The Confidence Paradox

Lately, I have found myself reflecting a lot on self-confidence and how it all circles back to my own experiences. I am writing it down, so I emptied out my brain a little, and I could look back to this if I had an ounce of doubt about my self-confidence.

Look, this has been crazy journey and I made it, alive at least.

I grew up surrounded by people who think being overweight is some type of cardinal sin. But up until a certain point, I was never bullied of my weight because I was relatively an OK size, I wasn't too fat nor too thin.

But that high school was kind of evil on its own. They had this hall of fame awarded to the fattest kids in school. It's nothing to be proud of, and at the time, I happened to get into one of the nominees, but I didn't win (thankfully). I took it to heart, which then led me to a long life journey filled with yo-yo dieting, low self-esteem, and just dwindling confidence throughout my late teens to early 20s.

Interestingly, there was a point when I was considered okay in terms of BMI and weight. It lasted for more than 3 years until some horrible things happened and I resorted to food as comfort. The thing is, I was still a wounded kid who felt like living in a fat body. I didn't think I was worth anything; getting into great university and getting closer to my dream felt like something that was underserving.

On top of all that, life was just extremely clusterfuck. It's one problem to another.

But you could say that the turning point of all this was when Covid Hits. At the time, I became extremely fat and my mom was also shocked. I became something that I never thought it would be possible.

The strangest things happened when I was that fat. Those were the days when I had even more confidence.

Those were the days when weight was never on top of my mind. I simply didn’t care. Nobody has said anything about my weight, either. They wanted to hang out with me and value me as a person. Nobody has ever told me I look ugly, which was strange. Nobody has ever told me that I was fat as hell in front of my face, which was also strange.

Only after covid did I attempt to lose weight because I was afraid I wouldn’t fit in an airplane seat. It would hinder me from traveling and that’s when I got obsessed about my weight and lost all the confidence once again.

I managed to lose some weight, but it was just a half-hearted attempt, so it took longer just to lose a pound. Until then, it was like a constant pull and push from being confident to not being confident. Then, last year, something truly clicked.

Somehow, I can't stress this enough: Thailand was the best thing ever to my life. It's as if the universe was conspiring to give me the closure of my life's problem, the answer to what I have to do to get out of the hole I dug for myself.

The people I met there inspired me to realize that confidence isn't really about weight or appearance. There's so much more than meets the eye. I mean, think about fashion sense, makeup, personality, brain you name it.

It took a while though for that idea to sink in, it was something strange to me that people are allowed to be confidence even if they don't look like a catwalk model or conventially pretty. I started taking exercises more seriously again as well as evaluting the food choices that I made.

Then 2024 came and with so much has happened, death of family members and all that, I realized that life is a fleeting moment. Why not live it being comfortable in our skin?

I also started seeing more people again, having more confidence to meet the people I used to kow. I randomly go outside and I had people ask me if I have partner/not and want me to set up a blind date, I had little kids telling me I was looking good. My brain could never fathom any of these.

Somehow, I came into all this and became comfortable with my own skin when I started the 90-day challenge. The first two weeks were brutal. I did things outside my comfort zone, bawling my eyes out because working out is hard. I had to sit in with my mind and work through all the nasty negative talks I had in me.

I had the option to quit, but quitting was not an option for someone desperate enough to get out of the rock bottom.

While my confidence was nonexistent, I was willing to do something new. I didn’t care if someone called me ugly, a pig, whatever it was. Like at this point, nothing else mattered. All that mattered to me was figuring out how to get out of this rock bottom where my mind tells me to unalive myself now and then.

Long story short, a lot has happened, but this morning, out of nowhere, I tried on more dresses I had tucked away from four years ago. Guess what? They fit again.

It felt like a small but incredible happiness to me. Lately, I started trying on my older clothes since most of my current ones are a bit larger. So, instead of rushing to buy new ones, I'd rather wear something from my past that fits me.

The biggest lesson I want to share is the same if you have similar problems like I did: You're never too ugly, too fat, or too thin to pursue your dreams. Whatever makes your heart sing, do it. Be comfortable in your skin.