???? idk what this is but i hope someone finds it helpful

so i have this really old playlist playing on shuffle and some of bts's early songs from '13/'14 started playing and... idk. i just couldn't keep myself from crying. my heart hurt.

i haven't heard or even thought about these songs in years so it was like a rush of emotions. i wouldn't really call it nostalgia, though, because that is most definitely not a time in my life that i miss. i mean, i did meet a lot of people on here that i truly love and still keep in contact with, but besides that... my life was so ty, and i don't think i even realized just how much at the time.

i was such an emotionally stunted child. i didn't really know how to deal with my emotions in a proper or healthy way. i was betrayed so many times by people that i once considered my family. and every single time it hit me like a truck, even though i knew to expect it. it was terrible. and honestly, it's affected how i interact with people and make friends to this day. i have serious trust issues, and i can barely let in my closest friends without feeling like the world's about to end or something.

and yea, all i did was push everything away because all my life, i was taught that any negative emotions i showed would get me into trouble. would prove to everyone that i was weak. and i couldn't be weak in front of my little siblings because they counted on me. or some bs like that, idk. and talking about our thoughts and feelings was not a thing that existed in my household. so i just bottled that up.

yeeeaaaaa. that was a crazy time in my life. i mean, 2014 doesn't even seem like it was that long ago tbh, but just last may i was seriously considering leaving home and never turning back. and i was so so close. i swear, the only thing that stopped me was a rabbit session i had with my baby sev and she played a song that reminded me of my little brother and i just. broke down. i couldn't stop crying for hours. i didn't want to be around my family anymore, but i was really going to miss my baby brothers. and they wouldn't understand why their big sister just disappeared all of a sudden. my heart hurt so much thinking about how they would be affected by what i did. 

i told myself i'd hold off on it for a few more days. then a few more days... and i don't know if it was fate or what, but a few weeks later i started taking a class that made me realize my passion, what i wanted to do with my life. and slowly, but surely, things slowly started turning up. i've started doing things with my life that are for me and me alone, and not to just make my parents happy. it's great. i know i didn't turn out how my parents would have wanted me to, but i like to think that i still turned out okay, despite all the ways they tried to mess me up lmaooo

it's gonna be quite a while until i can be completely okay with who i am and let up on all this self-loathing that's been piling up inside me for the last ten years, but i'm finally starting to accept myself for who i am. no matter how damaged i am, i can still love me for me, and hopefully others will too. i'm done trying to change myself for people who don't even matter, or for people who are going to think that i'm not good enough no matter what i do. i am enough.

and idk, i wish i could go back to 16yo me and tell her that everything is going to turn out okay, even if that seems impossible. just give it some time, and things will fall into place. 

it really does get better. 

thank you for coming to my ted talk.

and go stream shoot out plz