You were brought into this life to be someone. Alas, your parents didn’t get the instruction manual either, so there were lots of pages, rules and notations missing.
You were someone before the world knocked you around, off your perch of personhood, making it very difficult to get your bearings.
You were someone: you loved the springtime air, the green grass and sunshine of summer, you loved to read and imagine, you were kind and helpful and interested in others.
Until it all went sideways and you couldn’t stand under the weight of low self-esteem, depression and self-hatred. The onslaught of assaults from others: physical, emotional and mental became too much.
Yet somehow you survived and eventually came through it all and out the other side - the good, positive, healthy side.
So, my advice is to hold on to those threads of who you were born to be, of who you could become, the ground of your being, the essence of goodness and love; the openness and vulnerability of living life, the life you’ve been given and allowing yourself to own and affirm who you are and all that you can become. This is your life. If you don’t live it, who else can or will?
Be strong, be wise, be of good courage, be gentle with that sweet inner essence of you.