i'm 29 now
My first time logging on here in about 10 years. Scrolled down and saw so many disheartening posts from when I was a child and dealing with the worst era of my life.
I wish I could go back in time and tell the younger version of myself that everything will be fine. life was very hard at times, and somehow the 18-21 version of myself managed to work 50 hours a week and put herself through college while sending money to her parents and doing music.
I am proud of you, Krista. You did it. You live in a big city now with your own apartment and 2 kitties. You've definitely made a ton of mistakes along the way, but we can call it character building. The world did not deal you a very good deck of cards, and it didn't give you many good influences in life- but you truly persevered and made it out of your bad situation like you said you would.
If I could go back in time I would have never ever posted myself online. I was peak mentally ill and suffering from extreme depression when I was younger. My home life was very bad and abusive, and I never received much attention growing up from my parents. As a result of this, I turned to seeking attention online and posting myself in very "adult" ways when I didn't even have a fully developed brain. I look at old photos of myself now and remember how dark my life was and it makes me want to cry. I feel angry towards all the men who took images of me and convinced me that it was "normal," because it definitely was not.
As an almost 30 year old, I now suffer from extreme anxiety and intrusive thoughts due to the sexual coercion I experienced when I was younger. In my romantic relationships I find it increasingly difficult to get past the mental barrier that allows me to trust someone or be intimate with them. I've put up some very high walls and I've been in therapy for a long time trying to work my way past it. To my younger self- I wish I could tell you that life gets better. But the truth is, the world failed you. It's up to you to create your own reality and find your own meaning and determination to keep going- because you're unfortunately never going to find that with your family. My whole life I asked myself, "what can I look forward to? what is my reasoning for doing all this?" but in reality you have to do it for yourself. You must learn to be selfish. Relationships will come and go, and you might even find someone who sticks around for a couple years who plants all these ideas of a happy life and marriage in your head- but there's a 90% chance they will leave you if you don't feel like having sex for a month. You will find that most people are all the same and all the "love" stuff is superficial and is mostly a lie fabricated by society to keep people fucking and making babies to stimulate the economy. I'd like to think that true, unconditional love exists.. but the older I get the more I realize it is almost impossible to find.
You have accomplished so much in your life. You have met so many people and traveled to so many different places. You have people who love you and look up to you, and you also have people who hate you and will never forgive you. At a certain point you stop keeping track of it and stop caring. You will grow to resent society and spend as much time as you can by yourself. Younger me, I wish I could go back in time and be so ignorant to the evils of society. I am jealous of you. I wish I could go back to being 18 again with all the knowledge I have now and do it all over. I would have changed so many things. I am proud of you, younger self. But I am not proud of myself now. I have no one except for my cats and my nice things that I have bought myself. I have no reason to keep going, and no hope. I'm kinda just here.
