It took an awfully long time for me to start accepting myself. For as long as I can remember I always felt like I was an alien. I felt like I just didn’t belong where I was, as if I'd been dropped out of the sky and left alone to just wing it, where eventually people would suss out that I was different, weird and reject me. If you asked my family what I was like as a child they’d probably say that I was happy. Personally, I would say I was painfully shy, constantly nervous, scared of most people and completely lacking self-confidence.  

Being so unsure of myself resulted in me being unable to stand up for myself at all, I took everything very personally and assumed that everything negative said about me was a fact. I was an easy target, and at an early age realised that my best bet at avoiding torment or ridicule was to get people to like me as much as possible. If I was nice to everyone then everyone would be nice to me, I wish someone would've sat little me down and explained that people don’t work that way. I was too scared to ever truly be myself and embrace the things that felt right for me. Anything that made me stand out was just too risky, any faint hints of a personality of my own attracted attention, most of it negative attention and I just couldn’t deal with it. 

I was a Martian trying desperately to fit in and seem human. If I watered myself down enough, I’d seem like I was just like everyone else and then life would be easy because then they’d leave me be. The criticism, the comments, the bullying, it would all stop. Essentially, I’d subconsciously made it my mission to be what everyone else liked. So I became chatty, bubbly, smiley, girly, friendly. But on the inside horrendously self-conscious, constantly anxious and completely miserable. With this façade I had also developed a toxic all or nothing attitude that I would carry with me through most of my life so far. If I wasn’t the best, I was useless, there was no middle ground. 

This lack of sense of self would do me no favours, and when some years later I would go through some very dark periods of my life. I felt like I had no backbone to keep me standing, as though I barely knew myself and what I did know I hated. I'd spent so long moulding myself to be what I thought everyone wanted me to be and criticising myself before others could that I became empty. I’d spent so long not being a friend to myself that I felt alone, isolated and so insufferably uncomfortable in my own skin that everything eventually went dark. Now this isn’t to say that having a stronger sense of self would’ve completely pulled me out of those dark times, or meant that I would’ve avoided them by any means, but I think it would’ve softened the blows, even just a little bit, and brought comfort knowing that I at least had myself even if and when I felt like I had no one else. 

As I sit here now writing this I want to give little me the biggest hug and tell her so many things that back then I desperately needed to hear. Here are just a few... 
 
- Whether you’re the nicest person or the meanest person, people will either like or dislike you regardless. You don’t get to decide how people feel about you, or how they choose to treat you, you can only choose how you react and how you move on from it. 
-Not everyone deserves your positive energy, sometimes its best left kept to yourself. That doesn't mean you have to necessarily act negatively towards people, but just don’t drain yourself for someone else, no matter who that person is. 

-Stop worrying what people will think or say about anything that you do. Everyone has their own opinions; the loudest opinion is by no means the right one. 

I wish sometimes that I could’ve been brave enough years ago to live my life exactly how I wanted. But I wouldn’t be the person I am today if that were the case. I was brave in other ways, I was brave enough to keep going, keep trying my best and allow myself to grow through my experiences. I’m finally at a time in my life where I am accepting myself for who I am. I don’t want to be like everyone else. I want to feel totally and completely myself, whatever that may be. I want to continue to love and embrace myself as I grow and change over time. The most important opinion is the one that I have of myself. We all are the way we are for a reason, everyone is different, we're all just winging it and trying our best. This journey of acceptance is one that I will be on for the rest of my life, and it’s a journey I am very happy and excited to be on.
~ Indianna ~

~I am Accepting ~

More information can be found about Indianna’s charity at https://www.sophielancasterfoundation.com/black-roses/