I was a hypersensitive child. My emotions were raw and ever present. It wasn’t necessarily understood, rather it was met with impatience. I was good at maths and a fast runner so it allowed me to build a more satisfying image for the people around me, but the truth is that I didn’t feel that it was ok to be me.

Throughout my life, this feeling of failing to be the person people wanted me to be has created more damage than anyone would think. I felt that I was not “right”; I didn’t think of myself as being truly acceptable as I was. I wasn’t perfect and I never will be, but now I know there's nothing wrong with me. I am who I am and I've learned to be make the best of what makes me.

When I think of my younger self, I have so much compassion for her and understanding of who she was and the potential she carried. I have wept at the carnage that ensued not feeling "right": the hurt, the guilt, the shame, the lack of self-belief, the failures. 

Things could have been different if I had thought that it was ok to be who I was, but the cruellest part of life is that you can never go back, so you just try to make do or you try to make it better somehow.

I have been thinking about acceptance because, let’s face it, if you don’t accept what you can’t change, suffering becomes your daily companion. But here is where I am following a different path right now; I don’t want to brush it off, accept what was, dust myself then move on. I want to follow the threads back to who I was in the first place, fully embrace this person, love and celebrate her.

We can’t truly embrace all that we are now, if we don’t embrace who we were and who we have been with the idea that there was never anything wrong with ourselves — we were just the way we were born, HSP, ADHD, warts and all. I see it as detective work and I am trying to be curious rather than overly emotional. Above all, I remind myself to keep my face to the sun.

Valerie 

http://valeriemarsh.com