Society & Politics

Don’t be Ashamed to be You

I’ve written a lot of takes, some serious, some not. After coming home from taking care of my grandmother, I realized that the experience brought something to my attention that I haven’t fully addressed, something that I should have addressed a long time ago.

I am ashamed to by myself.

Relax, this isn’t a poor me article and I’m not really ashamed of the person I am. I have simply had one too many moments where I felt ashamed of certain aspects of myself that make up the person that I am. I have always been the odd-one-out in my family, and for a long time, it gave me an intense feeling of loneliness and shame, because I felt like there was something wrong with me and that I simply didn’t belong. Even with my friends I felt like I was always the one who had the weird interests or lacked experience in the things that other people simply saw as normal activities that everyone did. I was always on the outside looking in, wondering why I didn’t match up with the people around me.


I realized this week that the reason is because I am me.


Don’t be Ashamed to be You


My grandmother adores me. All of me, even down to my inappropriate humor and habit of being completely weird, she finds me to be a delight. I never thought anybody would find someone who had such vivid thoughts that they whispered them to their self under their breath without realizing it to be an interesting person, let alone someone who can’t look into a mirror without making a stupid face or talking to themselves. I realized that the reason my grandmother was so open to my odd behavior was because I didn’t act ashamed of it: I presented it and owned it with confidence, because I knew at the end of the day that my grandmother would love me no matter what. I felt no reason to feel ashamed, not like I had in the past.


For an entire week I was shamelessly myself, and when my mother returned she did something I never expected: over a glass of wine, she asked me to never change.


It was meaningful to me because I had never felt like my mother truly accepted the person that I was; she was always pushing me to get into a relationship or consider going to college for business, all while scoffing at my quirky behavior and directly detesting my sense of humor. I always needed to be more ladylike, more normal, or I would risk being undesirable. Now, as a twenty-two year old, she finally told me that she was wrong. She grew to love the weird person that I am, along with my edgy humor and oddities. She told me that who I was would be the key to my success, and while I’m still not sure what she meant by that, it inspired me to really think about how I have treated myself over the years.


I, like many other people, have felt ashamed for being different. I was always afraid that who I was would prevent others from wanting to be with me, or near me in any way. I was afraid that if anyone got to truly know me that they would see me as some kind of dippity-doo with strange-as-hell habits and a bad taste in humor – definitely not somebody worth getting to know further. The older I get though, the more I realize that my identity is defined by these oddities and quirks, even the dick-jokes. That is me at the core of my being and that is nothing to be ashamed of.


Now it might seem odd to hear me say that, considering I wrote a whole article about changing yourself for the better, and I still believe that; but I also believe that there are traits about ourselves that simply make up the person that we are, and that we would lose our identities if we tried to change or get rid of them. It’s all about knowing what a useless trait is and who you truly are at the core of your being. Those are the things that should never change, for anyone … ever.


Don’t be Ashamed to be You


So to make this take a little less self-absorbed I will leave you with this: the next time you find yourself questioning if somebody likes you or not, ask yourself if YOU feel that you are being exactly who you were meant to be. If you ever feel like you have to be a completely different person to get somebody to like you, then that person isn’t worth the time. Anyone who will truly care for you will accept the weird/awkward/unique/whatever person that you are, at your best and your worst. So, don’t feel ashamed of who you are or even the mistakes that you’ve made; because in the end, people will sooner love the person who owns their identity than the person who is always trying to change it. And that’s because we can all appreciate somebody with the confidence to be unashamed of whom they are, because nearly all of us know what it’s like to question ourselves.


I hope you guys have yourselves a good week, thanks for reading, as always!

Don’t be Ashamed to be You
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