How To Heal From Past Experiences (Bully, Being Ghosted, Rejection)

Hello all, it's been a long time I haven't made any personal post. In this opportunity, I would like to write and discuss about insecurity. I know, I have talked about this before, but in this post, I would like to talk more specifically regarding feeling insecurity related to the ability to deal with rejection and how to heal from there. 

Have I ever told this story? 

I used to have a little difference with other kids. Staring when I was 2 years old maybe, I was diagnosed with amblyopia. What's that? So, basically amblyopia or with easier term 'lazy eyes' is a disorder of sight in which the brain fails to process inputs from one eye and over time favors the other eye.
It reduced vision in one eye caused by abnormal visual development early in life. The weaker — or lazy — eye often wanders inward or outward. Amblyopia generally develops from birth up to age 7 years. 

It is the leading cause of decreased vision among children. Rarely, lazy eye affects both eyes.

Early diagnosis and treatment can help prevent long-term problems with your child's vision. The eye with poorer vision can usually be corrected with glasses or contact lenses, or patching therapy. In my case, it affects my left eye, which somehow my left eyes wanders outward. When it was checked, it turns out my left eye diagnosed with -7, which I was prescribed with glasses. At that time, from what I heard from my mother is that, the doctor told my mom to cover my stronger eyes with tissue and force the lazy eye to operate in my daily activities - but as a mother who see such a young toddlers having a hard time to walk with one eye closed is hard. Besides, there was part of my fault too that I kept throwing the tissue. Adjusting daily activities with one eye close seems like very uncomfortable, you just cannot do anything. 

However, those action and excuses are wrong because if treated earlier before I turn 17 years old, it may help the lazy eyes getting better. But, I guess that's the treatment - I have not found the evidence that it can be completely cured. 

During my early days, I had nothing to complain about as I've been living normally with amblyopia - except for the eyes wanders outward. I still can do my daily activity using my right eye - this doesn't mean that I didn't use my left eye, it just that the vision is weaker on the other side. From zero, my right eye becomes - 7 every year (maybe this due to one-eye functioning or the assumption to balance the left eye, thus I've been changing glasses a lot since I was in elementary school). How weaker is the left eye? I can only read huge single letter within 1 meter radius. The smaller there letter, the more I can't read it - but for huge things like chair and table, I can see it properly. Until now, the minus itself still consistently the same, never been reduced nor increased. 

What makes it harder when I was a young child is when those friends around you make fun of my condition - specially about the eye that wanders outward. I remember the time when I walked through my classroom, someone called Kevin suddenly mock my eyes - and it left big scars for me. I didn't do anything which hurts him at that time, but why he made fun of me? Does he think it is something funny to insulted me like that? 

Going to the Ophthalmologist has never been an easy trip. My mother once left me in the street because she's upset that I didn't practice the eye patched - and the condition of my left eye never improved, instead more minus. The more minus it was added, the more I feel down. But, interesting story is this, the Doctor (I forget the name - very old and traditional type), she knew from the first time that I had amblyopia and still expect me to read small letter within 3 meter radius - the more I couldn't read, the more she add more minus into my glasses. Those were times when there is no microscope to check your minus, until I went to Klinik Mata Nusantara (KMN) and they did several test before I met with my doctor. It turns out that my minus for the left eye is still the same, -7, but my glasses at that time already reach -9. So funny, right? I never go back to that old Doctor anymore. 

During my visit to KMN, my Doctor suggested me to go under operation for the wandering eyes, so that the muscle can be fixed. The operation is not intended to fixed the lazy eyes, but it will help the eyes to move 'normally' instead. And so after so many considerations, I went through the operation when I was in my junior high school. After that, my eyes is normal, the lazy eyes is still there but didn't affect my daily life until now. 

What's left maybe those scars, my schoolmate who was mocking me at that time. But since it was fixed, I guess there will be no more story of that - as I am normal now at least according to society standard - the same like any other junior high school girl. Then I entered my Senior High School which a new school, there were few of my old school graduates who enter this school with me.

My first year of Senior High School was not easy. I was a typical young girl who focus on my study, never really bothered about looks and such. I tied my hair in a ponytail, wear glasses and quiet girl. There is one guy, named Greggy who suddenly one day with his group started to bully me. He took photos of my private parts and giggled about. I remembered one time, he threw leftover tissue to my face - I don't know what made him do that. The thing is that I assume that there is someone who report what happened in that class to our Homeroom Teacher and everyone thought it was me. But THAT WAS NOT ME at all. It hurts my self - because it felt that I don't have any friends in that class. I've been thinking what is wrong with me, is that because I didn't look like any other girl in that class who put makeup and let their hair down? So, the next day I changed my look, I let my hair down and put makeup (at least eyebrow and compact powder) but nothing significant had changed. But Greggy had become more quiet after some time. 

