Well I've known this for quite a while, a few months more or less. I've always felt like a child, that much I've always known, but through the years I made myself believe that my feelings aren't real enough, aren't important enough, and just now I realized that they, indeed, are real enough and important enough. Because I feel them, and if I feel them they must be real, and if they affect me they must be important. Even if I was still a child that doesn't make my feelings any less important, it doesn't make them hurt any less.
I think all of my issues started when I was 12. Well, maybe not all of them, but sure enough a lot of those that are haunting me to this day. I was made feel like everytime a cried, it was for attention, not because I was actually feeling bad, I was made feel like I was always wrong because I was a child, even if I knew I wasn't, I was made feel like my suffering was stupid, invalid, and I wasn't aware how traumatic it was back then, even less that I was to carry this on my back to this very day. I know they meant no harm, they were probably made to feel the same way when they were little. I know they love me, and I know they only want the best for me. But people have flaws, sometimes they can be so nasty and ugly, and sometimes people don't know how to deal with children, so they shouldn't. That same people sometimes can't even deal with adults but, well, what can you do about that?
I'm working on it, on acknowledging my feelings and accepting that even though I know they meant no harm, their words and actions still were harmful. That I'm allowed to feel, and that my feelings affect they way I am.
I'm not a child anymore, and even if I was, I shouldn't make myself shut up about my sadness, or my joy. When you're like this, even happiness seems unreal while you're feeling it.
♡
