trigger warning*

as a child, i looked at myself, all i saw was thin, spindly limbs paler than a sheet of printer's paper and dull, monotonous feature slipping down into a pool of other mundane looking girls, all the same with their tiresome talk of boys and clothes; all with their vapid and closed minded gossip. i wondered if i would be dragged down in the same way. i didn't and wasn't able to fathom that i was no different from any of the other insipid adolescents. it's wearisome and rather heartbreaking for a child to conceive that he or she is not unique and it is assuredly more frustrating for a parent or another type of bystander to witness. they try on most occasions. to make it clear that they understand what the innocent is going through; obvious that they've discerned the child's deepest thoughts and yet... yet they do nothing. it is simply a part of life, a predicament everyone finds themselves out. it occurs in everyone's own childhood. a chapter of a story that will promptly be closed, as hastily and early as it was opened. and then you go on.

i was never the type of child to simply leave a chapter after it was finished, finding it profoundly hard to not bask in the event and stay there. i wasn't sure that i wanted to know what came next. even now, i bookmark pages and wrinkle their carefully smooth skin with folds and scribbled and 'why?'s penciled in on the margins. i'll be halfway through i book i've read a time before and i can't find where i left off among the multitude of meticulously placed dog ears. i suppose that that is what i have done with my childhood. i placed too many bookmarks too precisely, unable to just move on from that line or verse of pretty prose, painting itself onto the too-warm surface of my aching heart, where it stayed sheltered until i felt like bringing it out again.

needless to say, it was very hard for me to admit to myself that i was not a unique individual, no matter how much i tried, and when i had convinced myself, though wrongly convinced myself, a little piece of me froze rather violently. i continued my entire young life assuming and believing that everyone is the same, that you are no different from the girls whose words bite and rip and tear at you. it is repeated repeated repeated that we are all the same inside. and sometimes you understand it another way than what was intended. or maybe you are told flat out. it is to be at the peak of despair and cynicism to trust that you are not special and be content with it. some lucky beings are born and raised being told that there is no one else that could fill their shoes, but even then, i have very rarely heard of someone simply skipping over a chapter when they feel like it. and this way, you will fail to learn things that could help you or teach you throughout your life, as hollow and inconsequential as it is. if you are always told that you are one of a kind, it is going to hit so much harder when that niggling doubt takes over and suddenly. you are not.

but that is wrong as well. no matter what you have been informed, no matter what you have gleaned and observed from everything around you, your parents and guardians, your role models and friends, the internet and the media, you are unique. you are so ******* special and different and perfect in your own way. you are strong and there is no reason to blame yourself. you do not, have not, and never will deserve all of the hatred and accusation you establish towards yourself. and it's really hard. it's really really hard. but there is a way for someone as wonderful as you and i think you can find it.

-i would find it funny how easily i weave back in and out of such a state of insanity if it were not so dangerous.