The bully was so traumatic that I ever consider to move to another school, but I survived my first year.
I haven't had any closure to be honest, and when it was time to move to another year, I had this sort of anxiety that I would be the same class with him. So I begged my mother to call school and explain the situation so that I can be in different class and yes, that happened. My second year went through smoothly, actually I was afraid if I wasn't able to make friends. But here I met my best friend from Senior High School and I gained back my confidence. My best friend told me that there is nothing wrong with me and the bullying before is pure because of Greggy's immature action. 

I graduated from my senior high school finally and had fun and exciting times at University, besides things have changed a lot from there. I learnt how to do makeup, I knew which side of my face looks better on camera and such. I became more bold and knew what I want.

Few years later, I also had a crush on someone I met briefly, named Paulus - had exchanged number but suddenly he ghosted me. It took me quite sometime to gain my energy back. I remember how much I wonder why he ghosted me. I knew that we were both stayed in different country but you see, without much disclosure, your mind wanders here and there looking for what I can do better so that the next one won't leave me the way Paulus did. I took all the blame for myself - that I was not attractive enough,
I was not on society standard, I was not beautiful enough, I was not funny enough, I was not good enough and many many more. Till now, I didn't get any closure though. 

After that I was introduced with another overseas guy as well, named Henry. We had never met, but basically I had those image in my mind and thought that this guy seems like a match with me. We chatted several times - and I, myself, had expected something out of it. I thought I should make this work at least coz I am tired of being ghosted and rejected. But things didn't go anywhere until I found out 1.5 years later after I invested my time on him, that he had a girlfriend - an Indo girl as well, a long distance relationship as well. I remembered that time when he told me that he never thought of doing LDR because it's hard but in the end he did with someone else. That girlfriend had already become his wife now. Yes, that was hard blow for me - it took me another 1 year to move on. But during those times, I always thought why he didn't choose me instead, why? Is that because I didn't have nice smile as her? Is that because I was boring and unattractive? Or why? There were too many thoughts inside me, which eventually made me wonder about my worthiness. 

Those story and experiences eventually made me unconsciously thought I was not good enough, that I need to be "normal" & "similar to other people" so that I can be accepted in the society - and I need to do my very very best to be get accepted. Unconsciously, I seek for approval of other people, I seek for their validation that I exist. At some point, because I used to the feeling of being rejected, I thought I didn't deserve to be happy - that I only deserved to be left alone. These are those false belief:

"I feel as though I am not good enough for those who care about me."

"If someone ever falls in love with me, I better do my best to prove myself worthy, because it may never happen again."

"People will only respect me if I'm good-looking and/or successful."

"I modify my personality, opinions, or appearance in order to be accepted by others."

So here I am, sharing my story and what I did to overcome that, yes I had a little bit issues with my ability to deal with rejection, maybe because of too much rejection, I get used to that feeling, and when I had something good, I still can't believe it. Have any of you experience this as well? Share it the comment bellow: 

1.  ACKNOWLEDGE THE FEELING BUT DON'T DWELL THERE

I learn to process my feelings first. It's ok to feel down because your friends mocked you, got bullied till felt that you have no friend, got ghosted as well. We are human, and it's okay to process what we feel at first - "Yeah, it hurts me."acknowledge it but don't dwell there for a long time. The only way to begin the healing process is to recognize that it occurred and that you were not responsible for it.

2. OBSERVE THE SITUATION OBJECTIVELY AND FIND YOUR CLOSURE 

An essential part of your recovery is to move beyond what has happened to you. While you need to acknowledge how those experiences impacted you, you also need to detach from it at some point.

