It's one of the things I've been struggling with since ages~!
When I look back I realize I've come a long way already, but I'm still not satisfied with where I am now...
Let me tell you something about my life... :)
I was born first of my family's next generation. Having no siblings or cousins, I was used to grownups around me. After one and a half year, my sister was born. Since she was still too young to play with, I continued playing with grownups or on my own.
At the age of 4 (when my sister and I had grown so close we were inseparable), I went to school for the first time. I wasn't homesick, but I had a hard time getting used to being surrounded with so many kids of my age. I didn't play or talk, I just sat and watched them, trying to figure things out. I must have been boring for them. So, naturally I didn't make any real friends and spent most of my time alone. I don't recall ever being sad about it, though. And my mum told me that I had said it was fun and that I had lots of stories to tell, when she asked me about school.
In the first few years of "Basic School*", kids usually ignore the "different" kids, because they play with the kids they like. However, in the 3rd or 4th grade the picking on these kids begins. And so I, too, was being picked on. Not often, there were days nothing happened, but usually they would give me nasty looks, comments, joke about me or gossip. I wasn't much fun to pick on probably, because I would just ignore them. I never fought back and I never cried in front of them. I was just too shy. Apart from the usual, there were these more serious incidents too. Once, they even tried to beat me up, I think. They came with a group of around 6 boys and circled around me until I stood against the wall of the school. It was when I was waiting for my sister to go home for lunch. I can't exactly remember anymore. I don't think anyone threw a punch, but I don't remember how it ended. Maybe it had been a threat only? At that time I had no confidence in myself, I thought I was ugly and weird. At home I felt best, because none of it mattered and I could be my happy self. I had one best friend who understood me and cared about me no matter what, that friend was my sister.
When I went to "Middle School*", I knew nobody and was determined to leave the past behind me and start afresh. Something told me it wasn't my fault I wasn't liked at my previous school. And I did make quite some friends at my first day already! I was so happy, but I was also terrified of losing them. To be more specific, I was afraid they would stop liking me. I was shy, so I couldn't dominate the attention (which was actually a good thing), but the strain of staying their friend was so high it kept me from being me. Which made me a silent shell of a human. (Basically I wasn't much different from my very first day at Basic School). I didn't know what my peers did in their free time, I didn't know what the majority liked, fore I hadn't had much contact with anyone else than my sister. Between us there had developed a completely different culture of interests. So in my first year of Middle School I learned a lot of social stuff; I finally learned how to interact with my peers, but I was far from socially active. The strain of trying to tie my friends to me was too heavy and I ended up losing all but 2 of my original group of friends. They just lost interest and as of now, I realize that even these 2 have never been true friends. They, just like me, needed someone to be with. I think that part of my shyness and inability to open up to be me made it impossible for me to make true friends. Although there is one friend I made on my own that year, who I still regard as a true friend and that is L. With her time doesn't change our friendship. Even if we haven't seen each other for months, it's like there hasn't been any passing of time in between. In the first 2 years of Middle School we were in different classes, but the 3rd and 4th year we were classmates and pretty inseparable too! We had a nice class (in my opinion). I was generally liked, but the class was divided in groups still. L was less liked, because in our class she was most "different". I feel like we understood each other.
In the years after, I got better and better at interacting with people. With that came more confidence in myself and I forgot about ever finding myself ugly. Then there was this small incident that even proved to me that I wasn't ugly. Years after Basic School I ran into an old classmate of my sister who used to bully me and he kind of gaped at me in disbelief asking whether it really was me. x) And there was my Dutch teacher (kind of a creeper, though) at "Middle Professional Education*" who said that I had no reason to feel shy because I was 'intelligent and beautiful'... That year was a bad year though, because I made a stupid mistake by telling a teacher my friends were ditching class. I didn't tell it on purpose, I was just being honest, but I didn't realize what I had done. These friends had actually never been my friends to begin with... And so I sat in class alone again.
After that I continued making friends and losing them again as I didn't make many true friends, except for a few of them.
And then WOVOX happened. I was just looking for a company to have some professional training. Never could I have foreseen the turning point they resembled in my life. Because of the company's freedom policy and the attitudes of the people working there, I could be myself and I knew I was accepted for being myself. Actually, it was better to be myself, I needed to be myself in order for things to work well. And it was such a relief! =) Finally I had the courage to be there, to open up to the world. It brings me energy to be the happy me. I made a vow never to close up again, because it is actually a lot harder to live that way.
Even though sometimes I still feel like taking a step back and crawling back into the shadows of safety. I know that is a cowardly feeling and it's not doing me well, but I don't think I'll ever lose my shyness completely.
When meeting new people I really have to push myself to talk to them. I know all the opportunities and good things there are to meeting new people, but it's also scaring me to talk to people I don't know. Usually it's even scaring me to talk to people I know but am not that close to (anymore).
I hope to learn how to act natural in front of people that intimidate me, someday. I want to be able to have casual contact also with people who I'm awkward with. Even if the awkwardness will never go, I do want to be able to hide it.
* We have a different schooling system. From age 4 - 12, one goes to "Basic School", then from age 12 - 16/17/18 one attends "Middle School", which is followed by either "Middle Professional Education", "Higher Professional Education" or "University". I translated the Dutch names to English ones.
~~~~~X~~~x~~~X~~~~~
*~Maria
