Resolving Insecurity: Facing the Past

Facing Insecurities

We all have areas of our lives where we feel insecure and inadequate. Many of these hang ups can be traced back to things that happened in our past. Sometimes family problems cause these feelings of inadequacy. Maybe an incident occurred with a peer in school that causes self-doubt. Traumatic events in our lives can create triggers for emotional breakdowns in our lives. Resolving insecurity is one of the most difficult things to face in out lives. Very often, it forces us to examine the most painful experiences of our pasts.

Causes of Insecurity

Family Dynamics

There are several sources of the insecurities that have been challenges in my own life. Before I turned four years old, my parents divorced. They were only together for five years, and I honestly don’t have any real solid memories of when they were together. I do distinctly remember when mom told me that daddy wasn’t living with us anymore, and I have some vague memory of being in bed and hearing them arguing from my bedroom.

That really imprinted on me at a young age that family may not always be there. Even though I still saw him on weekends, being with him never felt like home to me. Being with mom was home. When I was around dad, I didn’t even feel like I was me. I loved him, but I was afraid of doing anything that would upset him. Over time, the person I was around him became a different person than who I was at home.

Fortunately, the rest of my family life was stable. Mom was always there. Her parents did everything to help. They were a rock for both of us during those three years that mom was single and beyond. Mom remarried just before I turned seven, and I couldn’t have asked for a better step-dad.

Even with the positive influences, I’ve carried a lot of fear of abandonment and issues with people pleasing that did me no favors in relationships that I would have in the future.

The Schoolyard Bullies

From Friend to Foe

I never really had issues with being bullied until my last year of elementary school. There was a friend that I’d had since second grade. He was my best friend. Near the beginning of fifth grade, something happened that changed that relationship forever.

To this day, I have no idea what triggered it. Maybe there was something that I did. It could have just been issues in his own home life that I wasn’t aware of. Our mutual friends asked us both what was going on. I had no clue, and apparently he wasn’t answering anyone. All that I know is that this person that had been my closest friend in school was suddenly bullying me for reasons I didn’t know.

It got to a point where by midway through the school year, our mutual friends had abandoned us both. I spent the rest of my fifth grade year as a pariah. In addition to piling on to my existing insecurities, I began to develop trust issues.

The Middle School Years

Middle school was a mixed bag for me. It was a fresh start at a new school. I made new friends, but also new nemeses. Being one of the smart kids with no aptitude for physical activity whatsoever, I found myself the victim of my share of physical bullying in the gym locker room and on the school bus.

I also found that apparently my accent was more southern than the rest of my classmates’ were. There was a lot of teasing over that. I was already self-conscious about speaking from when I had to take speech therapy class in first grade. I did, and really still do, everything that I can to neutralize my accent as much as possible.

Just Getting Through Adolescence

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized something about the high school experience. There are those of us that despised the ritual of high school and couldn’t wait for the hell to end. Then there are those people whose life experience peaked in high school, and it was all downhill from there for them. Ironically enough, those people who high school was heavenly for tended to make it hell for the rest of us.

I still faced a lot of the typical physical bullying in high school. However, the hormone filled halls and school buses of high school presented all new challenges. It is an odd thing how sexual advances from different people can cause extremely different feelings. I’m not sure why there was so much ass grabbing when I was in high school. Maybe all high schools are like that, what with all of the raging hormones and pheromones in the air. I remember being the recipient of plenty of advances that I wouldn’t exactly call welcome, but not exactly ones that I would consider unwelcome either. But those were only in passing for the most part.

Unfortunately, the unwelcome advances were far more common for me, as they were a nearly daily occurrence on the school bus. I felt humiliated and demeaned. I truly understand why women that experience objectification make the comparison to being treated like a piece of meat. At times, it felt like that was all that I was.

Surviving The Childhood Scars

Like most everyone else, I managed to make it through high school. My college years would see a great improvement in some aspects of my life, but it would also see me struggling with the insecurities from my childhood as I struggled as a single young adult. Even now as I approach my 40th birthday, there are many insecurities that I still struggle with daily.

Continuing Process Of Resolving Insecurity

The process of resolving insecurity is not an overnight process. It isn’t even something that can be done over a short time, especially if you have a lifetime of insecurities. Resolving insecurity is a process that will take the rest of your life to keep in check

Housekeeping: I’d promised some of my readers that I would pull some of my angst ridden poetry of my youth from the vault and share it here, so it’s been posted in Songs From the Raven’s Nest under Blasts From the Past.

Teaser: Be here next week when we discuss destiny and the choices we make.