This exercise had helped me when I remembered the past:

• When I thought about the time my old schoolmate, Kevin, who mocked me for my flaws -
  I thought maybe he was having a hard time at home or at school, he had no one to play with so he picked on me, and in the end he was immature enough for pointing fingers and attacking someone physically - and I found my closure.
• About my senior high school bullying incidents, I encourage every parents and teachers to notice that bullying was never a good action and should be taken seriously. Speaking of bullying, it's not the victim's fault for what's happened. Bullying speaks more about the bully instead. Most often, the bully has his own problem, specially at home and on personal level - they lack their self-esteem. Thus, they put the act on someone else, so that they got the attention and gain more self-esteem by showing they have power. I remembered when I was about to graduate, I accidentally meet Greggy's friend who told me, "It's not your fault, it's Greggy's fault - his parents were so busy so he seeked for attention elsewhere." Okay, so I knew the reasons and that was my closure. 
• Move forward to being ghosted - this was hard at first but I found my closure by looking at the situation objectively - we were just graduated from university and navigating our work life. Since he studied medicals, he took more time to graduate and we were having different priorities at that time. Besides, as we were both in different country, it's gonna be difficult. Yes, it's his mistake not to be able to deliver the reason honestly, instead he ghosted me. But after I observe the situation, I just closed that chapter and simply, we just didn't work out.

3. SWIFT YOUR BELIEF AND MIND & PRACTIVE GRATITUDE

Many times, people who are healing from trauma ruminate about what they experienced or become obsessed with not experiencing that pain again. Avoid focusing all your time and energy on your past pain and your current recovery. It is not healthy to think about the pain and what you endured all the time. Learn ways to take your thoughts captive. Set goals and focus on things that make you happy or bring joy to your life.

• People can attack you physically and at your flaws but that doesn't mean you need to hate your flaws. Do not ever criticize yourself for your flaws. Remember that God was not having a bad day when he created you. We are created by God's love and every of his creatures is unique and we are not the same with each other. Even twins has different personality. Maybe God gave my my amblyopia, but I have other features in my body that works well too (ex. I am tall). So, don't focus on your flaws - instead focus on what I have more. Besides, my amblyopia has never been a bother to me, instead I always feel thankful that I have two eyes to see the world - even if one eye is considered lazy eyes, but I still be grateful that I have my vision, while many other were born blind.
• The thing about being bullied, speaks more of the bully, not the victim. So, there is nothing wrong with me. Greggy is a bright child I remember, he is good-looking, but perhaps he had issues with himself to do that before. When I tried to fit with how the society works, it just feels like I am such a copy person - which back to square one, we were created each and anyone of us different, we are unique and trying to be similar to other people is stupid. You are just you, there is no one else in this world who is youer than you. To think back, I am grateful to be able to go through that, otherwise, I won't meet my best friend. Some people won't offer their hand even though they know, but my best friend did and I am grateful for her existence. Besides, I had my attentive and loving parents so that I do not need to look for attention elsewhere and that's what
  I am grateful for. The bullying you experienced does not define who you are.
• Many relationship failed and doesn't work out because it simply didn't work out - not because you are unattractive, not beautiful, not doing your best and such. It can be because your priorities are different at that time. It also can be what you are looking for and what he/she looking for is something/someone different. This may be hard to swift your mind suddenly, but remember that if he/she is serious with you in the first place, that person will put effort and you will not question whether you are in his option/not. It will be clear from the first place. Always remember also, the more you got ghosted and rejected, the closer you to find someone who matters. 

Change our false belief:

"I feel as though I AM not GOOD ENOUGH for those who care about me."

"If someone ever falls in love with me, I better do my best to prove myself worthy, because it may never happen again. I am attractive and if someone even falls in love with me, is because they know how valuable I am"

"People will only respect me if I'm good-looking and/or successful. People will respect me if I respect them too."

"I DO NOT NEED TO modify my personality, opinions, or appearance in order to be accepted by others."

4. FORGIVE THEM

After finding your own closure, forgive them. Some poeple may tried to write a letter which was never sent to the other person to state about what happened, what made them felt and how they seek closure and finally forgive them. Forgiving someone does not make you a weak person. When we forgive others, we're really giving ourselves space to acknowledge our flaws and accept them. Forgiveness is an act of strength, not weakness. 

5. IMPROVE YOUR SELF ESTEEM

We all compare ourselves to other people, and I can assure you that the people you compare yourself to compare themselves to other people too. So instead of constant comparing and wanting to be them, which I said before impossible because God creates each one of us different and we should just focus on our own positive attributes. Focus on progress rather than perfection and on how far you’ve come rather than how far you have left to go.

Building your self-esteem isn't as difficult as it may seem. Building self-confidence comes with experience, but there are two steps you can take that will rapidly improve how you feel about yourself. Learn to silence your inner critic and practice self-compassion. Telling yourself what a failure you are won’t make you any more successful. Telling yourself you’re not living up to your full potential won’t help you reach a higher potential. Telling yourself you’re worthless and unlovable won’t make you feel any more worthy or lovable.

