My dirty little secret.

I always think that I am a pretty confident person. And in fact I started to realize (quite some time ago) that I am actually not.

Talking about confidence, a "healthily" confident person will feel confident and secured no matter what settings they're being placed in. Healthy confidence and stable self-esteem comes from supportive family and a healthy background that we grow up in.

Now what do I mean with unhealthy confidence and unstable self-esteem?

If you need someone or something to make you feel good about yourself, then it's very likely that you have a not so stable self esteem. For example, I'll feel confident when I'm surrounded by a group of friends; or (this occurs in most women) I'll feel confident when I have a body that measures 36, 24, 36; or I'll feel confident when everyone listens to me.. etc.

Me as an example (putting myself in my own case study), when I was little, I spent most of my time with my grandpa and grandma in Penang while my parents worked in KL. And being the first grandchild that they have, obviously I was showered with all the love and care in the world, also constantly being praised and getting things MY way.

Things changed when I was about 6 and we moved to KL, we started staying together (parents, grandparents, my aunt, me and my bro). Then my parents have more control on their own children and my mom being the strict-controlling-anal parent (I still love her ok, that's just part of her that I have no choice but to love too, haha) always, i mean ALWAYS want to have a say in whatever we do.

"You can't do this", "no, don't do that", "okay you're a good girl if..."

All these played a very important role in our lives. I bet some of you feel that same way too. Sometimes I think that I was stuck at the Halo Stage - the "good girl, bad girl" stage, of the Moral Development theory (Psych term).

So until now, whenever i'm with my mom, I'll always feel that I might accidentally do something wrong that pisses her off and triggers her nagging (very geng wan). I'm just afraid of her. Even that i'm 22 now.

Sad.

On the other hand, with my father, he's always supportive, we can talk whatever we want to with him, he always tell us life stories to teach us to be a better person and all, he's very reassuring. Therefore I feel that I'm a more confident person whenever i'm with him. However, my brother, who was slower and often over shadowed by his smart-ass sister, was the one who normally gets disapproval from my father.

Maybe it's the expectation a father has towards a son, same goes to the expectations that a mother has for a daughter.

So yeah, used to be confident. Now, not so confident.

Another factor.

Attraction.

When I was in high school, I was pretty popular. No, i'm not trying to boast, but yeah be patient and finish reading it.

Okay so I was popular and sweet and kinda chatty and have loads of friends. Until recently when I started to think back again, my friends, it was 80% male. 20% of them was really close female friends.

And well, guys will tell me, "those guys be your friends because most of them want to be MORE THAN FRIENDS. Oh, I can't help to agree more! (Although I genuinely believe that there ARE some TRUE TRUE male friends who will be there when you need them, unconditionally)

So yeah, the phenomenon continues when I was in Taylors. You can never deny that the feeling of having all these people around you is damn damn good. Very flattering. And as I said, being used to get things done MY way. Being a not-bad-looking girl certainly has its advantage. People (mostly guys) are more willing to help you with your stuff.

And then one day when I made my arrival at HELP, it stopped. Woosh. Alone, no friends, in a new place. And it happens when I moved to my mom's place. And broke up.

All of a sudden all the insecurities and uncertainty fall onto me without preparation. And I was scared, stressed, unhappy.

Sigh.

Seriously I'm not sure if my "life story" has anything to do with confidence actually, but it's just a little something to share.

A super random post and long winded one, and it ended all of a sudden too, hope you don't mind :)