To your younger self and wounded inner child:

From a young age, it must have been clear to you. To you, kindness must have felt so obvious, innate, natural— despite your early environment, meant to harden, not nurture, gentle little hearts. Kindness. Not bogged down by unwritten rules of who is deserving of it and who isn't. I think at your core, you don't understand it, these "rules" and why they're there. And I think this disconnect will cause you a great deal of pain that reverberates throughout your life.

To your younger, child self:

I am sorry you will have to hide your fluency in kindness and empathy… due to your birth family, whose approval and love you so desperately seek. You will pretend to be cruel to fit in. And you must learn to forgive yourself for it. Because to want to fit in with your birth family means life or death as a child. That is how we are all wired.

Please forgive yourself when you inevitably have to act cruel to protect yourself. I know it is not what you want, and that is not what is in your heart. That it brings you much pain to bring pain to others.

To your younger self and wounded inner child:

What you should've and NEEDED to receive was a firm and loving embrace, endless kisses on your forehead and cheeks for the pain your body puts you through, for no fault of your own. Words of comfort. Empathy. And apologies.

We give toddlers grace for being "fussy" during their teething phase. We know now that children in pain need soothing, not punishing, as you had and will continue to experience. Instead of empathy, you've been made to feel like you are wrong, that you dramatize your pain, and that because your body (and brain) are different, YOU are a burden.

Imagine a news story today, about a family that showed a child with cancer, the level of cruelty you have been shown. We would rightfully be outraged and heartbroken for this child.

I am. And after some hard self-reflection (with the help of my lovely new therapist) to understand what happened during our last exchange… I owe you an apology.

To you and your inner child:

I am so very sorry that I had continued the traumatic cycle of dismissing you and sending you off on your way, when you needed me.

I acted like someone safe, trustworthy, someone who understands you. And then in my own fit of pain, I blindly hurt you in exactly the way I should have known would hurt you most.

The same pattern of dismissal, callousness, indifference and abandonment– where empathy and patience should have been. I am so sorry for failing you in the same way that those before me have. For getting outraged with you at their mistreatment and then turning around to do the same.

I am sorry for stepping over you as you were keeled over in pain– treating you first like a nuisance, then as invisible, when you simply needed my support.

I am sorry for being another piece of evidence for why you must not belong to this world. Where only the hardened can survive, as I had been forced to learn in my childhood as well. I hope in your journey of becoming whole, you'll learn a better way to exist.

I hope by the time you read this, that you've begun seeing and tending those freckled parts of yourself with the same gleaming eyes and gentle hands as you do when nurturing your plants.

I so very much wish you all the best.

I don't know if you know this, but after you’d have your nightly bowl and the sleeping meds finally kicked in… there's this small 5 minute window where you truly seem relaxed and at peace with the world… before knocking out. I wish you nothing but that.

Thank you for being one of, if not the only, person I've met in this life, who loved and appreciated the softest parts of me, the tender parts of me, that deep down I see as the truest parts of me. You were the catalyst that got me to seek therapy. You dug into the wounded parts of me that were long necrotic and needed to be cleared and exposed to heal.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Your life, your soul, your light means more than you'll ever know. All the very best.