6. TAKE STOCK OF YOUR VALUE

When you feel insecure, you are often focused on something you feel is lacking about you. To feel more secure, it helps to know what you have to offer to the other person. You don’t have to be rich or beautiful to offer something—personality characteristics are far more important to physical attributes, specially in a relationship. Think about the traits you have as a person—you may be nice, trustworthy, funny, kind, or a good communicator. These are traits most people value in a partner. And think about how you make the other person’s life better: Do you make them feel loved, supported, and happy? These are things everyone wants to feel. Focus on what you offer instead of what you feel you lack; this will change your perspective. If the other person doesn’t appreciate what you have to offer, that’s his or her loss.

I know it sounds almost annoyingly simple, but the only way to achieve self-love is to love yourself—regardless of who you are and where you stand, and even if you know you want to change.

You are enough just as you are. And self-love will be a little bit easier every time you remind yourself of that. I hope by sharing my experience, it can help some of you:

Below is the exercise to help you know your strength:

What are my strengths?

I am reliable, responsible, honest, trustworthy, idealistic, have belief and principled. I am also detailed-oriented, organized, independent and perfectionist. 

What are my short-term goals? Long-term goals?

Short-term goals: to be able to move forward with career, relationship and life.

Long-term goals: to be financially independent with my own business/career and a happy family life

Who matters most to me? Who are my support people?

My family matters the most to me because they are my pillar of support

What am I ashamed of?

I am ashamed of to me because they are my pillar of support

What do I like to do for fun?

I like doing makeup for fun, to write film review and to do vlogging

What new activities am I interested in or willing to try?

I like to try wall-climbing, trekking in nature and exploring foods/new cities.

What am I worried about?

I am worried about what's gonna come in the future. 

What are my values? What do I believe in? (consider politics, religion, social issues)

I believe someone has to have faith/spiritual on God, so that in every action they made will be with God's guidance. 

If I could have one wish, it would be healthiness for all my family and close friends

Where do I feel safest?

I feel safest when I am welcomed, protected and trusted to be myself. 

What or who gives me comfort?

What gives me comfort is by knowing that I have things under my control and 

What is my proudest accomplishment?

• Getting my first prize for doing so well on my elementary school exams. Why? Because I was never the top 5 in my class during those 6 years. But in that school exams, I just did my best and never in my expectation that I would get the first prize for doing so well, competing over 100 students. No pressures, just do well and it exceeds my expectation. 
• Graduating from University with Distinction Degree - not gonna lie, the pressures is there but I just tried to do my best as well. 
• Simple accomplishment is me, trying to love myself more, getting rid of past experiences of bullying, insecurity and understanding about self-worth is not defined by what others think of you. 

Am I a night owl or an early bird? How can I arrange my life to better suit this part of my nature?

I can be both in between, but sometimes I am more of an early bird - as I love to start doing things/activities as much as I can during the day. 

What does my inner critic tell me?

I used to overthink and criticize myself for not being good enough, but I shouldn't do that and recognize everything I over think, I should just be a good best friend to my own self. 

What do I do to show myself self-compassion and self-care?

I'll treat my body to a nice bath, have my own me time by doing face mask, spending me time with myself over a cup of hot chocolate and favorite TV shows. 

Am I an introvert or an extrovert? Am I energized being around others or being by myself?

I am introvert, but at times it can change to extrovert, it is more to the ambivert maybe. 

What am I passionate about?

I like doing makeup as a hobby, because it makes me feel great about myself. Currently, I am curious of Japanese food cooking, and been learning how to do baking. 

What is my happiest memory?

There were so many happy memories during my life and picking specific one is too hard - but I am grateful for my parents, my family and closed one, best friends for always being there in my happy memories. 

What do my dreams tell me?

That I would be successful in whatever I do as long as I put my focus on it and never give up.

What is my favorite book? Movie? Band? Food? Color? Animal?

Book - Becoming by Michelle Obama, Throbbing Tonight by Koi Ikeno 

Movie - Forest Gump (y.1994) 

Band - Fahrenheit 

Food - Bakso and Mie LOL 

Color - White 

Animal - Dog 

What am I grateful for?

I am grateful for my life, for being alive and healthy. 

I am grateful I have roof over my head and food over my table. 

I am grateful that I have work to do. 

I am grateful I was surrounded by my family and closed one. 

I am grateful because I always seek for growth and having my faith in God.