as you grow into yourself as a young adult and leave your childhood home behind, it is crucial to remember that the way you were treated there is not necessarily representative of how others will treat you.

as children, we often believe our parents mirror what the world is like, and we begin to subconsciously understand their worldview and behaviors as commonplace and normal — as what everyone must be like. but if your home was not a safe place for you (whether that be physically and/or emotionally), it is imperative that you unlearn that way of thinking.

it was your parents who treated you cruelly, not the world.

it was your parents who made you feel like shame would always be your most powerful emotion, not the world.

it was your parents who never loved you the way you deserved to be loved, not the world.

this world and the people in it are so much kinder and gentler than you were made to believe as a scared, lonely child hiding in your bedroom. allow yourself to accept that kindness without shying away from it for fear that you don’t deserve it, for fear that you didn’t earn it. you don’t need to earn love — you never did. and you have always deserved it.

Mary Oliver, from “Hum Hum”, A Thousand Mornings

forgive yourself again and again and again and again and again

just chewed on my lip until it bled and my mom said it’s okay it will heal in a few days. painfully reminded the body really does just heal itself over and over again. theres somebody whos been trying to save me all along and its me

Louise Glück, “Snowdrops”

“I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday.”

— Lemony Snicket, The Beatrice Letters (via lunaoki)

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

— Rumi (via gardenofrumi)

“You don’t know anyone at the party, so you don’t want to go. You don’t like cottage cheese, so you haven’t eaten it in years. This is your choice, of course, but don’t kid yourself: it’s also the flinch. Your personality is not set in stone. You may think a morning coffee is the most enjoyable thing in the world, but it’s really just a habit. Thirty days without it, and you would be fine. You think you have a soul mate, but in fact you could have had any number of spouses. You would have evolved differently, but been just as happy. You can change what you want about yourself at any time. You see yourself as someone who can’t write or play an instrument, who gives in to temptation or makes bad decisions, but that’s really not you. It’s not ingrained. It’s not your personality. Your personality is something else, something deeper than just preferences, and these details on the surface, you can change anytime you like. If it is useful to do so, you must abandon your identity and start again. Sometimes, it’s the only way.”

— Julien Smith, The Flinch (via wnq-anonymous)

— Hanif Abdurraqib, from “They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us.”

blud Rachel McKibbens

stories where the past is a wound that refuses to heal

as you grow into yourself as a young adult and leave your childhood home behind, it is crucial to remember that the way you were treated there is not necessarily representative of how others will treat you.

as children, we often believe our parents mirror what the world is like, and we begin to subconsciously understand their worldview and behaviors as commonplace and normal — as what everyone must be like. but if your home was not a safe place for you (whether that be physically and/or emotionally), it is imperative that you unlearn that way of thinking.

it was your parents who treated you cruelly, not the world.

it was your parents who made you feel like shame would always be your most powerful emotion, not the world.

it was your parents who never loved you the way you deserved to be loved, not the world.

this world and the people in it are so much kinder and gentler than you were made to believe as a scared, lonely child hiding in your bedroom. allow yourself to accept that kindness without shying away from it for fear that you don’t deserve it, for fear that you didn’t earn it. you don’t need to earn love — you never did. and you have always deserved it.

José Carlos Somoza, The Athenian Murders

life is vulnerability

it's like i think i'm doing good + then i have a day that just knocks me off from my feet and i'm just that sad and lonely girl that i've always been

The reoccurring theme of being unwanted in your childhood and seeing yourself as some kind of monster and how you feel like you have to move mountains to get people to like you

Jenny Xie, from The Rupture Tense; "The Rupture Tense"

[Text ID: Years staining from the inside out.]