Embracing the Full Spectrum of Being Emotionally Vulnerable with Others

From living as a chameleon to finding unicorns

Ever since I can remember I have felt odd for having many different parts to me. I didn’t seem to fit into the mould that others had been poured from. I had odd bits that stuck out at strange angles. I could not seem to find anyone else quite like me.

As a child of four, five and six years old, I used to dream most nights before I fell asleep that I was actually a Sky Princess, from a magical hidden land in the clouds. I had a sky sister there called Liza, and we would fly on the backs of pegasus, off the earth, away from my human ‘family’ to the tops of the clouds, the sky, to my true, free self. In the daytime, I felt dorky but wild, shy but with loud opinions, intelligent but lacking something to let me click with others. I was on the outside looking in, but also feeling that the verges of the outside were somehow a better place to be, a more natural, unique place, if not for everyone, then at least for me.

There was usually one ‘best friend’: how honestly myself I felt with them changed from month to year, but those friendships were loyal and long.

Until they weren’t.

Clusters of other people smiled and spoke, and included me at times, but I knew they felt what I did–I wasn’t from the same mould. I wasn’t theirs, and never truly would be.

My wound from feeling a lack of place, of acceptance, ran deep and keenly. I saw my little sister, the ‘uncool’ kids, the misfits even, all fitting in, being accepted by their own groups, being seen and known. And still, I went on with a certain amount of self-knowledge but feeling full of wispy wobbles, unnamed preferences, unshared opinions.

It’s hard to hear yourself alone in the forest. Did I even exist if no-one knew me?

I became a chameleon child, with the ability to put on different preferences, appearances, and voices. What do I need to fit in here, to be accepted, to be seen? My style tailored to those I was going to be spending time with. I could flit between cliques, a ghost in costume to impress. I turned my powers of sensitivity to character absorption.

The irony of my childish dreams of being seen, despite not showing anyone the true me.

I think there were many contributing factors to my feelings of outsideness.

We didn’t live in the village where I went to school, but several miles outside. Whereas all my classmates walked to school, usually together in groups, we had to drive, just my mum, sister and me. Socialising required pre-arranging and a vehicle. Through my parents renovating and moving every two years, our house was larger than those of many: although our family income may have been similar, I think we appeared slightly higher up the middle class than others.

My parents had interests but they did not devote much time to them. There were no passions or devoted hobbies on show in our home. When I reached secondary school age I was warned of the extra pressures on my time and supported in giving up piano lessons and swimming lessons, my only extra-curriculars, in favour of academic rigour. Any part-time jobs needed to fit around my studies. Babysitting brought the benefit of time to do homework whilst simultaneously earning a little cash.

I felt everyone had all these shades of colour to their life, but mine was such a narrow spectrum.

Just after starting Secondary School at age 11yrs, I remember some sort of year-wide ‘intelligence’ test. Those kids who scored most highly were asked to compete in a Mastermind-style quiz event in front of the whole school. I shudder to remember it even now. There was to be the massive black leather chair up on a stage, a spotlight, everything! I must have scored well, as I was one of the chosen ‘super smart’ kids. We were asked to select our own Specialist Subject; I had no hobbies, passions, or badges of fandom to pin to my chest, so I merely suggested something I thought I knew a fair amount of facts about — Garden Birds. But as the date of the quiz approached I became tuned to the comments, probably stemming from jealousy, bullying those bright sparks who had been selected. Their intelligence on show, to be knocked and jeered at, and garden birds I knew would be a topic far from cool.

So I pulled out.

No amount of persuasion from teachers could convince me to expose myself so utterly to hundreds of strangers, some of which I knew I needed to find as friends. I managed again to keep a small true part of myself from showing.

Fast forward a couple of years, and as a maturing teenager, I did put friendship at the heart of my relationship with my now-husband. Over the ages of 13–15yrs, I had experienced many superficial, purely physical relationships and interactions, to know that no love connection would satisfy me if it wasn’t formed around an honest version of myself. I pushed back on the physical side of our relationship to make sure we had a strong emotional connection, a friendship in which I might start to show the shape of my true self.

Once married we started to think about children. My husband has always been a keen, child-at-heart, natural parent. I, on the other hand, despite years of babysitting, never felt naturally maternal or comfortable around kids. But, they say that having a child births a mother, and something about tapping into my mammalian instincts during pregnancy, childbirth, and caring for a baby, set loose parts of myself which didn’t have the patience to stay quiet anymore.

To me, becoming a mother was a catalyst for growth as a woman.

However, it was in raising my firstborn, following my authentic beliefs in raising him, that I began to finally strike gold, to find unicorns. There were others like me. Sure we all looked different, spoke differently, liked different music, foods, clothes even, but we understood each other.

I tentatively tried shrugging off a layer of self-consciousness, of popular opinion, and showed my own thoughts and feelings. For what felt like the first time I was met by ‘me too’ and smiles.

Rewarded, I unwrapped myself slowly, carefully at first and then, intoxicated by my new-found honesty, fastly unfurled the doubt and stretched my heart. I showed myself and the whole spectrum of my true colours.

Over these last ten years, as I’ve headed into my late thirties, I’ve smelt how short life really is and wanted any relationships to know the real me. I’m less concerned about opinions and more about keeping my hand on the tiller and sailing myself only in the fair winds of authenticity.

I need to feel my flavour, my colours permeating every part of me and shining onto my relationships.

I have slowly learnt that it is only those that don’t look or walk away, that I need to care about. If I am not someone’s cup of tea, then that is okay, as at least that is based on honesty and not some false me.

These days I wear basically the same clothes and jewellery each day — a uniform of self. I still enjoy costumes and dressing up, but it feels like play now, and not self-preservation, self-advertising, uncertainty. Although as a mum, I often feel like I’m in a costume, unsure of my next lines, I am more comfortable in my own skin, with my insides at the ready to show. As I practise speaking my own mind and my own heart, my voice falters less and less, my cheeks blush more faintly, and I hear my own true, vulnerable, self so much more clearly.

I’m still discovering all the bumps and crevices, all the quirks, that make me me, but I’m ready to share them with honesty.