INSECURITIES

 The interesting thing about insecurities is that we never think we have them, and it's not just you, I used to think so too. I remember in September 2018 when a friend asked me what my insecurities were, the first thing that came out of my mouth was "I don't think I have them". It had never even occured to me to think of myself as someone capable of having insecurities. As I got to learn from that conversation and since then, we all have insecurities and it is immaterial that we admit them or not. However, the saying is true that the first step to solving a problem is admitting you have the problem in the first place. 

It's very easy to say you don't have insecurities –that was me for the longest time, but they're there and ignoring them won't take them away. There's no "faking it till you make it" in this case. 

So how does one recognize such insecurities? I find that the surest way to do that is my self examination because no matter how much people point a thing out to you, until you reflect on your actions concerning that particular issue, you'll never truly understand it. Before boggling your minds any further, I'm going to attempt s definition of an insecurity. 

An insecurity is a feeling of inadequacy and uncertainty often times leading to anxiety about one's abilities, relationships, dreams and goals. ( I got it from somewhere but I don't know where that is again). 

Well, now that that's out of the way, where were we? If you sit to think about it, there some matters that are "sore" topics for you and any discussion about it just immediately puts you on the defensive or makes you downright aggressive, these topics may border on an insecurity so you naturally would feel the need to jump into defense immediately, it's natural –you're just trying to protect yourself, but is it healthy? Definitely not! If you know me (like if you don see me before) I'm on the the big side and I never used to think it was an insecurity until I sat to think about it. I've been big for such a long time that I never even thought I was insecure about it so you can imagine my surprise when I realized I was. One thing I noticed was that every time someone referred to my size in a deriding manner (which was a lot!) I'd immediately begin to pick on a flaw in that person, after all they say the best defense is a good offence. Thank God I've since given up that crazy habit but the truth was that whenever someone picked on my size, I felt small, weird since I was physically big but that was it, or maybe small isn't the correct word, I'd say I felt inept, abnormal, less-than.... So to protect myself, I'd pick on the person too, directly or indirectly, making sure to leave them feeling worse than they'd made me feel. Now that I've worked on that insecurity to an extent, picking on my size doesn't move me as much again, after all, na fat I fat, I no kill person! 

Another way insecurities manifest is through resignation, maybe resignation is not the correct word but when I explain what I mean, you'll get it (I hope), and if you know a better word for it, please let me know. Sometimes rather than fighting at someone who brings up a "sore" subject, you just become apathetic to the whole conversation, this is the "that's just how I am", "change the topic" syndrome. Sometimes, it just seems easy to do nothing about it –I'd know because I've done that too. It just becomes a part of you and you'll delude yourself into thinking you've learned to live with it, but it never goes away. For a very long time in my life, I didn't feel worthy of being loved by those around me. I honestly can't say when and how it started (and for those that know me, they know how rare it is for me to forget how something like that started), I just know that I didn't feel worthy of being loved, I always felt like I had to "earn" the love of those around me. It was my insecurity but I was resigned to having to work for love so if I found what a person liked about me, I'd work so hard to excel in that thing so that I could "buy" their affections. So I studied especially hard to make the best grades (and cried profusely when I didn't), read a lot, snuck to watch movies when I was supposed to be sleeping so I can gist someone about it tomorrow... anything to make myself be loved. Thinking about it now, I realize that I sucked up to a lot of people, was willing to do anything just to make the love stay and when I saw that it was like the love was fading small, I'd double my efforts so that my relationship with whoever it was would continue and boy was that tedious!! Plenty stress like this, maybe that's why I don't like stress again😅. Because I had resigned myself to the fact that I was unworthy of love, I was willing to do anything to be loved. 

After that phase I entered what was still a terrible manifestation of insecurity what my mum would call "I don't care" (if you ever meet her, ask her to say these three words, there's a way she inflects the words when she says it that'll convey my message well). I'd decided at that point that I was done trying to make anyone love me. In my mind, that was me working on my insecurity oo, though I wouldn't have called it that. So I began to shut people out. Once I felt someone becoming too close, I would begin to distance myself, emotionally and physically, so that I wouldn't be hurt by their rejection when it happened. I remember distancing myself from my best friend (thanks Boki for always still loving me despite my eccentrics that time), my school daughters (I was in secondary school at the time), basically anyone who'd get close enough to hurt me. In the end, that did me more harm than the "suck up" phase because I lost wonderful people in my life that I didn't have to lose at the time because I was scared to lose them. As funny as it sounds, it may be something you're also doing subconsciously. Thank God I'm also over that phase now. How many phases did I have to pass to get to where I am now with that insecurity? Omo, me sef no know. 

Another way insecurities manifest is through projection (once again, this may not be the correct word but just stay with me). This might probably be the worst because it'll cause you to hurt yourself an the people you love terribly. Sometimes you find yourself overly vocal in pointing out flaws in other people that deep down you know you have, almost like you feel doing that will take away the reality of your own flaws. Sometimes it happens that you don't even have the same flaws with the person oo, but you'll just naturally feel like they're looking down on you because of your flaw, whatever kind it is, it may be that you feel a person looks down on you because they're better than you academically, or at work or in some way. And it may all just be in your head! This is not to say that there aren't people who look down on other, but why do you always feel like everyone will look down on you because of "bla bla bla"? It's because deep down, you're insecure about the said "bla bla bla". So you'll always have the mentality that "it's because of ... that's why he/she did...." There are some people I hate getting into arguments with some people because I know that they'd bring it up that it's because of xyz that's why you said abc. 

I'm sure there are other ways insecurities manifest other than the ones I've just spoken about but no matter how it manifests, we must learn to deal with them so that we can have a healthy lives and relationships. 

So when next we see, I'll be sharing ways that I handle my insecurities, but in the main time, please feel free to educate us on other ways insecurities can manifest that you know (e fit be say e get way wey me sef dey manifest wey I no know). And if you have any questions, don't hesitate to drop, me and all the other people will reply you in what we know. Till next time.

Love,

Achenyo.