Nobody in this world knows exactly who I am. Even my personal diary doesn’t have some untold stories that only I know about.
As long as I remember, I have known only one thing. And that is fear. Fear of not some cliché things like heights, ghosts, etc. The fear of people, fear of the world, fear of my life, fear of myself. I cannot be transparent about my life, I cannot be the same to everyone, I cannot be loyal, what I say doesn’t mean the same, it absolutely means something else.
Right from my childhood I purposely isolated myself, avoided getting into friendships because I cannot say the same thing to everyone. I will have to narrate my life, I will have to say the same thing to everyone, isn’t it?
Why am I lying like this? Is there anything that’s hidden that I’m coating layers and layers over and over? But no. There isn’t anything like that.
A very normal life with good school and college. And an offer letter in my hand with a decent pay today. And yet I fear friendship. Whenever there is an exam result due, I purposefully uninstall all my social media accounts, switch off all electronic devices to stop people from contacting me.
Out of fear of being asked about my backlogs, I don’t go to any get-together because people keep asking me about the results of my previous semester. I don’t talk to people and stay away because people keep asking me about my result and my CGPAs. This fear has grown so much that I don’t like a social life.
I’m a very lonely person. If I’m given a choice between chatting with people and having fun, and being lonely and doing something, I would choose to be alone. I totally pretend to be strong, independent, a fighter, a warrior, all by myself. But inside I’m a coward.
I’m the star of the crowd, completely bold and brave. But behind this independent, smart, go-getter attitude, there is a sensitive, painful side in me. All these years, I’ve been unknowingly working on just trying to put myself in front of people such that they don’t judge me and missed on all that I should really be working on.
I’m in an extreme pain and the name of the pain is guilt. Which kills me every moment. There were some days when I tried to kill myself because incidences keep flashing in my head even if I don’t want them to.
I remember a time when I was just sitting next to my friend and I punched the front seat of the car. And she got scared and asked me what happened. Then I realized how these flashes in my head were affecting my behaviour.
What have I really done that has landed me in such trouble? Did I kill someone? No. Did I commit a crime? No. Do I have a dark past? No. It’s just those harmless lies, in my school or in my college, something almost everyone does.
So what happens to me because of these lies I told? Sometimes, in the middle of the night, all those incidences keep flashing in my brain. While giving an exam, I try to write something but what I write is something else. The steadiness of doing any simple work is disturbed and it becomes a disaster. I also tend to make expressions with my face, reactions without any reason and without the awareness of where I am.
Sometimes, I look for a soul who will listen to me and not be surprised to see this side of me. I want to ask for mercy and forgiveness for something which seems normal but is such a big deal for me. And all these are because of extreme standards that we set for ourselves, and try to achieve them.
If I ever try to ignore the guilt of my lies, I end up feeling guilty about my behaviour and reaction to situations. And that will just be in your head for a long time.
The solution for these lies is to be kind and not keep punishing myself. I must accept the fact that I’m a human and I’m meant to be flawed, and that it’s OK to make mistakes. If you read into your mistakes too far, you end up staying in a cage that you made for yourself. And that’s equal to punishing yourself and caging your soul in a prison with no release date.