This Is What Made Me Who I Am Today

Summary

Agnes Laurens recounts her personal journey, detailing how both positive and negative experiences, particularly bullying and family support, have shaped her identity and perspective on life.

Abstract

Agnes Laurens reflects on the myriad of life experiences that have contributed to her personal development. She discusses the impact of being bullied during her school years, with classmates spreading false rumors and even her school's director making disparaging remarks about her intelligence. Despite these challenges, Laurens found solace and identity in playing the violin, an activity that also provided cognitive benefits. She acknowledges the support from her family, particularly her grandmother, and the joy she derived from traveling with orchestras and engaging with nature. Laurens admits to building emotional walls as a defense mechanism due to past traumas but remains committed to personal growth. She is an advocate for the power of experiences, both good and bad, in shaping one's character and outlook on life.

Opinions

Laurens believes that personal experiences, whether positive or negative, are instrumental in shaping one's identity.
She perceives people as inherently self-centered, prioritizing their own well-being over others.
Laurens values the role of music, particularly playing the violin, in cognitive development and as a coping mechanism during difficult times.
She feels that the education system and society, in general, can be dismissive and even harmful, as exemplified by the bullying she faced and the unsupported claim about her IQ.
Laurens is introspective about her trust issues, recognizing them as a byproduct of her past experiences, and is actively working to overcome them.
She expresses gratitude for the positive aspects of her life, such as family support, travel experiences, and the beauty of nature, which have helped her navigate through life's challenges.
Laurens is optimistic about her journey of self-improvement and is eager to share her thoughts and experiences with others through her writing and upcoming Patreon page.

Life is full of experiences you have. From great holidays, birthday parties, childbirth to all the bad things happening in your life; abuse, manipulation, fired from your job, having no money.

Name everything that can happen in your life. That is what shapes you the person you are today.

All these experiences you’ve got in your life make the way you will think, how you see other people and how you want the world to look like. That could be how they think about sustainability, the way people think and judge each other.

People are way more concerned about their own well-being instead of the well-being of others. That is how I see the world. We — human beings — are self-centered people. That is one of the things that shaped me the way I am today. There are more things that shaped me who I am today.

These events that happened in my life are really not nice. I have spoken about it elsewhere. For me, it is a little bit difficult because there are other people involved and I don’t want to hurt them as I write things online. That’s why — every time I write about it — things will still be explained vaguely. I will try to explain it a little bit better, I hope. This is what made me the person I am today.

When I was a little child, I have been bullied in primary and secondary school. Every day. It wasn’t really nice to hear that people think I have lice — this was at primary school. My mother checked me often and she never found anything like that onto my hair and body (if that is even possible). But the children in my class pretended I had lice, so they were “spraying” in the air. And they pretended they had a spray can for lice in their hands. Nobody did anything to stop. I think they were afraid too, to be bullied as well. I asked them to stop, but they didn’t. At one point, the teacher did along with them.

Even the director of the primary school told my parents that I have the lowest IQ of their school — which was not true. Which my parents, of course, know it wasn’t true, why on earth would I play the violin? If you’re playing an instrument, it is the best thing for your brain to develop — that is proven. Then you’re able to solve complex issues. So the lowest IQ reason is not logical to me.

At secondary school, the kids in my class didn’t like me playing the violin. They told me I should go to the crematorium. In Dutch words, conservatory and crematorium, are pronounced about the same. So, they bullied with this every day. They told me I wanted to be dead instead. Before I knew it, the whole school looked at me and some children whispering while I passed I wanted to be dead. Which is — of course — not true.

As I was dealing with issues at home too, I was not able to think about my school work. So, as I have been bullied and trying to forget the issues at home, I thought I wasn’t worth being the smartest person in the world, and this is why I didn’t do my best at school.

Every day, my grandmother called to wish us luck at school and we have to do our best at school, but I felt I failed in that, I felt I betrayed her trust in doing my best at school.

So, a lot of negative events that happened in my life have made me the person I am today. When I am meeting people I don’t know, I always look first to them and how they appear towards me, then I can see if I can trust someone. If that is not the case, I always close off something in my system — like a wall or something. Every time, when I can’t trust people I think they will hurt me. I know that is something I have to work on, which I am, but it is hard when you have been through a lot. A lot of things hurt.

I also have been through positive events in my life. Which I am grateful for. It helps me get through the hard part of my life.

Back to the positive feelings I also have. I was able to go on tour with the orchestras in my youth. I loved these tours a lot. Seeing other cultures, meeting new people (at that time I still was a bit naive — even when I was bullied — to have hope I think).

I went to my grandparents a lot (in the last year of my grandmother's life I have been there almost every weekend) and spend a lot of time with them, I got violin lessons, I am able to make beautiful walks through the woods - which I love — and I have done a lot more things in my life that is positive. But the negative emotions are in front.

Originally published on Quora

Agnes Laurens is a writer. She writes for the local newspaper. Agnes lives in Bunnik, The Netherlands, with her husband and three daughters. Writing is — aside from playing the violin — one of her passions since childhood. She is on Twitter and Instagram.

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