4/7/2022
Mother,
Nothing you could ever say or do could hurt me more than what I've already been through.
The years of fear and uncertainty and giving up all of me was worse than anything you could ever hope to do to me now.
Sometimes you don't know the burden you carry until you set it down. Until the thing is lifted away.
Until you break the curse or spell put upon you.
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"Fear will keep you from being who you're truly meant to be."
That's what a stranger told me in a chat room.
I never knew their name, and they never knew mine.
I had those words pinned up on my wall throughout my teenage years.
I stared at those words, thinking I was not afraid.
I acted like a coward until I was 22.
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"What will they do to you if they find out?"
Was the wall that kept who I was separated from who I wanted to be.
"They will hurt me."
I thought.
I believed I was protecting myself.
I believed I was preventing disaster in lying by omission.
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I mutilated my sense of self with every waking moment.
The dishonesty crushing my bones like someone hell-bent on destroying me.
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I did not recognize the person in the mirror once I stopped pretending.
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The truth was, no one could hurt me more than I've allowed myself to be hurt by my fears.
No one else can harm me, because no one knows me as well as I do.
I'd built my life that way.
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To be a prisoner in your own mind is something that will rob you of any joy or physical freedom.
They will never tell you the dangers of your own mind, because even they fear to think of it.
Even they do not know its truest depths.
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Your mind is to be respected for its incredible power to ruin your life without you even realizing.
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Your mind is the one responsible for everything you've felt and experienced.
You have the right to fear it lying to you.
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But fear shouldn't keep you paralyzed.
It is simply a warning.
The only thing more powerful than the thoughts you think, are the choices you end up making.
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I chose to contest my greatest fears, and I survived.
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It only took 10 years.
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