I am??????

You know I don't know when it was that I started hating myself. I don't know whether it was a moment in time, or some traumatic incident, or some harsh word that made me not want to be me anymore. But I do know that it started in childhood. And I do know there was no one to say, it's okay to just be yourself. And there was no one to say you're really smart. Or youre really creative. Or you're beautiful. Or I think your stutter is just adorable. But there was some point in time when it was clear that it wasn't good enough to be just me. I needed to be someone else, or be like someone else in order to feel complete. So, I would take little bits and pieces of other people; the way they talked, the way they walked, the way they winked or smiled or the way their lip quivered when they cried and that became a part of me. It became a part of who I was. It didn't matter who it was. It could've been a girl from school, or a singer, or an actress, but I just wasn't good enough to be me. Until it got to the point that I wasn't me anymore. I was this puzzle and every piece was made up of nuances of other people. So, when you see me, you're not seeing me at all. You're seeing the me I've constructed. Because the real me wasn't good enough.