When did you find yourself?

[kvnchrist]

It took me a very long time to really find the person who I am comfortable in being. I ran from reality for such a long time, trying to fit myself into the world I thought was out there and wanted to be in.

I ran away from home to get away from an ideal that followed me wherever I went and I tried several moves and went through numerous quote?unquote friends on my journey to be what I supposed what others wanted to be. The more I tried the more I learned to hate myself for not being the person whose image I held inside my head. I turned to drugs and alcohol to numb the frustration I felt because I wasn't even close to this image.

I was in my mid 20's when I the vision started to fade and reality started to sink in. I decided that the image was not about me being a bigger than life person, but a better than life person and I could only be that if I liked myself and extended that liking to others.

I found a whole new world out there that wasn't as dark and foreboding as I first imagined. It was unusual, but what is usual unless you live like a hermit and experience things only you are familiar with. I don't really think that can be called usual, more like uneventful.

I was sick and tired of being sick and tired, because I was too cowardly to chance the hurt that may experience in exploring life. I have been hurt, but I've embraced that pain as a lesson to not do that to others. In looking around I've found others with wounds and found that I do fit into places by exploring and learning from those who are as inquisitive as I am.

I don't know the exact Date and hour in which I started finding myself. It was somewhere in my late 20's, but I am still refining the person I am and will probably be doing that the day I leave this world.

I just hope I leave it a bit brighter to those I've touched and touched me. If not then I have only myself to blame. No one stopped me. I stopped myself.

[Hyacathusarullistad]

I don't think that kind of road is unusual in itself. I certainly don't mean to diminish your trials or experiences in the slightest, of course. I just mean that a lot of people make a journey of self discovery in their early adulthood with varying degrees of drama and/or strife. Some people ultimately shed the idea of who they think they're "supposed" to be and reconcile that with who they really are; while others instead come to view the world in such a way that enables them to remain who they're comfortable being - for good or ill.

 

Ultimately my own journey came from watching someone else's. I went through a vaguely similar period as yourself, but from the other side - I watched my younger brother spiral into drug abuse and out of my reach over the course of several years. He dropped out of high school and began trafficking some pretty heavy stuff, and it reached a point where I no longer felt safe to associate with either him or our family, who insisted on ignoring the reality of the situation and refused to allow him to hit the Rock Bottom he needed to reach before coming to acknowledge his problems. I moved out on my own with my then-girlfriend, and didn't speak to my family for roughly three years.

 

Then one day, out of the blue, my brother's name pops up on my caller ID, and he wants to see me. I almost blew him off, assuming he just wanted to hit me up for money or something. But my girlfriend was a rock and pushed me to go to him, and I did. He was intensely interested in cleaning up his act and getting his life back on track. He didn't want money, just forgiveness. And after a few weeks of tentative contact I came to appreciate just how far he had come and how far he wanted to go, and I let him back into my heart and my life. Now he's a certified stock broker, the golden boy of the most prestigious financial institutions in Canada.

 

I learned a lot about myself in that year or so. I'm an incredibly obstinate person by nature, and two things I have a hard time doing are admitting I'm wrong and forgiveness. The deeper the betrayal the harder it is for me to forgive. If I could come to forgive him for the horrible things he said and did to me and the people around us, what did that mean for anyone else who'd done me wrong or would do me wrong in the future? And if he could go from the kind of lowlife thug he was to the person he was rapidly becoming, then how could I allow myself to continue to be the same self righteous, arrogant sod I was throughout and following high school? And I realised that none of it could have happened if it weren't for my girlfriend at the time. She saw in me the kind of person I needed to be, and pushed me into becoming someone I actually liked being. I'd never been more comfortable with myself than when I was with her. I married her for that.

[HeyYou]

I never really cared what people thought I *should* be doing, or what I *should* be like. I was my own person, albeit, not a very nice one.... (I was the kid your parents warned you about......) Took getting married, and a couple years in the service for me to sort out my life. I think I finally got it figgered out when I was around 25...... That was 28 years ago. I am happy with who I am, but, not particularly happy with my situation, but, it is what it is, and nothing to be done about it now.... (I am medically disabled... so, no work, no school, no "real" job for me.)

 

I still don't really care what other people think. :D But, I am a much nicer/better person now, than I was when I was younger. And just as poor. :D

[kvnchrist]

What I mean by finding yourself is not exactly findingg a new you or something that works out better with others is like a runner catching his stride.

 

I don't know if you've ever ran competitively, but I did a lot of running when I was in the military. Those who've ran will tell you that there are seperate parts of a race that have to be tackeled differently. The major trouble people get into is when they run like heck dirrectly from the start. They think that if they can get far enogh ahead,m then It won't matter how fast others are. That leads to a quick burnout and they are dead for the remainder of the race.

 

People who know how to run start out mederately. Not enough to leave you so far behind the pack that it will be imposible to ecover. What matters is getting to a point where you are comfortable with your breathing, your pace and that is called catching your stride.

 

This means that you find a place where everything you have to give in this world works as best it can. This is what I mean by finding yourself. It is a place where you can start being the adult you are meant to be with everything ballanced in your life, so that you arent overwelmed by the small stuff.