I’ve always been exceedingly paranoid. Always being afraid that I would mess up or things wouldn’t go as planned has often left me in panic. By that point, I wonder what is the point of trying, when no matter what I do it’ll be wrong anyways? However, I still tried. Too much. All of this brought out the extreme perfectionist in me. It came out in school, at work, and things like cleaning or doing errands. The hardest part of this was trying to please everyone. I couldn’t tell anyone no. I would act the way people expected me to act in all different situations. Having someone not like me was terrifying. I’ve spent so much wasted time worrying about whether or not someone likes me or is annoyed with me.

Most of the time, the people that are bothering to waste their time to talk bad about me, don’t matter in the most important parts of my life anyways. I always was the one to make sure I kept in touch with everyone. Friendships that were going to fall through in time anyways, I would fight to keep in contact, even if the other person didn’t ever reach out. I was so afraid to be alone that I would let everyone walk all over me without speaking up so that they wouldn’t have any reason to be angry with me. They always ended up being angry anyways, because the people I was doing this for were people who were never happy anyways.

It’s almost satisfying for me now when I know that people who don’t make any sort of positive impact on me don’t like me. It came with growing up. Sometimes it is important to mend relationships, but not with people who aren’t genuine. I’ve spent too much time trying to figure out why certain people don’t like me or say bad things about me, when I’ve done nothing but try and please them. Why bother to try so hard? It's not making them happy, and it certainly isn't making me happy. Not everyone is going to like me. It’s impossible. Different personalities aren’t meant to match with everyone else’s; we are all too unique. But knowing that the people that DO like me, actually like me because of who I am and not because I’ve exhausted myself to try and make them happy, feels so genuine. I’m comfortable with myself enough now that I no longer need permission from others to be happy. It’s freeing.