Dear Self,

If I have the conviction that other people who have abused you should acknowledge it and apologize, rather than denying it was abuse, or putting you down because it still hurts you, I should expect no less of me. I am so sorry I have been adding to the abuse you have suffered. Just because others are no longer physically or verbally abusing you doesn't mean I should pick up where they left off. You don't deserve any of it, and you never did.

You are beautiful and intelligent. We all have things society would like us to change about our appearance, but that's only because someone wants to get rich by convincing us that we need their product in order to be beautiful. Don't you believe a word of it. You are beautiful just the way you are.

We all make mistakes. Don't let the fact that you don't know something, or are slow to catch on, lead you to think you're stupid. Remember the cynic's dictionary and its definition of a stupid person: "Someone who doesn't know something I learned yesterday." Will Rogers said, "We are all ignorant, only on different subjects." You are a wonderfully intelligent person with a gifted mind.

Furthermore, you have overcome mountainous obstacles just to get to be where you are. To be as close to normally functioning as you are has taken tremendous efforts on your part, and that only shows your incredible strength. If life is a foot race, everyone doesn't begin at the same starting line. You had to work hard for many years just to get to the same point the average person begins at. Don't judge yourself in relation to where others are. Evaluate yourself instead for the distance you've run to get where you are, compared to the distance others have run to get where they are. They were born with a head start, and you were born with extra distance to cover. You have had to catch up. And you've done a fantastic job of it. Look at you, catching up with all those people who were born so far ahead of you. You've even passed several of them.

With all this in mind, you deserve for me to tell you uplifting things and to encourage your self-esteem, not to echo what others in the past have said to you, because they were wrong. When you were a child, authority figures smacked you and called you stupid when you made a mistake. They were wrong to do this. I am wrong to keep on doing it. I am sorry for abusing you.

Love,
Me