Lim: Love yourself

Saturday, February 11, 2012

I WAS restless, inattentive and hyper-active as a child. I had trouble sitting still or keeping quiet. I found school mostly boring. My mind wandered off constantly. And I chatted incessantly in class. This, understandably, irked my teachers.

One school year, I was moved to all parts of the classroom. My teachers wanted to shut me up. Each time I’d form a bond with my seatmate, they’d move me somewhere else. In the end, I ended up chatting up the entire class.

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At home, I constantly got into trouble. I was always getting punished for destroying things. I remember breaking my sister’s piggy bank. I had no interest in her piggy bank. What I was interested in was finding out if I could actually break the piggy bank with my bare hands.

And as I was always running around and tinkering with stuff I wasn’t supposed to touch, I had the most cuts, bruises, scrapes and injuries among all of us siblings. I was what you would call a “difficult” child.

In school, I frequently made careless mistakes in tests and assignments that would result into lower grades. This greatly demoralized me. I knew the answers. But I could not pay attention to the details. School psychologists dubbed me “under-achieving.”

In my teen-age years, I suffered from mood swings and sleeping problems. I was extremely high-strung. I was the original teen-age drama queen.

In adulthood, I outgrew my inattention problems and strangely became fixated in order and organization. I became preoccupied with perfection and became anxious, impatient and controlling. I morphed into the perfect “Type A” personality.

Today, I still maintain exacting standards, keep strange working hours and continue to have anger-management issues. I am still very tightly-wound. I am still obsessive-compulsive. I still have a lot of angst.

I know. I seriously need to “chill.”

As a child, I worked very hard at becoming “good” as opposed to being “bad.” As an adult, I worked very hard at becoming “functional” as opposed to being “dysfunctional.” Every day of my life, I knew I was “different” but tried very hard to be “the same as everyone else.”

And yet, I still find it difficult to tell right from left. I still have poor hand and foot coordination. I still have a lousy sense of direction. And I have to stare at restroom doors before entering because my brain has problems processing visual images.

A behavioral disorder or learning disability need not be a disadvantage. It should be the driving force to do more not the excuse to do less. Simply because you’re not naturally good at everything does not mean you can’t be good at anything.

Sometimes, you can even do better especially when you have to try harder. I dance. I zip. I trek. I consider myself high-functioning and high-achieving. Ranting and raving aside, did you ever suspect?

It is not a curse. It is a gift. And I’m telling you now because I am no longer afraid to tell you that I’m different. And to tell you that being different has been the greatest blessing in my life.

This Valentine’s Day, learn to love yourself.