Martina N.
Photography by Peyton Mears
If you’re reading this, you are strong enough.
For the longest time, I always thought I had a good concept of who I was. No matter if I was told by someone else or just simply believed it, I thought I knew myself. I always tried to fit myself into the role of the ideal strong woman. Over time, as I molded and filtered my personality, I started to be perceived that way. I've been called strong, independent, and intimidating, which are all traits I associated with the ideal strong woman.
I strived to become this distorted version of myself because I believed that if I were strong enough, I would stop feeling or caring so much. I thought strength would protect me from ever feeling hurt. On top of it all, I associated love with loss and disappointment based on the relationships I saw and later experienced. I often feared loving someone because those feelings felt so overpowering.
To protect myself, I tried to ignore how much I cared, not take things personally, and hide my emotions. I believed that if I were strong and confident enough, nothing could affect me. Whenever I felt too much or cared too deeply, I would tell myself, “If you were strong enough, you wouldn't feel this way." This idea of what a strong woman should be kept me from ever feeling strong enough, and made me feel like I wasn't enough.
Ironically, pain started to change the way I saw things. The summer before college was one of the hardest times in my life. I lost myself in relationships that were ending and felt disconnected from who I was because I gave so much. During that time, I leaned on my mom and my therapist, who saw me at my most vulnerable. I spent most of my days crying, questioning myself, and exhausted. I felt incredibly weak and could not get a hold of my emotions. Any sense of strength was completely drained from me. But even then, they kept telling me how strong I was.
I couldn't understand why they thought I was strong, even after seeing me at my weakest, both then and before.
As they kept reminding me I was strong, I started to think that maybe being strong didn't mean being emotionless, but being able to handle my emotions. I realized that there was strength in feeling, because I was surviving pain at that moment. Letting myself feel and express pain I had hidden for so long showed me I could still be strong, even when I didn't feel like it. From then on, I understood that processing and feeling emotions can be the greatest act of strength because of how difficult it can be.
With that, I also began to see the beauty in emotions. Even though I was hurting from losing people I loved, I could appreciate the amazing feelings that came with loving them. When I let myself love others, I felt my best, and that love stayed with me even after they were gone. Losing people but not the love I had for them taught me that love comes from within, not from someone else. I realized that all my emotions are always inside me, and that helped me see that emotions are nothing to fear.
After learning about strength, vulnerability, and love, I realized we are already whole as we are. I used to think that if I wasn't strong enough, I wasn't enough. I compared myself to impossible standards and always felt like I was falling short. Now I know that strength and love don't have to be earned or given by others. We already have them inside us.
Learning to find strength in vulnerability and love in loss showed me that we don't need to change who we are to be worthy. We are all whole and enough as we are, because we can feel deeply, love fully, and stay strong even when we feel fragile.
Martina N., Florida State University
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