So I’m just going to warn you that this post is likely to
get deep and it’s likely to be very long so yeah just be warned.
There’s a campaign I’ve been helping with through work
called The Real Me where women are encouraged to make a video and reveal who
they are underneath what they show to the world. Check out the hashtag #therealme
on twitter.
I'm not really brave enough to talk about this in a video but
I really wanted to do something for this campaign. I think the whole idea is
brilliant and to me it’s coming at a time where I want to start facing a few
things in my life so thought that a blog post would be a good place to start. Who
knows I may make a video at some point.
THE REAL ME!
Middle child syndrome…
This is something I don’t believe really exists and it hurts
the children who happen to be middle children and then get labelled as having a
syndrome. For me I had a lot of stuff going on at home when I was growing up
and I struggled quite publicly at school and I would get told by friends when I
said something about my parents or my siblings that I had middle child syndrome
and I just assumed that there was something wrong with me and even believed
people that the reason for how I was feeling was simply because I am a middle
child.
Anxiety &
Bullying…
In reality I was dealing with anxiety. I was always anxious
about everything that was happening. I was constantly worried about my siblings
and about the fact that all that was going on would cause my family to break
apart (it didn’t thankfully) but I was also convinced that in some way
everything was my fault but I didn’t really know how to make it better.
I was also dealing with bullying at school that added to the
stress and when I was about 14 I had my first panic attack because I just couldn’t
face going to school and dealing with everything. Panic attacks aren’t something
that I have a lot but it is always there that it is a possibility.
Anxiety is something that a lot of bloggers and youtuber's
have spoken about and I’m so glad that people talk about it now because when I was
dealing with it as a teenager I had no idea what was wrong with me and at
school they would think I was faking been ill when I had a panic attack.
Weight problems…
I have always been a bigger person and it was part of the
reason that I was bullied at school. I struggled with my weight because I didn’t
understand why I wasn’t like everyone else however as I grew older I didn’t understand
why it was so interesting to everyone that I was bigger than other girls. I am
losing weight now but that’s because I know it’s healthier not because I feel
like I need to be like everyone else. I wasn’t happy with the way I looked but I
think looking back that maybe I could have been happier if other people hadn’t pointed
it out at every turn.
Moving on…
Eventually situations calmed down at home and as stupid as
it sounds it did take a while to get used to being in a normal family. The voice
in my head would tell me that everything was going to go back to how it was and
even till this day a part of me is waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’ve
learnt though that I have to take the good with the bad not just focus on the
bad.
I have also learned that it is important to have people that
you can talk to, when everything was hard when I was a teenager I had a best
friend who I knew would be on the end of the phone if I needed it and even
though were not close anymore I will always be grateful for that. Knowing who
you can trust is important and I’ve learnt that it is okay to just walk away
from someone if it causes me too much anxiety. For years I was scared to with
one friend because I thought I would lose everyone else and in the end it
exploded over one thing and I let all the anxiety she had caused me come out. I
didn’t end up losing any other friends but I wish I had done it earlier because
I feel so much better.
I wish I could go into what was going on with my family
whilst I was growing up but it’s not my place to share their story all I can do
is share mine. I don’t really know is any of this has made sense of come
together properly I just got lost in telling the story. I hope that this hasn’t
been too long or ramble. Please get involved and join #therealme campaign by
making a video, sharing a no makeup selfie or even just writing a blog post.
