That I don’t really know who I am because my entire life has been driven by fear, survival, and insecurity.
Even my likes and dislikes weren’t really picked by me. Example, I loved video games growing up because my brother liked video games and invited me to play with him on occasion. It was one of the few times I didn’t feel completely alone. Then I began to like them on my own…but it sorta makes it feel like that wasn’t really my like to begin with… it was driven by not wanting to be alone.
My career is all about protecting my financial security at any cost to myself. Even my marriage is based around feeling safe and nurtured by someone at a time when I felt completely rejected and alone.
So as I’m sitting here trying to think about the things that make me uniquely me… I start to realize that maybe I don’t actually have a personality at all. It’s all just reactions and carefully planned interests so that I can feign being a normal person with normal interests.
It’s probably why people think I have so many hobbies. I do… but they’re not really my hobbies are they? They are different parts’ attempts at relating to the world or to the people around them. They’re not always my interests… but they do make me seem more interesting… which is funny to me.
So the truth is… I don’t actually know who I am… I never have. I don’t even know what name I like. My brother’s always called me Jess.. and some of my favorite people call me that. But I didn’t actually like my name growing up… felt forced… this very Caucasian sounding name awkwardly smashed up against two Hispanic sounding names…. a perfect metaphor for how I felt inside… and so something I hated.
I borrowed the name Jesi from a friend who shared my name as a kid. I took it and ran with it… so that wasn’t mine either. But I prefer it to anything else because at least it was unique and not associated with my family. I struggle to make sense of any of this. I struggle to feel like I’m an actual person when I feel like I’m just a part of a system.. no more or less smart or wise or strong than any other part. And that makes me feel like I have my entire life… awkward, alone… and like I just want to fade to the back and let everyone else around me make the decisions.
I feel empty inside or like a snail detached from its shell… I just feel like I’ll never be comfortable in my own body because it’s not me.. I don’t know where I belong… but it’s like this is wrong. All of its wrong. I never formed a real personality… I knew this growing up and as a kid I used to think of myself as a chameleon… or that I’m just a mirror for everyone else.
I don’t know I guess that’s not so bad but.. maybe if Im just honest about the fact that “I” don’t really exist….. not inside anyway… it wont’ be so bad. Maybe if I accept that… it won’t hurt so much. Or maybe it’ll always hurt. I guess it doesn’t matter does it?
Also, migraine today. Brain melting. Need to be with kids tho so… doesn’t matter. None of it matters.