What Would I Think?

Shaking outside of the cafeteria, unable to step inside to the world of my friends. Maybe it’s the lack of food or the over abundance of coffee but my mind refuses to let me through those big blue doors. As my mind and body spiral the other way to the back entrance, I think, “Is this what they’re really going to think of me? How would they react? I can’t go in there, my mind won’t allow it.” As I leave through the back doors, hiding from their eyes I tell myself, I curl internally in shame of looking and acting like this. That if they saw me in any different light, in any different form, I wouldn’t know what to do. I couldn’t even begin to think of what the world would say if I acted on my own accord, if I was able to truly live the way I wanted to. How the perception of myself is the most important thing to happen to me and if that breaks, I’ll break too.

Self preservation and value is considered one of life’s greatest trials, where we are eternally stuck with ourselves for the rest of our lives. According to Scientific American, 13 percent of Americans will cross the line into social anxiety disorder, meaning insecurity that gets in the way of living the life people want to live, with the power to make yourself feel anxious, insecure and more. In life, we are faced with new experiences, new people, or even just old experiences and people, we constantly doubt ourselves on how others will see us. How will others see us? With their wandering eyes and thinking brains, we may never know. Yet that is okay. To let them think, to let them wander, we don’t have any other choice than to expect it. Mental health must be preserved before it needs to be saved. As Audre Lorde said, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

Perhaps instead of worrying about the others, maybe I should worry about myself. How would I feel if I walked through those doors? What would they think? What would I think? Shouldn’t that be the most important opinion of all? Insecurity and self perception is known in all different languages in all different countries across the world, it is sadly nothing new to the average person. Yet, making it all the more important to overcome this for the sake of yourself and sometimes even others. Even though everyone faces these same issues, that doesn’t make them any less valuable to you. So in the end, strut through those big blue doors. No one cares, so why should you? Let yourself live life, don’t let it live you.

826 Valencia is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students from under-resourced communities in San Francisco with their writing skills.