God Bless This Mess(5)

There’s got to be a reason I’m here, I kept thinking. Hannah, trust!

But how much of that was me just rationalizing what I knew was wrong, in order to make it seem right? How much of that was me just playing a part in order to please everybody else? I became the person I needed to be, the person that everyone wanted me to be. Over the course of the season I played the part so well that in the end I even believed that it was me.

To be clear, I wasn’t lying or faking it for anybody else. It was fun to meet all these guys. One of my favorite things to do is talk to strangers. I love meeting new people and finding connections—not necessarily in a physical or romantic way, but in a human way. So a part of me really enjoyed talking to these thirty strange men.

The pageant-girl side of me loved getting dressed up, looking pretty, feeling pretty, and putting on a good show, too.

And I loved that I was in charge. I had the power to send any of these guys home whenever I decided I’d had enough. Unlike with Colton, where he held the power, on The Bachelorette I held the power! But did I really have the power, when I didn’t actually say how I was feeling?

Of course, having “power” isn’t the ideal way to start a relationship. Any relationship. It’s just not healthy. A relationship should be equal. But I didn’t think about that then. There were too many other things to think about. Out of almost nowhere, I suddenly had my own television show. Chris Harrison was the host, but I was the lead, the drama, the fairy-tale princess, the protagonist. It was my responsibility not only to make this show but to find love while I did it.

That was a lot of responsibility! And because I didn’t want to let anyone down, I didn’t always express my true thoughts and feelings. Frankly, with all that pressure on me, there were times when I didn’t even know what my true thoughts and feelings were.

So why am I bothering to tell you all of this?

Because I think life is that way, too. The company you work for, your teachers, your parents, your peer group, the influencers you see on TV and on social media—all of those people have a way of influencing what you think and what you do. And most of the time you don’t even notice that it’s happening, or what’s getting lost along the way. I sure didn’t.

Once you open your eyes to it, though, you start to notice it everywhere. Just like all that wet pavement on TV shows and in movies.

Once you see it, you start to question everything.

Mostly, you start to question yourself, and whether the decisions you’ve made in your life have truly been yours.

When I think back now to my first seasons in the world of reality TV, I get a knot in my stomach. This tightness in my chest. I can’t even remember what was real and what wasn’t. What was me, and what wasn’t.

It wasn’t the first time I had felt those feelings, and let me tell you, it’s a scary place to be.

Do I regret going on The Bachelor or The Bachelorette? No! I learned so much through being on those shows—but what I learned wasn’t about finding a husband. It was more about finding myself—and, at the same time, losing myself—just like I’d said in my speech. I would come full circle to learn that again in the days, weeks, and now years that followed.

As the world would soon find out, my engagement at the end of my season of The Bachelorette wouldn’t last. It fell apart in the most soul-crushing way—because the man I chose had lied to me. He had lied to everyone. He had hidden his true circumstances from me, and from all of Bachelor Nation, too. His actions and choices were his own, but I also can’t help but wonder if I had trusted my instincts at the start, or if I had spoken my true feelings out loud at a hundred different steps along the way—maybe if I had listened to myself instead of putting everyone else’s feelings first—I wouldn’t have gotten my heart broken so publicly, so humiliatingly, as I did.

What I’d learn over the course of the next year and a half is that all the hiding I did to make other people happy, all the twisting and turning, only hurt me in the end. And I didn’t want to live like that anymore. I needed help. I needed friends. I needed therapy. God. I needed God therapy. I needed a lot, bless my heart!

What I really needed was to take some time to look back at my own life, to see where things went wrong and where they went right, and to rediscover and (hopefully) start to believe again in the person I really was.





Chapter 2


Put a Smile on Your Face


Identity is a funny thing. What we like, what we don’t. Why we feel what we feel. The things that make us feel unique. The very things about ourselves that make us feel beautiful, or make us feel ugly. (I’m talking both inside and outside here.) The way we respond. The way we act. The strength we have. Our weaknesses. The confidence we show. The self-doubt we don’t. All of it comes down to this crazy mix of what we’re taught and what we’re shown; what we grow up with and what we don’t; what’s buried deep in our DNA and what’s right on the surface of what we witness every day.

Combine all that with the families we’re born into, and the places we’re raised, and the conditions of life in the towns or cities or countries we’re raised in, and how in the heck are we supposed to sort through all of that and make sense of who we are?

People say things like, “Just be you, Hannah.” Or, “Trust yourself.” “Only you know how you really feel.” “You’ll have to make that decision on your own.”