Young adulthood defs broke me. That's when my past childhood neglect and abuse problems started to turn up.

I got into relationships without knowing who I was. I'd try to take men in as a surrogate personality. I did and said things I'm still not proud of. I was afraid of who I was, because at that point I didn't really know me, I was different all the time, I didn't know what normal was, it was like fake it till you make it I guess? I tried to be who I thought others might want me to be. When I started to act in ways that I didn't like, and didn't know why I sort of spiralled into this depression thinking I'd never stand a chance of being normal. I thought normal meant perfect.

Then one day, I found myself alone, raising a little baby. He would crawl around and just be, and I loved him. He didn't have to do anything special, and I loved him. I found out who I was over the following years. He taught me to be a mom and for the first time in my life, I feel whole. For the first time I know that I don't have to do anything special and that someday, someone will love me even though I'm nothing special.

I asked a question the other day on askreddit that asked something along the lines of what part of yourself are you afraid to show others. It got downvoted immediately. Lol