Digital Diary - Edition 7

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Falling Down

When you've always been a ‘bright’ child from a young age, there come certain inherent expectations of you. Expectations to stand out more, to achieve something greater, to be someone better. And when you fall short of those expectations the disappointment is like no other.

From a very young age, I was expected to excel in everything. It didn’t help that I was exceptionally well at studies either. I was always told I’d do great things. And to a fifth grader, of course, it sounded beautiful, to be told that I could achieve whatever I wanted. But as I grew up, the things expected from me started to feel like an endless chasm, where no matter how much I tried to climb out, I just kept on falling. At some point the adding expectations became suffocating. Everything I did, I was scared of failing. I was so scared that I didn’t even try. If there were no expectations, there couldn’t be any disappointments. For the longest time, I tried to do things that were safe for me, and that I knew I could do at least good enough in. I now realise how much I missed out on, just because I wasn't brave enough. Brave enough to love myself at a time I needed it the most.

I don't think people even realised the expectations they had from me. It was so often said in passing that I don't think they remembered it. But how could I forget? It just kept on adding to the ever-growing list. None of the shows, the podcasts ever tell you how these expectations can kill you from the inside. How with each one you fail to live up to, you start to hate yourself a little more. Little by little it consumes you whole, and that's where the most danger lies, once you start to lose yourself in this all-consuming hatred. When I started to see myself as a measure of everyone else's expectations was when I truly started to hate myself the most. I was in a constant cycle of comparison. Comparing myself to others around me. It was exhausting.


- Rtr. Zainab Degani
  Departmental Executive
  2022-23

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