86
86 Write about something that made you cry and how you felt afterward. (05/09/2023)
On September 24, 2022 at 0830 in the morning. I hit my head on a no parking sign metal pole. We were walking towards formation from our dorms. My sergeant hands me the van keys and tells me to keep them safe on the way. As we were walking, I am trying to put the keys in my IOTV and suddenly I hit my head on a pole. I try to play it off like I wasn't hurt too bad. During formation, blood starts running down my head and my sergeant gives me a stack of tissues to stop the bleeding. I got driven to medical, They cut my hair around the wound, sanitized it, and put medical glue on it to prevent the wound from moving. Then they wrapped a bandage around my head to secure the large band-aid on it.
Other than getting my head hit on a pole, I wasn't hurt much. However, during the van ride and in the clinic, I cried because I was embarrassed. Now, everyone is going to remember me as the guy who walked into a pole and gave the platoon the only safety briefing as a result. Nobody saw me cry because I held it in till nobody was around. If I hit my head or did something to make myself look like a dumbass, I would cry again most likely. I overvalue what others think of me. I am a natural people pleaser, and when people have negative view of me, I feel like I have done something wrong. I hate it when I look like a dumbass or a failure in front of others. All I would receive is pity but in almost everybody's mind, they stop seeing me as an equal. They can't rely on me and they see me as a burden instead. That is a horrible feeling that hurts way more than getting hit on my head or falling on the floor.
Social pain is an evolutionary trait that keeps us humans to work in ways that helps others too. When we don't help others, we get ostracized and that hurts a lot. As a result, we do our best not to piss off others whether they are our friends, neighbors, coworkers, etc. Depending on the culture, the severity of that varies. In Asian culture where everyone is close-knit, your reputation is everything. We are taught from an early age to do what's best for our family and our society. In America, it's not that big of a priority as everyone is more independent.
Thinking about it now, it's absurd that I cared more about what others thought of me before I thought about my own well-being. It fills me with anger towards others because its almost as if I have no freedom over. I am just a slave constantly trying to please everyone. Like a fucking dog. Is this what I am going to be for the rest of my life? Even when I am around other people, my personality changes to be more similar to them to the point I wonder, do I even have an original personality of myself that I can confidently say is BG?
