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Tattoo & being an adult (07/23/2023)

For my whole life I never understood what it means to be an adult. After I got my first tattoo, I am starting to have a better understanding of it.

For me, being an adult means

1) making your own decisions

2) accepting responsibility to the consequences of your own actions

Only recently have I started becoming more like an adult. Throughout most of my life, I blindly followed the advice and orders of my parents and elders. I would also ask my peers often what they thought to guide my decisions. I was a chameleon, constantly changing my personality depending on who I was with. The main reason I did that because I was afraid of displeasing others in fear of being betrayed and abandoned like in 7th grade.

Another reason was that I feared responsibility. Me asking others for advice was just a fake safety net so I could blame them partially if I fucked up. I wanted to be viewed as a competent person, somebody useful. That way, people liked being around me due to my usefulness which made me fear failure a lot. So to avoid failure, I intentionally avoided trying new things and sticked to only what I had low chances of failing.

My suicide attempt was the beginning of my path to adulthood. It was due to heavy pressure from parents to be someone who I wasn’t and a lot of frustration in my own life. From there on, I slowly decided that I wanted to take control of my own.