Double Standard: Stand Out, Fit In

From a young age, we’re told to stand out, be ourselves, and not fear being different. However, therein lies the double standard to blend in with the crowd or you’re pushed away from everyone for not being “one of them”, and facing societal stigma for being different.

I myself am no stranger to hearing that I should be myself, be weird, be different, etc… Any rendition of that ever, I have heard it at one point or another in my life. And in my early years of school, I did not care about blending in with the crowd. I was just a kid trying to live my life, as every other kid my age was. That was until people started learning to make mean comments and take it upon themselves to criticize the tiniest details about a person that they can use against them.

I used to always wear skirts or dresses, never wore makeup, my hair was always done up nicely by my grandmother every morning, I had a soft demeanor, and was a sociable and bubbly person towards those around me. Those were some characteristics that set me apart from others. Another thing was my grandmother used to force me to go to church, so I was known as the “good girl” by default for that as well.

At this point, I experienced only wanting to be like everyone else, too afraid to be myself, for fear that bullies would hurt me again, or that no one would want to be my friend, or the few friends I had would abandon me like everyone else and cast me out like some disease. This even went so far as to a new version of the cheese touch but replaced cheese with my name, where everyone avoided me like the plague, and anyone who came near me was apparently somehow going to die because I was the absolute last person anyone would to be near.

All my efforts to be like everyone else were in vain, and life for me became a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation. No matter what I did, I got laughed at or made fun of, talked about behind my back, and avoided at any cost. It was hell. All I did was simply exist as myself, then made the mistake of trying to conform to what society said the “norm” was to blend in and not be bullied as much, and either way, I still got hurt by my peers.

This lead me to develop fears of social interactions for fear of being put through even more hell. And also to dread school, which was supposed to be a safe place, but not for me.

Fast-forward to middle school, things got even worse. I was getting depressed more and more every day, and had virtually no friends. Things got so bad that I let people start controlling my life in search of ending my pain and suffering in bullying. However, after letting people tell me what to wear, how to do my hair, how to do my makeup, what to say, who to hang out with, etc… Giving up everything true about myself and becoming someone I never wanted to become didn’t help in even the slightest. It got bad enough to the point I saw my reflection in a mirror once during this time, and could not recognize the girl looking back into my eyes through the glass. I was no longer myself. I was someone who didn’t know who or what she was, and that’s when I realized things had gone too far, way later than I should have realized that.

That’s when I made the decision to take my life back, resulting in cutting everyone out of my life, and started working to try and remember the girl I used to be, realizing I couldn’t keep living like that.

Now I am in senior year, nearing graduation, prouder than ever to be the weird, hyper gremlin I am. I have a boyfriend and amazing friends who have my back, and have embraced my differences, and the fact that I was never born to fit in with everyone else. It’s boring, to be completely honest.

Through trying to change myself and the fact I’m different, I realized the importance of being different, and being myself. Through all this, I realized how much being true to oneself is important, and how society has double standards to stand out and embrace differences, but yet fit in with everyone else and fall in line and not stand out too much.

Ultimately, all this lead me to realize way too late in life that I can’t change anything about who I am, and need to embrace being weird and different. I always have been, and forever will be myself. My life is my own, and no one can take it away from me again.

“Rose stands out” by pradeep_kumbhashi is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.