The chapter is closed and done
By: Chrizzy T
Tags: Hopes And Dreams, Diary, Pre Medical Journey, Student Life

Before I let this new chapter unfold and my dreams come to fruition, there are some serious lessons to reflect on and some things that need to be let go. The best method, it seems, is not only preventing the same thing from happening again (actions), but understanding and validating my feelings (emotions) at the same time. Staring at myself from a head-on angle is daunting. I don’t even know where to begin to process the types of feelings I had as this decade wrapped to a close. Yet, some part of me calls upon the task to try to write it all out, to do a brain dump, to begin to unload all the pesky baggage that I’ve been carrying all along before I get sucked into the same trap all over again, never growing from the place that I was planted at.

I’ll start with where I know it best. “Imposter syndrome” has befriended me and clasped tightly onto my hands vowing to never let go. It becomes a shadow for me, almost enough to become the person, and I just a shadow for it. A term that was only formerly introduced to me this year snuck into all aspects of my life, from academics to my extracurriculars to my personal life to a point where I began to question my own identity.

Have I fooled everyone into thinking that I’m good? I don’t feel like I’m good enough at all…

I don’t think there’s an answer for me to find here, other than to know that it exists and become aware of the ensnaring traps that it sets up for me. Once it latches on, there’s almost no other way out. Except there is. I don’t think every form is the same for everyone, but for me, I decided that there were specific symptoms I could find that would lead me to the main root of the problem.

Symptom 1: Lingering suspicion that I wasn’t liked by anyone. There are only a few people who actually know the real me, who I could talk to about anything. The other people are just people who talk to me without really knowing who I am. It becomes a fuel to doubt whether or not I let people in enough, or I do things that don’t really stimulate a connection. Either way, this really bothered me for a long while as I pondered what was wrong with me. I was carrying who I was but also this idea that people had of me. Who is the real person, and who is the imposter? The lines between the object and shadow were exceptionally blurry at these moments.

Symptom 2: An unhealthy amount of comparison and envy consumed me. What I saw on social media made me feel even worse. I wasn’t doing the same thing as everyone else. I didn’t always have friends to call and hang out with, and I didn’t have major accomplishments to post about. Hence, my confidence in myself wavered. I had some credentials, but it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t anything amazing like the other people I was seeing. I was doing normal things, too normal, and I almost felt like those things I envied to a point where it would present as a feeling of despise was only to make myself feel better about myself. Those low times would render me completely unproductive because I couldn’t do it better than the other people around me, and I was too consumed in my thoughts.

Symptom 3: Perfection is a dual-tipped flaw. When it comes to doing anything that was important to me, everything has to be perfect. This meant I had to have the right feeling to study well. There had to be the right environment with the right materials. I could never just dive into a task without preparing for it through every detail. To me, I would rather not study at all than just half-ass it. This would happen to me too many times; I would get prepared and find the right environment once only to never find the right time again a second time. I set myself to fail because I could not settle with just getting it done. There are so many things that I have tried, all that I’ve never followed through. My all-in or nothing-at-all mentality was detrimental, a huge flaw that could literally be the end for me.

A combination of these symptoms followed me through the past few years. Sometimes I wouldn’t have any, others I only had one. The worst time was when all three decide to rear their snot-smeared and sanded throat heads in my face at the same time. I was falling into a deep abyss. I wasn’t growing. I wondered what was wrong, but I didn’t know how to solve it. When I talked about it to others, they wouldn’t know how to help. Their measly validation only smothered down these feelings, letting them to hide, but never to fully rest. It was up to me to figure out how to get rid of these symptoms and make myself feel better. I needed my own validation. Perhaps, that means defining “enough” in a different way, or learning to love myself in the way that I hadn't thought of before.

I am good enough. I can do good things as well.

For once, as a change, I hope that writing will be my outlet. I’m not very good at it, but I hope that this will be my constant. I have put off my desire to write for so long because it wasn’t the right time, and I didn’t feel like anything I wrote was perfect enough. I hope that I learn that not everything has to be perfect, you just have to start. Starting allows you to make progress. Progress is better than nothing. That’s a hard pill to swallow for me, but it’s a necessary one. There can be healthy comparisons to serve as motivation, but anything more excessive turns into something ugly. The last problem, well, that I’ll blame it on growing up and working through different types of people before I find who really like me for all that I am. Because only when I understand myself will I be able to cure this. I hope that my hope blossoms me into the person that I envision, and one day, it won’t any longer be a hope but a reality.

I want to make 2020 and the years thereafter in the decade to be times where I really work to grow myself. I wrote this as a reminder, as the starting point from where I am to where I’ll be. I know that this doesn’t all magically disappear in one day all because I have come to terms with it, and it no longer exists in my mind. It runs much deeper than that, and there’s more to uncover and discover about myself. It’s all really a process that I must embrace and welcome while also fighting back. While I know how it sounds mushy and so cliche, I know that I’m capable of my dreams. This syndrome can’t hold me back, and being vulnerable and real about it is how I’ll start. The next step can only be an improvement from there.

It seems almost surreal to think that with this upcoming decade undeniable changes will be happening to my life. By the end of it all, who knows where I’ll be?