I used to be bullied a lot when I was younger, mainly over my weight and general appearance. I’d love to say it doesn’t affect me, but I have this massive need to be liked by everyone. Which is a bit sad really. I’m practically an adult, after all. Sometimes, it’s just little things. Like I’ll wear winged eyeliner, not because it suits me (it doesn’t), but because noone says how nice smudged kohl eyeliner looks, which is the eyeliner which most suits me.
I definitely don’t think social media helps, and I know that glossy magazines (as fab as they are) don’t. I should probably be banned from Instagram; I actually stopped using my fitness/ food Instagram because I was so adamant to put up a healthy eating front that I was restricting food so my meals looked great, and then binging at night. I also stopped eating meat, partly because yes I do feel bad about mass consumption, but mostly because all the vegans and vegetarians on Instagram are so pretty, so cool, so fit and just amazing. I wanted to be them. So I cut out meat, so I could be a bit like them, on paper at least.
Which brings me to the purpose of this post. Although I didn’t mind not eating meat and had just as much fun cooking and eating without it, over the past six months I’ve been increasingly fatigued, to the point I was asleep all evening and weekend because I was living in this lethargic fog which completely affected my life, and me as a person. I couldn’t concentrate enough to blog, I couldn’t wake up in time to exercise before work, I just couldn’t do anything that didn’t involve being horizontal.
I went to get tested for anemia, and came out with an underactive thyroid and a few vitamin deficiencies, which is what was making my metabolism so sluggish and slow. While I can’t definitively say that this was because I cut out meat, I realised that for me personally, a meat free diet just wasn’t working. I in no way think that people need to eat meat to survive, but that doesn’t mean everyone should be vegetarian I guess. I don’t agree with the way that animals are farmed, and I still am making an effort to be meat free when possible, but I think for me personally, a meat free diet doesn’t work at this point in my life. Especially for the reasons I was doing it; to be cool.
The only thing that was stopping me from eating meat again was the fact I didn’t want people to think I had failed, or given up my values. A little part of me even thought, maybe I could just not tell anyone, or just not mention anything for ages and then pretend it never happened. But then, how horrible would that make me? So that’s why I’m confessing. And I hope you won’t judge me for it, but if you do? It’s not the end of the world, and I should stop treating it like it is.
I guess I’m still just trying to find my place in the world, and it’s hard with so many perceptions of who we should be and what we should be doing. I’m willing to bet I’m not the only person in their twenties who still feels like a lost little kid, overwhelmed by everything. It’s kind of a combination of FOMO, envy of those who have their shit together (on social media at least), and worry that I’m never going to know who or what I want to be. But you can’t just pretend to be someone you’re not, you have to just let things happen. I don’t know if I believe in destiny, but I do think that things will work. Eventually, anyway!
Have you ever done anything so that people see you in a certain way? Or are you truly confident in who you are? I’d love to hear your thoughts, comments, any advice or anything!
