This is a short conversational transcript from a video where Speaker A asks about authenticity and being '100% yourself.' Hannah Hammond responds with a personal account: she describes past insecurity during COVID, shame about her appearance, finding old photos, relationship context, and how that insecurity prevented her from accepting love. The piece centers on self-acceptance and overcoming shame.
Chapters
As you currently sit here today, how much of you do you feel you can express authentically to the world? Do you feel that you're 100% yourself, or do you feel that there's potentially aspects of you that you want to be able to let out, but you're just not quite comfortable yet sharing that with others?
I'm pretty open. I don't think there's really anything about me that I haven't shared or wouldn't share. I didn't used to be that way. I remember a time where I was so insecure. I remember I had a bucket of old photos in this house, and I. I was dating this guy. I bought the house for us. It was during COVID I was so ashamed by what I looked like. I wasn't, like, a hideous human being, but I felt like I was the most hideous human being in the world. Like, literally, I was so ashamed of just me. My boyfriend found the box of pictures, and I, like, thought that I wanted myself. Like, that's how broken I was inside. And I was just like. Like, that's such a horrible feeling. Like, I was so, so broken and so insecure that I could never love some or let them love me, because I wouldn't even accept, like, who I really was.