I don't know myself

I realised I don't understand myself

I tried describing myself in my journal today and every adjective I used contradicted the last.

Kind, but also distant. Soft, but also capable of shutting people out completely. Talkative, but socially awkward.

I guess I have so many parts of me, so many emotions, so many thoughts that change so much that I worry I don’t actually know myself.

Some days I can be as beautiful as the sunset, as bright as the first sunlight after rain. Other days I am the rain. I can be angry in a way that feels loud and sudden, like thunder you’d think Zeus himself threw. And then just as quickly I’ll go back to being soft again, like nothing even happened.

And that’s what confuses me. Because how can I be all of that and still be one person?

What makes it worse is that people don’t even see what I see.

There are people who describe me as warm, as light, as someone who makes them feel safe. Someone even said I’m like the sun. And I don’t know what to do with that, because sometimes I feel so far from that version of myself. Sometimes my thoughts are so negative, so heavy, that “light” feels like the wrong word entirely.

And then there are people who have called me things I can’t even say out loud. I’ve been everything bad to them, a “virus” that wouldn’t go away. That’s a direct quote. Ouch.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say I’m something evil, but “virus” felt like too much. And still, it stuck with me. Because I know I’m not always sunshine.

When I get into my head, or when someone pushes me further into it, I can feel so far from light it’s almost unrecognisable. And for some reason, my mind holds onto those words more tightly than the good ones. The good ones need to be repeated. The bad ones stay.

So which one is true?

And I think what scares me the most is what happens when those two versions of me collide. When someone who enjoys me for my kindness and softness sees the darker side of me slip out, I panic because it feels like I’ve shattered the version of me they had in their head.

And suddenly I’m not as good as they thought I was. Not as warm. Not as kind. Just… less.

And I hate that thought. I hate how quickly my mind jumps to it. Because a part of me starts wondering if that’s the real me, if the darker, negative side is the truth, and everything else was just something I managed to hold together for a while.

And I don’t know which version I’m supposed to believe.

I think that’s what’s been unsettling me the most. Not just that I’m complicated, but that I’m inconsistent. That I can feel so sure of myself one moment and then question everything the next. That I can care so deeply and then suddenly feel distant. That I don’t always recognise myself in my own reactions.

It makes everything feel unreliable. Even me.

It makes me wonder if I’ve been acting without realising it, if I’m actually kind, or if I’ve just learned how to be. If the things I like are really mine, or just things I picked up along the way. If there’s even a fixed version of me underneath all of this.

I don’t have a clear answer.

I really don’t know myself that well.

And maybe that’s why I love hearing how other people describe me. The way they see me, the way they experience me. Because as they say, you are your harshest critic.

But I guess even with all this inconsistency, some things stay the same.

I am still caring.

Still sensitive.

I feel things so deeply they spill out of me in tears.

I still apologise. I’m still considerate.

Even if I am the rain, I still try to water something.

So that has to count for something.

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