Trait: Option 1a: a distinguishing quality (as of personal character) Option 1b: an inherited characteristic
Deplore: Option 1a: to feel or express grief for Option 1b: to regret strongly Option 2: to consider unfortunate or deserving of deprecation
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
This may seem odd to some, the trait I deplore most in myself is my independence. I have a tendency to just want to do everything myself and as soon as someone offers to help I get really emotional and feel like I need to run away. Being an independent person is usually seen as a highly positive trait to have. Looking at how much trouble it has gotten me into though makes it a negative in my life. I have this assumption that I should just know everything and the only place I really ask questions is at work since I have come to the conclusion that I do need help there sometimes. I wasn't allowed to start working until I turned 18, since my mother wanted me to focus on my studies, as I had the tendency to sign up for advanced classes in the effort to not have to pay for at least part of my college experience.
Throughout my childhood my mother would hardly ever be home as she was putting herself through college and working anywhere from 2 to 4 jobs at any one time to support my brother and I as a single mother. My grandfather was the one who would watch us and that mostly consisted of him sitting in the living room watching the television as we would be off doing our own things. The neighborhood I lived in I had a few friends in and sometimes I would go outside to play with them, well that's up until I had a bloody nose one day and they told me I wasn't allowed to come back and play with them if I went home even if they could see the blood dropping from my hands cupped beneath my nose. That memory sticks with me as that was the first time I had been tossed aside because of my chronic bloody noses in my neighborhood, it had happened many times in elementary school with being either sent to the nurse or told to sit in the hallway alone or being told to sit in the back of the classroom, these bloody noses would happen anywhere from 2 to 3 times a week inexplicably and would last up to 20 minutes at times. Being tossed aside like this enabled my brain to think that it would just be better if I just stayed inside and didn't interact with anyone. This reinforced learning to be independent and relying on myself over anyone else in my life.
The nights that my mother would be working late I would take it upon myself to teach myself how to cook remembering to read the instructions on boxed meals as they were the easiest to make at that age. My grandfather would usually just watch me do it as he sat in the dining room connected to the kitchen. I remember pulling out the step stool to boost myself up and start cooking on the stove top. One night I had even made homemade chicken noodle soup using the oven to bake the chicken before shredding it into the broth and cutting up celery and carrots while my grandfather sat watching to make sure I didn't hurt myself. Cooking was something that I was good at and knew how to do to help. I sometimes even took some change from the change jar to walk to the store with my older brother to grab ingredients for dinner. From being the independent child I was this continued on throughout my life even in the time I was getting stalked.
In my freshman year of high school I had someone start stalking me and they were calling my phone consistently every night for a month without me answering as I didn't want anything to do with them before they decided to get the counselors involved and drag them into their story of how I was the one that needed to be with them. I can still remember that day when the counselor realized something was wrong after I wouldn't look the other person in the eyes and avoided looking at them at all. The counselor told me to leave and I can still remember the person yelling "That's not fair" and "Get them back here" as I tried to leave as quickly as possible. Even going so far as to try to run out of there before being stopped by the secretary to get a pass back to class. It was my study period and I had a semester long pass to go to the band room. I used that to my advantage, escaping to that room letting my bag drop in the main room before locking myself in the independent study room to let myself cry and breakdown. The thing was that there were people who were also in the band room and had seen me close myself off, one of them being one of my friends at the time, they tried to get me to tell them what was wrong, I didn't want to tell them. Once I calmed myself down I went back out into the main room and started to play a calming piece on my flute 'Greensleeves' an Irish folk song. Once the period was over I had to go to my next thing, that being lunch before my math class, they were there lying in wait, so was my group of friends and one of my friends saw me escape to go hide in the bathroom to wait out lunch before I was to dash to my math class. My friend wouldn't allow me to go it alone and brought me food before helping me avoid the person I let them know I was avoiding as I dashed to class, I can still remember my sweat slick feet slipping in my flip flops and the way I wanted to take them off and I didn't because rules dictated the need for shoes inside. For the rest of the day my friend would escort me from class to class not allowing me to be alone as they had heard that the person I was avoiding was put under in school suspension. That was when I stopped being independent as my emotional state was so rattled that when my mother came home from her job she questioned me until I told her. I didn't want to burden anyone with trying to get me out of that situation, it happened anyways. My independence could have gotten me in a lot more trouble than I was ready to face.Even after that I still maintained independence to a certain degree and I want to learn how to be less independent and how to rely on others who are willing to support me. It's still hard even to this day to let go of my independent nature to ask others for help.
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What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
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