I used to be convinced that the act of “being myself” and “taking up space” was a matter of overcoming a fear of judgement. It was not until this year that I realized that the greatest voice of dissent against placing myself in the spotlight has been my own.

The tendency to shrink oneself socially can be instilled from different circumstances. One especially important example of this is in the context of systemic sexism and racism, where Black women and women of color can be conditioned to police themselves to seem more “socially acceptable.” 

Accordingly, as a white cisgender man, my journey toward an epiphany about taking up space is hardly groundbreaking. Still, any perspective can be valuable even if it only benefits a few, which, as it happens, is also my argument for this column.

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I owe much of my instinct to shrink myself to growing up with undiagnosed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. I profoundly struggled with being orderly, a tiny agent of entropy, and I paid for it.

One exemplary instance happened in kindergarten. Each week, a student brought their family to do a presentation on their history. During the Q&A portion on some random week, with no premeditated reason, little Kevin raised his hand and asked his fellow classmate’s family, in a wonderfully matter-of-fact way: “What kind of poop do you poop?”

My teacher sprung up, dragged me out and yelled at me for some time outside; like with most of my outbursts, my intentions were unclear or nonexistent. I just thought it would be funny to say in the moment.

Following this incident, I learned to fear the consequences of being myself in an uninhibited way. Unmedicated and without support, the effort to restrain myself was taxing and hopeless.

My outbursts sometimes made people laugh or made everything awkward. Often, they left everyone annoyed. I remember the sinking feeling that the people around me had gone from amused to irritated.

I was not afraid of being judged. Rather, I began believing that I was truly annoying, a burden to everyone around me because my authentic self was simply undesirable.

There were a select few, however, who seemed immune from annoyance, no matter how unabashedly Kevin I was. By college, I grew to realize I could just choose friends from the crowd of people who laughed more than they rolled their eyes.

However, my instinct to protect others from my “annoyance” arose again when I began using social media more seriously last year. I didn’t fear being seen as “cringe,” rather, I was riddled with self-doubt. 

I’d think to myself, “No one wants to see this. Who am I to take up time from someone’s day?” 

I would go days and weeks offline, feeling a dissonance between the joy of sharing my stories and jokes and wanting to disappear to spare everyone of me. I second-guessed everything, regretting posts the moment they went up. I imagined my content popping up on friends’ feeds and their eyes shooting into a roll that I remembered all too well.

My perspective began to change when a great theatre professor refashioned my harsh inner critic into something actionable and empowering. She was eccentric, with a quirk of shouting into students’ faces. Once, after an exercise in which she noticed I was holding back, she came inches from my face and shouted, “You have a gift, angel! It is your duty to share it!” 

She reframed my desire to hide as selfish given it deprived others of a gift I had to give them. Contemplating this newfound perspective further, I thought to myself, “How presumptuous of me to assume my authentic self would benefit literally no one.” 

From this, I realized that possible annoyance toward me should not be my concern — my focus should be on the few I can help.

Ultimately, embracing my authentic self on social media showed me that “the few” are not few at all. Leaning into my uniqueness, I started receiving grateful messages I had never received before like “I needed to hear this today” and “Never related to something harder.” Such responses showed me how sharing my truest self had the potential of benefitting people more than I anticipated.

If you equate shrinking yourself with sparing others — like I used to — I urge you to imagine all the ways in which the authentic self you are hiding might inspire those around you to realize their own worth. You have a gift and you are a gift. Allowing your personality to flourish is a selfless act of compassion, to yourself and those in your presence.

Kevin Gramling is a senior writing about his search for meaning amid the daily chaos of being a USC student. His column, “The (S)existentialist,” runs every other Monday.