Hey Lovelies! Anyone who knows me understands I proudly state I could be the posterchild for therapy as I’m a firm believer in being mentally healthy. My first stint in therapy was when I was 7 years old and I have my loving asshole of a sister to thank for that. Yes, to some, 7 is rather young to be in therapy but my mother knew something was wrong because I would cry when someone spoke to me and I couldn’t explain it and therapy was the only way she could help me. Well, the truth of all of that is there was a lot of turmoil and domestic violence in my home at one point and then my sister mentally tormented me every single night before we went to sleep but I couldn’t tell on her because I believed she was right about it all being my fault. Hey, give me a break, I was 7 and she’d been in the family two years longer than me, what she said must have been true, right? Ummmm, no, she was hurting and I was the only outlet for her to release some of it or at least as long as I was miserable with her, she felt better.
A few years ago, my therapist and I were talking about finding my ‘seed’, the place where it all began. If I could nail down my seed, I could destroy the tree of pain it sprouted and begin to heal the pain, misunderstandings, and confusion which plagued me in my adult life and relationships.
It was actually shocking to learn that my sister was the one who planted the seed which spawned the many branched tree of pain and confusion because she was the one who was there for me in my darkest moments even though she contributed to some of them. Yes, I talk shit about my sister but there is no one I’m more confident would lay down their life for me and we now have an awesome relationship.
My therapist told me to write a letter to my 5-year-old self and explain to her that, regardless of everything that happens, she will be okay. In this letter, I was to go thru every traumatic experience and relive with adult eyes which helped me gain understanding and help me heal that scared 5-year-old who got the bubble guts from hearing her Mommy cry and beg for my Daddy to stop hitting her. Yeah, shit like that scars you deeper than you realize. I wrote my letter with tears pouring out of my eyes because I’d never really dealt with it because, well, that was my life and I just went on with it as the years went by.
I have come to learn and understand that healing my 5-year-old self was important and pretty much disregarded my teenage self because I thought healing the younger me would heal all of me but that’s not how it works. You see, a 5-year-old is innocent and doesn’t really understand much about life or people’s attitudes towards them, they’re just scared when voices are raised because they feel they are the one in trouble. But, that teenager? She is bitter and angry because she has a better understanding of life because she’s seen more without those rose-colored glasses which protected the innocent child. The teenager has experienced heartbreak and betrayal, she has lived with being abandoned or played, she’s been bullied and teased due to her developing as a woman or even just her physical features which are different from others. That teenager has endured more pain than those closest to her could fathom because she never talks about it, she deals with it by isolating herself out of fear that more insults and displeasure will be hurled at her for being affected.
If I could go back and sit with my 15-year-old self, the first thing I would do is give her the biggest and longest hug anyone has ever received because she didn’t get that type of affection growing up. I would let her cry until she had no tears left to shed because that was an emotion she was chastised for showing to the point of being kicked out of a wake for feeling the loss of the deceased. The inability to show pain thru tears would hinder her as she got older as she wouldn’t cry in front of her own children when she was hurting which would have helped the understand that when you hurt, you express it.
I would tell her how absolutely beautiful she was as her physical appearance was always criticized by those in her bloodline which caused her to doubt everything about herself as she continued to mature. I would make sure she laughed hard and rejoice in the melodiousness of it because her laugh was silenced due to someone not liking the sound of it so she grew up holding in her laugh and covering her mouth to make it less audible.
Once I see that she is comfortable in her own skin, I would begin speaking the words to heal her. I would tell her how proud I was of her for remaining a virgin until after she graduated high school because maintaining that virtue helped keep her focused on what she needed to do and kept her character clean. Yes, there were some stank ass boys who lied on what transpired between them but that is on them, it had nothing to do with her and those who knew her knew she’d never let any of that transpire. I would hold her hand as I share with her she would experience her first sexual assault at the age of 18 by someone she trusted and, at one time, loved and reassure her that it wasn’t her fault because I know she still blames herself for everything that happened and questions what could she have done differently but there was nothing she could have done differently, he was going to do what he did, period.
Being a light skinned female, 15-year-old me endured years of hurtful comments which caused her to be ashamed of her complexion. She heard damn near every light skinned ‘insult’ you could think of, such as: high yella, light bright and damn near white, piss colored, and even told she could never understand the plight of Black people because she wasn’t dark enough. I would reassure beauty comes in every shade of the rainbow and who you are at your core is what matters. I would brush her hair and compliment the texture because that too had been criticized by others with different types of hair. To some, her hair was nappy because it wasn’t bone straight and to others, it was considered white people hair because it wasn’t kinky enough. She would endure years of criticism for merely being born with the light eyes, light skin, and wavy hair but that didn’t mean she was any less beautiful or worthy of love and attention.
I would share with her that when her Daddy left for a couple of years, it wasn’t her fault because he had shit he needed to work out but he would come back into her life stronger than before. You see, those years he wasn’t present caused her to feel abandoned which caused her to shrink herself in relationships so her partner wouldn’t leave. That abandoned feeling caused her to feel she wasn’t good enough just being her authentic self, she never felt as though she could let her weird flag fly freely without causing someone to lose interest and leave her again.
I would talk with her about her strained relationship with her mother which spawned 3 decades because she didn’t know there was no way to fight the reality of them being alike. I understand how hard she fought being like her mother and that was due to the constant tension between the two of them which often erupted in nasty arguments and periods of not speaking to one another. I would tell her to understand her mother had a lot of shit going on in her present life as well as dealing with being abused by the one person who was supposed to protect her. I would comfort her by telling her that she and her mother grow to have a close relationship but, unfortunately, a lot of years were wasted by both of them trying to be right and never bending to understand the other’s perspective.
I would begin to wrap the conversation up by telling her about the beautiful daughters she brought into this world who, in a sense, saved her life because she fought depression due to everything she had been thru when she was younger. There would be times in her life where the pain will feel as though it’s too much to bear and it would be easier to just end her existence but she didn’t because it would hurt those who loved her too much.
The most important thing I would share with my 15-year-old self is this: You will survive everything thrown at you and find your strength. Everything you go thru is to show you how strong you truly are. Your lineage is full of strong, determined, phenomenal women, you have a purpose.
We all go thru things in life and majority of it isn’t voluntary, it’s at the hands of someone we love and trust which causes scars we don’t acknowledge but show up in other areas of our life. I would highly suggest to anyone to take time to pen a letter to your younger self and, more importantly, to the teenager in you who is still angry for everything which transpired and damaged you before you had a real go at life. That teenage you is still damaging relationships because they are scarred and scared of letting someone close to you again because their experience is being hurt when they’ve let someone in.
Get your favorite spirited beverage and have a long, heart felt talk with your younger self thru written word, it will heal present day you as well. Be great, my Lovelies!
