On Second-Guessing, Belonging, and the Long Way Home to Myself

Why do I second-guess myself so much? I leave spaces replaying every single word. Cringing. Scolding myself.

"Don't be so weird."

Ugh.

"Why are you like this?"

I have always been strange. Weird. Too much. Too loud. Always watching for how to belong and always missing the mark. Relentlessly bullied as a kid. Never quite fitting in anywhere. Not in school. Not at home. Not in my own skin. I don’t think I’ve ever found my space.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s because I don’t feel at home in myself. Like I’m always trying to escape my own body. Like I’m too loud inside. Like I can’t settle. I don’t feel safe anywhere. And everyone feels like a possible threat. A potential disappointment. A risk.

It’s hard to trust when you think everyone is after you. When your body goes into panic before you even know why. When the evidence keeps stacking up that people aren’t safe. That love always comes with a price. That kindness isn’t always real.

How do you build trust when you keep getting shown, over and over, that humans will hurt you? But the worst part is we still need each other. We still want to be seen. To be known. To be held. To be loved as we are. Not in spite of it. Because of it.

But how do you come home to a body that feels like a stranger? That hurts. That has betrayed you. Abandoned you. Broken down on you. More than once. More than twice. And no one believed you. Or they did, but it didn’t matter.

How do you build a life inside a body that you don’t trust? A self you don’t feel rooted in? How do you speak without shrinking? Without the post-convo shame spiral?

How do people move through the world like they deserve to be here? Like they aren’t constantly apologizing for their existence? Where do they get that confidence? The audacity. How do you build that when everything in you says stay small. Stay quiet. Stay safe.

I want to believe I’m not too much. I want to feel like I belong somewhere. Even if it’s just here. Even if it’s just in myself.