#hidingmyself

The way I like to look/who I am VS the way I need to look for my grandparents/who they want me to be....

I have to wear a hat to cover my haircut because my grandparents would not approve and maybe not even talk to me if they saw it. I can barely get by with my simple earrings in. I can’t even tell them that I am pansexual. 

There’s a quiet ache that comes with not being able to fully be yourself. It’s a confusing tension—knowing deep down that you are enough, yet constantly second-guessing it. You walk through the world with a version of yourself that’s been trimmed, toned down, or tucked away. And sometimes, it’s not even on purpose. It just becomes a habit—a shield you learned to carry a long time ago.

I’ve always been told to “just be myself,” but what happens when being yourself doesn’t feel safe? What happens when it feels like the real you is too much… or not enough?

That’s the paradox I live in. I can do it—whatever “it” may be—but a voice inside whispers, can I, really? I’ve tried to silence that voice, but it still lingers, especially when I feel invisible in rooms I should belong in. I’ve looked around and wondered, Why don’t I feel accepted here?—even when I don’t have a clear answer. That feeling alone can break something in you.

It’s exhausting to constantly wrestle with your identity. To want to be free, to live out loud, to thrive and succeed as your truest self… but feel like you’re trapped behind a mask of what others want or expect you to be.

I long for acceptance—not surface-level approval, but deep-rooted, unconditional belonging. The kind where I don’t have to explain myself or shrink. But when you grow up without confidence—when it wasn’t nurtured, protected, or modeled—it’s hard to even know where to begin building it.

So, how do you build confidence when you’ve been taught to doubt yourself?

You start small. You start by noticing your voice in the crowd, even if it trembles. You let yourself take up space, even if it’s uncomfortable. You remind yourself daily that your existence is not a mistake—that who you are, as you are, matters. You surround yourself with people and spaces that affirm that truth, and slowly, gently, you unlearn the lies you’ve carried.

Most of all, you learn to accept yourself even when others don’t. That’s the hardest part. But also the most powerful.

Because even if I’m still learning how to stand confidently in my skin, I know one thing for sure: the real me deserves to be seen—not just the polished, palatable version. The whole me. The messy, complicated, still-growing me.

And so do you.