Sasha's Snippets: The Blog ;)

Can we please be at the point in life as a society where we stop pretending like only children are these socially unaware, underdeveloped, spoiled weirdos?! No, seriously, why, every time I mention I’m an only child, do I get some variation of the response, “Oh my god, really?! You don’t seem like it at all!!” Um ok….is that supposed to be a compliment or something – cause if so let’s pause for a second right there.

How to be Better Than Everyone Else in Life:

I’m kidding, of course, but…… don’t count us out, at least. 

Growing up as an only child, while I had two very loving, active, and involved parents, being alone and alone became my regular. While I had friends and family I would hang out with and go to school/sports from a very early age, I learned what it’s like to have it be me and my thoughts – and honestly, I couldn’t be more grateful. There is a weird and horrible stigma around only children that they are spoiled, unsocialized, and can’t handle basic things like sharing. Can we stop pretending that’s a universal truth already?! Instead, I would like to float the idea that being an only child is actually one of the best things that can happen to someone for their development. 

Here’s Where TF I’m Coming From:

As a kid and throughout my life I’ve experienced it all – I was bullied and had no friends, I experienced backstab after backstab, I’ve had my friends that have become my sisters and brothers, I’ve switched schools, had a long-term boyfriend, broken up, uprooted my entire life and moved, gone to college, had a freshman roommate – essentially I’ve done the whole nine yards. And while not all of these experiences have gone perfectly, I propose one idea: being an only child was the one thing that carried me successfully through them. 

Growing up with no friends at points, I became incredibly adept at being alone, not in a sad way but in an extremely healthy way. I can stand to fall asleep at night—just me and my thoughts. I can spend a quiet night at home relaxing or doing some idle activity, and I don’t need or crave constant stimulation or entertainment. Whether dealing with friend issues or friendship breakups, I’ve dealt with the healthier than anyone I know. Growing up, I was ok with being independent, the idea of when a friendship ends, knowing my world is not crashing, and I can’t make anyone who doesn’t want to stay. This has saved and healed me more times than I wish it had. And not just in the moment but in life after that because I have never been stunted in making friends. 

Be it making friends in any scenario and how I treat them as an only child, it has given me a unique and unconscious lens to approach this with. Unlike someone used to having people around or built-in friends, I have always approached friendships with a completely open mind. By that, I mean that each new person I meet, or friendship I make could end up being my sister or brother for life or just an acquaintance I hang out with. Approaching friendships with the notion of being wholly myself and allowing others to experience me like that because I’ve become so open and comfortable with myself is an exceptional trait – that people often connect with and respond exceptionally well to. This translates to all aspects of my life – teachers, public speaking in general, adults, strangers, significant others, etc. And even regardless of my severe and diagnosed social anxiety, I have never once worried about making friends or my socialization. I have such a deep understanding and comfort within myself that the one thing I’ve always noticed and never feared is not once have I had any difficulty making friends. Whether it was uprooting my entire life in a week and starting a brand new high school 1/4th of the way through the year with not a single person, I knew that going thousands of miles away to a random sleep-away summer camp or something as mundane as picking seats in my class. 

Be it the moment every first-year student dreads – the communal bathroom and. 12 x 24 double dorm room they now have to spend nine months sharing with a stranger. While, of course, I don’t love it, be it in my standard room, I have a mega bed, my own attached bathroom, a walk-in closet, and space to do whatever tf I want in – I genuinely haven’t minded it in the manner ‘an only child’ would. Remember that I have never shared a space before; I’ve never had to. But I have quickly adapted to it and the norms associated with it. Living in a mixed-gender hall with 25 others has been one of the most fun things I’ve gotten to experience and, frankly, pretty straightforward. It’s been my roommate and others WITH siblings that I’ve noticed struggling with it the most. For example, while I know this is our space and supposed to simulate a home, I have experienced a roommate who never wears headphones but listens to everything at total volume, invites any number of people around at all hours, acts as though I can’t hear her when she moves like a giant, determines our lighting needs based off her feelings not the homework im still doing, tells me about visitors staying with us hours before they arrive, and so much more. But somehow, I (the only child) have dealt with this and understood I can do nothing except act the way I wish she would towards me and pick and choose my battles. 

Now, when it came to the breakup of my long-term relationships, some of the most valuable traits and things that come from being an only child had some potential to harm me further. This means that in the early first few days after the breakup, I knew I was ok alone and knew that in this time where everything I thought I knew changed in an instant, at least I knew myself and who I was so strongly that I secluded myself and cut off the rest of the world. However, while this is incredibly normal, this is also what we have friends for – and thank god for them at that – aside from immediately after my breakup and throughout it, I pretty much kept it and my feelings to myself and healed myself for myself taking my healing journey alone – not even telling some of the closest and most influential people in my life that it even happened to this day. Now, this is not something I recommend or even think every only child can/should do, but I know firmly that it is the result of being an only child and how I evolved mentally and emotionally that allowed me to do this. More importantly, I want to become the person I am on the other side of the pain. For me, healing this way was an unconscious choice and what just felt natural. It wasn’t until a critical moment in my healing when I realized that I needed to focus on finding my way back to my favorite, happiest, and healthiest version of myself before this relationship could be transposed onto who I was now – and I realized the power of knowing myself in the way only an only child could hold at the moment. 

This is all to say, let’s stop the only child stigmas and maybe take a second to learn from the undercover ones around us—who knows, perhaps you will grow as a person.