembering who I was most myself around, and that was a can of worms I had been trying to weld shut for months. 

As previously mentioned, I’m going through a break up.I noticed that my ex found himself during the relationship and I found myself after. My ex and I broke up twice before our last and final break up, in many ways they were my issues and most ways they were his. Which is how he found himself during the relationship because he practiced mindfulness, meditation, and better communication in attempt to fix his issues. But his actions that followed the break ups really stuck with me, and I couldn’t help but not trust him even though my heart yearned for him. His excuse for break up #1 was that he didn’t see a relationship with me because I was too honest about my past and opinions. For example, I had told him I didn’t like that he mentioned and compared me to ex girlfriends constantly. What I thought was bettering my communication with the man I was dating was in his eyes, pushing him away because I told him, he hurt me. His excuse for break up #2 was because he did not tell me he dated multiple girls during our first break up of no contact and I found out because one of his girls texted me… so yes I got mad. Not only because he did not tell me but because he said he worked on himself to become better for me and did not mention he dated other people. But because at the time, he had made me believe my upset feelings were invalid, I ended up apologizing to him for not asking him if he dated other girls on our break. 

Looking back, I should’ve left. I should’ve never tried a third time because he had shown me time and time again he did not care for my opinion, just the idea of me. But I didn’t. 

So during our third try, I learned that he would get offended with honesty but would call me a liar if I withheld information. So I learned to walk on eggshells again. When he did something that would hurt me or clearly bothered me, I was afraid to speak up due to an even bigger fear of losing him again. I felt like he taped my mouth shut because if I spoke about something he did that hurt me, he’d threaten to leave me. But I was also wrong to him when I kept my mouth shut, because he could clearly see I was bothered, so it was then that I became the communication issue. If I spoke I knew it would bother him but if I kept shut, it would bother him as well. I’m not sure why I thought losing him was the worst thing in the world, but my guess is, when you already have the eggshells dug into your feet you think you can sustain the pain a little while longer in hopes that they’d help you heal the scars they caused. Everything in that relationship I did according to how it would make him feel no matter how I felt about it. Walking on eggshells around someone your care about is exhausting, and I would have continued to be at my lowest for him had he not called me a liar in break up #3. I am aware he tells his friends that I will never find another man like him. To that I can only say: God I fucking hope not. 

Knowing I had once been fearful of losing a man made me feel weak. So when others would call me fearless, it means almost nothing because deep down, I am scared. I’ve learned to walk on eggshells and know I could never do it again. I learned to rebuild my own and realize that its not the way I want to live. So here I am, just a girl trying to break down her own egg shell wall for nobody but herself in hopes of finding the rest of me.