“ALL THIS TIME I WAS FINDING MYSELF AND I DIDN’T KNOW I WAS LOST..” -AVICII

I used to walk around with the attitude that I did not give a fuck what others thought about me, all while systematically adapting and structuring my life and personality around everyone I met. I would change who I was based on who I would hang out with. I would become the snobby girl with my bitchy friends. I would be the angry girl around my pissed off friends. I would be the happy girl around my peppy friends. The fun girl around my drinking friends. The promiscuous girl around my party friends.

I didn’t do this maliciously. I wasn’t trying to fake who I was. I wasn’t trying to pretend I was something I wasn’t. I just desperately wanted to fit in. But all the while giving off this IDGAF attitude. When really, that’s all I cared about. What you thought of me. My hair, my make up, my laugh, my thoughts, my opinions, my clothes, my weight. I would talk badly about myself to boost others confidence. I would dumb myself down for others egos. I would stay completely silent about my opinions in fear of angering others.

When someone would hurt me, I would immediately forgive them and sometimes apologize when I was not the one who did the hurting. I feared losing a friend. I feared someone being mad at me. I would spend hours trying to figure out how I could have acted, what I could have said, how I could have offended them and then would apologize to them for whatever I did that made them hurt me.

I used to see this as noble behavior. I used to hang my hat every night feeling like the bigger person. The most stable person. I was able to forgive. I was able to apologize. I was able to put my own feelings aside for others. I was so kind. So happy. So put together. News flash, I was none of those things.

Putting yourself down is not noble or stable. Apologizing for something you didn’t do and accepting all the responsibility for others bad behavior is not healthy. It will break you down bit by bit. Until you wake up one day and have no idea who you are or what you want out of your own life. You have spent the last 30 years giving yourself to everyone else. And now you have no clue what you need. What makes you happy. Or what stability really is.

I think it’s normal to care what others think, to an extend. I don’t think there is such thing as a healthy IDGAF attitude. If you’re going around saying IDGAF about everything, I don’t think that’s even real. Of course you care. There are things you care about. And that is NORMAL. What would be the point of life if you didn’t care about anything, at all, ever? But that’s how I lived my life and I know I’m not alone.

By doing this I hurt myself tremendously. By stroking others egos and allowing them to walk away feeling free of any guilt, I was allowing myself to walk away feeling all the guilt, feeling like I was wrong or not good enough, or like I need to change for them so they don’t get mad at me anymore. So fast forward 30 years. I became so angry and I didn’t know why.

I was angry because I had harbored all the guilt of others. I had kept myself locked up from all emotion. Not allowing myself to get angry, feel sadness, feel excited or any other totally normal and healthy reaction or emotion.

Sigmund Freud says that “anger is sadness turned outward.” And what that means is that when you feel anger externally, you are actually sad internally. Sadness MAKES us angry. And so you take the sadness and outwardly turn it to anger. Sometimes because anger is a more acceptable emotion than sadness. And sometimes because you can literally not filter through the sadness.

Sometimes the sadness is so intense, so unexplainable, so overwhelming that you don’t know how to express it and so you become frustrated and anger comes out first. This is why anger comes before sadness in the five stages of grief. Because a lot of times it is so much easier to be angry than sad. Have you ever been so angry, screaming and yelling, fuming.. and then you just burst into tears? Well, there ya go.

I think it’s good to stay mindful of how people see you. I think it’s normal to care. It’s normal and kind to not want to hurt others feelings or break others hearts. That’s good, healthy, normal behavior. You do care. And you should. What’s unhealthy and unstable is dumbing yourself down, pretending to not care, changing who you are, accepting all the guilt, all the responsibility, all the issues of others and stuffing it down inside of you until it explodes.

What others think of you is not your road map to life. How they feel about the way you live your life, your opinions, your flaws, your decisions does not define you. You define you. And when you allow others to walk all over you, you’re allowing them to define what you are and what you should be. STOP. Cause I am living, breathing proof that if you do, you’ll be 34, spending years working through all the grief, all the sadness, all the anger in one sitting.

I care what others think. I want to always be a good friend. I want people to see me in a good light. I want to be seen as a stable, healthy, happy person. But being a stable, healthy, happy person does not mean making yourself small for others. Stop accepting the blame for others bad behavior. Stop making excuses for why you’re not like this or that. Stop trying to make others happy all the time. Because you’re only hurting yourself.

There is a huge difference between IDGAF and being true to who you are. Find the balance. Because not giving a fuck. Not putting yourself first. Not being there for your own mental health and your own self worth is only going to leave you feeling very much alone. So give a fuck, please. About yourself. And somehow in turn, people are going to give a fuck about you too.