Words cut

It’s hard to see the goodness in the world when all you’ve been shown is the bad.

How do you believe it when he tells you that you’re beautiful when so many before did nothing but point out your flaws?

There’s an innate fear that is built from the trauma of life. When you’ve only ever known struggle, chaos, and instability, these create a constant need to hustle, to never stop moving. Because once you stop the insecurity sets in, the what ifs begin to flood your mind.

So many times any compliment was immediately followed with something negative. Or a “you’d be so pretty if…” Or, “wow you worked hard today, but…. Let me tell you how it’s not enough, and that I worked so much harder.”

“You can’t possibly be tired, your job isn’t physical.”

“Maybe if you were smaller.”

“Don’t you want people to be able to tell if you’re pregnant?”

People will say it’s not physical, so it can’t be abuse. “You’ll get over it.”

Let’s go back further.. the words began much earlier. The jokes about the buck teeth, the donkey sounds following me to the bus.

The comments about the redness of my cheeks, and the freckles.

The always classic, “does the carpet match the drapes?”

These are only some of the little cuts I’ve endured. Words meant to hurt, to bully, to control.

Comments which lead to someone who wore makeup all the time, and to do anything possible to make the unruly red hair a little less in your face.

For so long I’ve hid myself from everyone. Taught time and again that I’m too much or just wrong. Told I’m not special, or worth fighting for. Not someone men are proud to call their own.

You would think that with all those words tearing me down I wouldn’t be kind. That it would be justified for me to never trust anyone, love with my whole heart, or let myself be seen.

The truth is I spend so much time trying to be kind, genuine and loving. I will always give without expecting anything in return. But the reason I am this way is twofold.

First, I do not wish anyone to ever feel pain inflicted by my words.

Second, being busy making others happy, distracts most people long enough not to really get close enough to hurt me.

But then came you. You see all the pieces that make me who I am. While I still struggle to accept it when you tell me I’m amazing, and I don’t always see the beauty you claim to…. I’m trying to accept that you love me for who I am.

It’s a scary thing to be happy and to trust someone with your heart. Especially when you’ve been taught time and again that you don’t deserve it.

There’s a perpetual feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop. But each time you reassure me, with a simple kiss or phone call just to say you love or miss me… that little knot of dread loosens a bit.

I can only hope that, should you have similar fears, to be able to calm the storm that stirs inside. As you do for me.