I am sixteen years old, and I have endured an experience unlike anyone else that I know, something no one—especially someone my age—should have to go through. For two years starting when I was thirteen, someone whom I loved most in the world held me in an abusive and toxic environment. After years of this trauma, I finally said goodbye to this person; my life changed far more than I thought it would. Since then, my life has had many ups and downs. The road to recovery is long and hard, and I have a long way to go, but I’m doing my best every day and making good progress as a result.

I am not my body; because I was being used for my body for such a long time in my life, I began to believe that that was the only thing I had to offer. I would base my self-worth on the attention given to me because of my body. Inevitably, after I left the toxic situation, I started to hate my body more than ever. I convinced myself that I wasn’t pretty enough or skinny enough for anyone to love me. Thus, I was sucked into the dark world of s*lf-h*rm. Now, a year and a half later, I have many new self-induced scars on my body. I don’t look the same as I did back then. I look like I’ve been through a lot, and I have.

I am not my mind; because of the circumstances I was in, many repetitive thoughts made their way into my mind. I say phrases such as, “I'm sorry for bothering you,” or “I’m sorry for asking for your time,” and even “I’m sorry for trying to talk to you” in almost every conversation I have because I truly feel like an annoyance to everyone. I can’t go a day without thinking that all the people in my life would be better off if I just talked less. Another thought I have is, “If I'm not doing anything for them, they won't have a use for me and they will leave me.” Things like these have made having relationships in my life difficult, but the more I tell myself that I am more than my past, the more I begin to believe it.

I am not my brain; I have always been a strong student in school, excelling in all my classes. There were people who saw this and decided to take advantage of it. I was manipulated into doing other people’s schoolwork for them. I’m not talking about just letting people copy my answers; I would do people’s classwork and homework even if we weren’t taking the same classes. I loved these people so much that I would’ve done anything for them no matter how much it destroyed me.

I may not be fully healed, but I am fully committed to healing myself no matter how long and hard the process may be. I still struggle every day, but I make choices that help push me in the right direction. Even though I still have a very long road to recovery ahead of me, I can say that I’ve started my journey and I can see a lot of improvement in myself. Just because I was dealt a bad hand early in life, it will not determine the path for the rest of my life. The choices I make, not my past, define who I am. Right now, this is a large mountain I’m struggling to climb, but many years from now I will see this as a mere bump in the road.

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