I always knew people weren’t angels. Most people may be inherently ethical when it comes to situations like stealing or assault, but everybody’s ethics seem to falter when it comes to gossip. And again, this understanding is engrained in me, but when I found out the gossip was surrounding me and my appearance, it took a toll on me. I couldn’t decipher whether what people were saying about me were true or not, and I let their judgements cloud my perception of myself.
The journey to improving my self-confidence after this situation was long and hard, but also rewarding. Through rationalizing my thoughts with friends who knew me, I managed to change my perception of myself and recognize my perception of myself is most accurate. I am speaking about this experience because I believe everyone goes through this struggle of self-confidence as they’re coming of age. At the end of the day, I don’t want to sugar coat it. We can’t control what people will say about us and people are going to be nasty. But, we can change the narrative and realize their insensitive comments intended to humor others at our expense is immature.