Am I a Perfectionist?

  I wouldn't call myself a perfectionist, I don't think I could be one even if I tried, at least not anymore.

    I remember when I was in middle school and I used to be obsessed with being perfect. Or at least my version of what perfection was. I wanted to be perfect, or at least appear perfect in order to hide all of my insecurities. I remember being very insecure in middle school. I always felt like I didnt quite fit in, I never knew how people wanted me to act. 

I wasnt always like this. I dont think anyone starts off insecure. I think insecurities are something brought on when people begin to lose their childhood innocence and start feeling the pressure of living up to societal standards. For me I felt an overwhelming pressure to act a certain way. My entire life – especially when I was younger– I constantly saw the negative stereotypes associated with black people. We are too loud, we dont talk properly, we arent smart, the list goes on. As a kid I took these as things that I can't be, I wanted  to represent black people in a more positive light, at the time the only way I thought I could do that was by being the opposite of all those negative stereotypes. I always told myself not to be too extraverted with the fear that I would be labled as loud or aggressive. I told myself I needed to study more so I could prove we are smart. Finally, I told myself I could only talk in certain dialects. This is where the perfectionist in me started coming out. My attempt to represent black people in a positive light twisted into something entirely different. At some point I had stopped trying to be a positive example for black people and changed into trying to be liked.  When I realized that people treated me with ‘respect’ when I was quieter, ‘smarter’, and more passitive I obsessed over always being like that. I held my tongue even when I didnt want to and I obsessed over perfect grades. Throughout middle school I acted like this until I started realizing all the little comments and microagressions. With strangers I noticed there would be times where people wouldnt want me in certain spaces even when I wasnt making disturbances, or they would make assumptions about me for no apparent reason. Similarly with the people close to me I realized they would make predudiced comments against other black people and follow it up with, ‘youre not like that Nyla’. An accumilation of those events made me realize that to them I was an anomoly or ‘one of the good ones’. The people around me didnt respect me because they thought I was worth respecting as a person, they respected me because to them I acted ‘white’ enough not to be considered black. I remember one time a boy even said to me, “ Nyla youre basically just a white girl in a black girls body.” I think at somepoint around that time I had a turning point. I realized that I had lost myself in trying to be accepted by the people around me. I had held on to different aspects of my personality because I feared that people would like me anymore and forgot what I was originally trying to do. 

In hindsight Ive realized that my original plan to be a positive represesntion of black people was inherently flawed because the problem with how black people are percieved in society isnt our fault. We arent too loud or uneducated; it's the simple fact that we are black that deterrs people from us. This realization has allowed me to let go of my tendecies to obsess over how I present myself to others. I can't be a perfect representation of a black person, nor will I try to be. I’m human and we are all imperfect in one way or another.

Note to reader: I had a very hard time tying all my thoughts together and making it coherent so any advice on that would be appreciated.