What If?

Having insecurities as a teenager is probably one of the biggest struggles any girl has to go through, but that's just according to me because for the longest time of my life I faced this struggle of having tons of insecurities even for the minor of things, and I still face it to this day. When I was in Germany, I would do whatever I wanted without anyone making fun of me and when I came to India I faced so many changes in my body, both physically and emotionally. I would constantly get teased for having too many pimples or for the way I

talked or something or the other, and for a long time, I just ignored them. Eventually, these taunts became worse and slowly I began to realize that this affected my anxiety level. The moment a teacher said 'we will have a quiz' my heart would just race up. The teacher would ask me some question and though I knew the answers, nothing would come out of my mouth. People would start laughing at me because I'm too 'dumb' or whatever. For a long period of time I would just casually play along with it but deep down I would keep getting hurt over and over again. Because of my anxiety, I would not perform that well in exams which would, later on, affect my entire grade and at the end of the day, I thought I was actually stupid.

Over the years many people have told me that I sing pretty well and these compliments honestly mean so much to me, but every time I decide to post a cover, I go through a roller coaster of emotions. 'what if people laugh at me?', 'what if my voice isn't as good as HER'S?', 'what if I will never improve?', ' what if I don't get as much recognition for my voice as other people?'. These 'what if' questions would just haunt me. I would constantly compare myself to others. Then somebody told me that what YOU think matters, and not what other people think, and you have so many unique qualities that people who you think are better than you don't. I guess that sometime in my life I will actually understand that and get over myself for being so insecure. It's not like much has changed throughout the years except for the fact that my insecurity level keeps on increasing and I have no control over it whatsoever.

- Adrika