Paying Tribute

I started a different post last night. Then I saw a comment from a dear friend of mine, and although I commented back to her then I decided to write this before moving on. I simply grazed the surface of self confidence or my lack there of. I touched on a lot in those two posts. Now I'm going to go back and go a little deeper.

Deeper into my own experiences. I was or seemed fine until I was 12. I was no worse for the ware, actually until the dreadful day that a close friend of mine told me that abuse is not normal. You'd think I would have caught on before then but I hadn't. She stated to me that day that I probably shouldn't be openly telling everybody because people might judge me. Those weren't her exact words but close enough. I can't ask her now because she died in a car accident when we were around 18 or 19 years old. The exact age is hard to remember. I wasn't exactly sober those days and things are a bit hazy.  Anyway, after she told me abuse wasn't the norm I realized I was different and wondered if anyone was like me. I went from feeling like I fit in and apart of to the complete opposite. A total 180!

Well, actually I suppressed it (the abuse) for 2 years. Then the year that Vicki (my bff that died) and I got into so much trouble and my parents switched my schools I completely fell apart. High school was a disaster! If it hadn't been for the few friends I had along the way, I wouldn't have survived this long.

Self confidence or lack there of is something on the inside of us. It is the way we feel inside our own skin. It is how we feel in a room full of people. Negative thoughts about myself swirled inside my head. I hated myself as much as I had been told growing up. Bullying exists in homes too! I remember sitting through a bully seminar a couple years ago and the speaker saying siblings and parents can be bully's too. Wow! It had hit home! I hope my message in my Self-Conscious, I Mean Confidence posts did not come across as, the only way to instill this in your children is to make sure they succeed in cheer leading, band or having a lot of friends. This is not how we instill self confidence in our children. We praise them when they are being good and doing good always. We teach them how to respond when someone is nice to them or mean to them.

My next post talks a lot about this so I will save that for then. So, for those friends that I had from my close neighbors to grade school, junior high and high school. This post is for you! You touched my life in ways I can't find words to express. You stood beside me through all kinds of ups and downs. I am proud to say that almost all of the 332 facebook friends I have are really my friends! I have spoken to almost all of them in recent years either face to face or online. I try to make a point periodically to go to there pages and say hey! I have met some great people I'm proud to call my friends over the last 10 years of bouncing all over the country. I hope that they would say the same about me. I love you all!

Namaste
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