Good damage or just.. Damage?

It’s hard growing up thinking you’re special. I mean, not as a kid. When you’re a kid, you think that if you’re different, it means you’ll grow up to be this amazing person no one has ever seen before. That you’re gonna blow everyone’s minds.

But as an adult, you quickly realize that means sometimes you get left behind. Sometimes you struggle to fit in. Sometimes you are just as average as everyone else is… except you’re different.

Growing up in an abusive household changes you forever. There’s no denying that. You don’t understand many things and you think everything will turn out fine. It has to! But no one bothered to tell you that real life stories don’t always have a happy ending. Life doesn’t owe you anything. And you will soon find out no one owes you anything.

So you hold onto that pain you grew up with. You read books and random quotes on the internet meant to inspire you and you think that all this pain will be useful one day. That all the hurt will magically come and save you someday. Because… you learnt a lesson? Or because that’s all you have. The pain and the trauma are the only things you’re sure about, the only things that are forever in your life.

But you grow out of your edgy teen phase. And you think, “gosh, that was a really unhealthy way of thinking”. And you try your best to unlearn all the unhealthy coping mechanisms. You get help and suddenly your future looks a little brighter. You get hopeful.

But a small, stupid part of you is still doubtful. What if, what if, what if? And you question yourself, looking into every nook and cranny of your person to try to find some answers, and you read books all over again… but it’s not much of use.

“What was it all for then?” You obsessively think about this every day. Because you could have been happy this whole time and had fun but you weren’t. And you didn’t even have fun. Everything was passing right by you way too fast. What lessons were to learn from all of this? Besides not repeating your parents’ mistakes.

You feel useless because you cannot even create anything. Nothing comes out of this sadness. So you scroll endlessly on apps where people are creative, and they are able to turn their pain and trauma into art. Into something. And you try to copy whatever they do but you fail miserably every time. And that’s how you end up with so many unfinished hobbies.. and maybe selves too.

But you try to write again. Because writing has always been there for you, good or bad. After a whole year of not writing anything for your own pleasure, words seem to start flowing properly again. And the little, nagging voice at the back of your head gets more and more quiet. You stop trying to have all the answers in the Universe because after all.. how is that supposed to help anyway? We aren’t meant to know everything. And you’re better off like that.

So maybe.. no one really cares if your childhood was different. No one cares if you’re a little weird. And you shouldn’t care either.