Dear Me

This is part of the 'letters to my Former Self' Series

Trigger warning: mentions bullying related to disability

Dear my younger self,

It’s funny, really, when I look back at you.

Because in a way, I envy you; you have everything I lost.

Because in a way, I am grateful I am no longer the person you are. I have grown less trusting of the world, and with that comes cynicism, but at least I might be able to avoid the same loss.

There were some awful times - related, mostly to your disability, not because of the effects it had on you, but how other people treated you. I remember being bundled in my blazer and two boys shouting over at me ‘oi you, benefit fraud! Yeah, you, you f**king cheat!’ and even though people heard, it was in the middle of break, no one even stopped though they’d all heard it.

How did they think that would make you feel? I still remember, on the bad days.

I remember how much it stuck with you.

Or when boys used to dare each other to go up to you and ask you out, laughing when they think you couldn’t hear them and saying ‘why would anyone want to go out with someone like her?’ and handing each other money. You’d pretend to just look away and find interest in something else, but it hurt. I know, I remember.

Being a teenager means that suddenly everyone is obsessed with their bodies, and I remember you feeling self conscious in the changing rooms, when people began to look at you when you’d remove your leg aids, when they’d smirk at you needing help getting changed, when PE became you sitting in a corner as your classmates progressed and in the end you were permanently excused because they didn’t make provisions.

I know why you became silent and withdrawn, why you became moody and frustrated at home. Why you cried at night when no one could see or hear you, why that smile became forced some days, then more and more until people began to notice.

I know why you hate looking into mirrors and avoid them. I still do.

There was times when your legs couldn’t carry you anymore, so you’d go in a wheelchair and push yourself until your arms ached or your hands were red raw from the metal of the wheel, angry with yourself for needing to rest, angry with your condition, angry with the world because of the way it looked at you.

Take that anger and use it, use it in the right ways.

You are going to have even bigger trials to face and I’m sorry, but despite it all, I’m still standing (sort of, you know).

Even on the worst days, I have to remind myself of that.

I might have been knocked down by life more than once, but I’m still standing.

We’re still standing.