I am what I am

All my life people told me the exact oposite of the quote above; I wasn't supposed to speak so loud, not laugh so hard, not be present too much etc etc... I probably have some kind of ADHD but was never tested so people/family everyone put their two cents in to try and mould me into a person they thought was how you should be. Or rather their version of how I should be.

A lot has happened to me along the years, in life I mean. I got bullied over a period of a year or two, three maybe. I was (still am to be honest) a very insecure person. Insecurities are often loud, confidence is silent. People often don't take the time to get to know a person but they do judge them.
When people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up I always said I wanted to be a mum. I never knew what kind of profession I wanted; A mum was all I wanted to become. My mum did a pretty good job of it, so why couldn't I become one. Because you don't get paid to be one perhaps.

Kids don't judge you, you're their mum, you are the way you are. If you have insecurities they don't see them when they're small and when they're older they do whatever is in their power to help you with them. My boys love me for who I am, they don't mind that I have a loud voice or that I sometimes snap because I am feeling anxious. They know how I am.
So does my family, hub, mum and sis.

But coworkers that's something entirely different. When I met my ex and went to live with him I had to find a job. A job comes with coworkers and they don't always take the time to get to know you or take you as you are. I worked in an office with a lot of other women. When I tell you that working with only women is the worst I'm not telling you anything a lot of other women don't know. Women together can be very gossipy (if that's a word) and spiteful. I don't get that, I'm certainly not like that at all! I've worked in several offices, in shops and realised that was not for me. I couldn't do that for the rest of my life. Being someone who I'm not. Thankfully I got pregnant and my real job began.

But when I got a divorce years later I had to get a job again. So I started to clean in elderly people's homes. No direct contact with other coworkers not much anyway, just with elderly peeps and those people are the best! They have the life experience, the stories, the warmth... and yes, most of them take you for who you are. I am loved by them and I don't have to change who I am.
Until yesterday I thought I was doing wonderfully; yesterday my foreperson wanted to have a chat.
My coworkers couldn't handle the way I was when we had meetings.
Not again, I thought.
We had a long talk in which I explained to her about why I am what I am. Why I am insecure, about the autistic men in my life, about what I have gone through to get where I am now.

But when I got home I really was pissed; What right do they have to talk about me behind my back (in a meeting whilst I had my holiday) when I am nothing but honest with everyone. I have explained to everyone why I can't fill in as much as they do. Why I get seizures sometimes (if my plate is too full) and what is making me me. Besides, don't I have a right to some privacy? Do I have to lay it all on the table for coworkers to understand why I sometimes behave the way I do?
No, they want me to change... And I'm done with changing for others.

I've been through hell and back, I've been through bullying, through death of loved ones, through beeing silenced for two years of my life by my then husband, followed by a divorce and depressions, I live with a partner with autism and a son who denies having it (but does), I have lost friends, I sometimes feel very very alone, and I have to do a lot by myself... This is MY life!
I refuse to change for anyone anymore!

I am who I am, take it or leave it!



© KH