A Part of Me

My past will always be a part of me. Everything I did, everything that was done to me, everything I’ve been through… That story will always live on inside of me. But what I’m starting to realize and actually believe is that it doesn’t have to define me anymore.

I’ve carried a great deal of unacknowledged shame about my past. I lived in fear that when others found out what I did, where I’d been, who I once was… they would never see me as anything but broken, dirty, weak and unloveable. But I see now that that fear was a projection. Others weren’t as cruel as I was to myself. Even if they knew everything about me, they still accepted me. They looked at me and saw strength, even as I threw daggers at my own reflection.

A lot of that shame has recently been unearthed for me. I guess I always knew that it couldn’t stay hidden forever.

I drew a picture yesterday in ink, of a mirror dividing two girls who faced each other. Their palms touched, but their arms belonged to two entirely different people. The girl on the left was me, today… the girl on the other side was the person with whom I identified for so much of my life. She was naked, scared, bruised, covered in dirt… She was what I believed myself to be because of my past.

…and I’m only just starting to realize that I’m no longer her.

I’m still in the process of honoring that broken girl, that girl who had been through so much, the girl to which I’ve been so ruthless and abusive. She deserves to be respected because despite the past, she carried me through. She survived. And though I may look back at her sometimes and feel guilt, disgust, sadness or even fear that she’ll become me again, she is not unworthy. She did the best she could. And by letting her rest after all that she’s been through, by living on for both of us, I can honor her. I can continue the fight for both of us.

My past will always be a part of me, but it will never again be all that I am.

How Long?

Powerful

We are all powerful in that we have the innate ability to make someone else feel something.

With words, we have the power to make someone feel beautiful, sad, betrayed, inspired, elated, hopeful, resentful. Compliments. Criticisms. Lies. Gossip. Stories. Wisdom.

Our voices make us powerful.

With touch, we can soothe, comfort, restrain, push, hurt, embrace, kiss. We can make others feel safe, loved, scared, wounded, special, unique.

Our actions make us powerful.

With our own emotions, we can gain empathy, sympathy, consideration, attention, appreciation. We can express ourselves through tears, body language, laughter, smiles.

Our own feelings make us powerful.

With our presence, we can stand near someone, sit next to them, be there for them. We can make someone feel important, supported, scared, intimidated, cared for.

Our existence makes us powerful.

Whether we choose to believe it or not, we make an impact on every single person in our lives. Even if we’re just a person in a crowd, if each member of that crowd chose to disperse and go off on their own, we’d be left alone… with no one but ourselves to keep us company. A lot of us spend our lives feeling weak, insignificant, unnoticeable. But in truth, we are all powerful in that our mere presence changes this world and the people in it. Even if all we do in our lives is breathe, we contribute to the balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Even if all we do is walk around from place to place, we are seen by someone, we pass and are passed, we are noticed. We have an impact whether we believe it or not.

Each of us affects the other even if we don’t intend to do so.

We hurt.

We get hurt.

We love.

We are loved.

We are affected by others.

And we affect others.

We are powerful even if we view our contributions to this life as small and insignificant.

We are powerful, because we exist.

Compliment

“You’re so smart.”

“I love the way you dress.”

“I wish I had hair like yours.”

“You’re beautiful.”

Compliments. They’re supposed to bring pride to one’s heart, to help people to feel appreciated, special, loved. For me, on the other hand, compliments always make me want to hide, to dissolve into thin air. I guess, being given a compliment means that I’ve been noticed, that someone has taken a moment to really look at me or to get to know me. It makes me feel almost violated, sometimes. Naked. Vulnerable. Bare. It’s definitely unfamiliar, new.

For so long, I’ve only permitted myself to accept negative criticism from others. I believed myself so worthless, so undeserving that I convinced myself that the kind words of others were mere pity, that they didn’t really mean it. Every time someone said something nice about my character or my appearance, my inner voice would start to scream, forbidding even a moment’s consideration of the truth in their words. “Lies!” “They’re only feeling sorry for you!” “You’re nothing!” “Ugly!” “Worthless!” “Unloveable!”

I have a memory of my child self staring in the mirror and my sister coming up behind me, calling me vain and selfish for spending time looking at myself. Of course, she didn’t know that it was never vanity, but constant critique and condemnation. Even then, however, I was afraid she was right. I was afraid that I was as selfish as she believed, perhaps even more so than anyone else. From that point on, I started to hate my own reflection. I picked it apart, feature by disappointing feature. I convinced myself of my own ugliness from the outside-in. My mind transformed the girl in the mirror into a monster, someone worthy of nothing but hate.

I heard a therapist say once that unlike in most industries, “in my profession, the customer is always wrong.” I feel like the first step of recovery is accepting that everything we know about ourselves and our place in the world is wrong. At least, that’s how it’s been for me. We are not worthless, we are valuable. We are not ugly, we are uniquely beautiful. We are not lost causes, there is hope.

One of my counselors in treatment gave me a compliment once and I responded by averting my eyes and shaking my head slightly from side to side. “You don’t believe me?” she asked. “What makes you think you know how I feel about you? What makes you think that you know my opinions, my thoughts, my judgements? What makes you think you have the right to say I’m wrong?” She taught me that it was actually selfish of me to believe that the compliments of others were lies. It was actually more egotistical to think that I knew better than them than to accept that perhaps, they did see value in me. It was arrogant to think that I know their true beliefs, their true feelings about me. I was disrespecting them by believing their words to be false.

I have been making progress in accepting the compliments of others. My “thank you’s” are becoming more and more genuine. My eyes can still be seen darting around the room and my smiles still appear forced, but I’m trying. I’m trying to believe that people do care enough about me to tell me the truth. The more I trust certain people and value their opinions, it’s becoming harder and harder to refute their confidence in me. It’s increasingly difficult to believe myself to be worthless, ugly, unworthy.

I want to believe. I want to feel valuable, cherished, loved. I’ve grown so tired from a lifetime of hating myself. I don’t want to spend another day at war with the mirror.

Last night, I spent time with a family member whom I trust, admire, respect and care for deeply. When we said our goodbyes, she held me in a tight hug and then held me at arms length and said just a few words: “You are beautiful.” A reflexive chorus of “no” repeated through my mind as I walked to my car. As I sat in the passenger seat, however, I flicked on the car-light, pulled down the sun-visor and opened the mirror to stare at my reflection. I tested those words on my tongue, saying them out loud to myself: “You…are…beautiful.”

For once, I considered that maybe, just maybe… it wasn’t a lie.