I’m 14- I’ll be 15 within the month, and I cant remember hardly anything of my childhood up until 14. I get that this is the time of edgy posting, with puberty and all that, no? But all I ask of you is to keep an open mind while you listen. I hope writing to you helps me recall.

But this has been bothering me in a way I can’t quite explain, an ache within me that tells me something is wrong. I feel like as a person, I only exist on the surface, an outer shell without a solid inner being. Or maybe it’s the other way around, like I’m buried in someone else? I don’t know where I am, but i’m not whole. I don’t know who I am, I do I know that’s still forming- normal at this age, but I feel like I was thrown into this body a year ago to pick up the pieces of someone who left without a trace. It’s so frustrating because WHERE DID THAT PERSON GO and why did they LEAVE me here. They’re not something I can prove, the only evidence I have of them is what people who knew them tell me.

But stay with me. The first time I felt awake or present as the me now was January 12th 2025, a MONTH ago, like I was shook from a daze. This might sound batshit insane to you, but remember what I’ve told you above. when my sibling made jest about part of my mother’s beating of me I didn’t even know took place, he asked, “You don’t remember?” I didn’t, but I *felt* it and was sure, like the flood the damn held crashed into me and swept me from my stagnant state. my heart began to race- head light and breath hard to find, panic, I needed to excuse myself. It took me days, but when I broke down, i finally felt like a breathing human again, for something I hardly think happened to me- like I recovered a piece of an otherwise blank slate (the beatings do not go on to this day, we have a good relationship). I journaled comprehensively about it. That was the first time I’ve felt connected to… something? I remember telling someone that I felt weird after that day, like a different person, that hasn’t gone away. But being able to remember something makes me realize how much I can’t remember, and that drives me insane. I try to remember why I still do things I do, what’s influences it, why I’m so anxious about people finding something out about me (that I don’t even know ?), so conscious about the words I use to formulate my thoughts, why they take so long for me to express, why I care about people, why I was too depressed to get out of bed a few months ago or to even hold friendships with people- and how all that just changed with a snap? That isn’t how it works. That’s what makes it even harder to trust myself as I am now. People ask me questions about myself, about an integral part of me, and I stare into space without finding a single answer. It makes me feel like I’m not real.

I’ve stumbled upon an old video of me today, one I had no recollection of, happily squealing in play with my family in our old apartment- and it sent me into a panic like the one before, it’s what got me to write this to you. There was nothing wrong with the content, but I’ve discovered it might be because I couldn’t identify that person as *me*, or seeing that apartment again paralyzed me with indescribable fear- and in tandem made me feel I was losing hold on myself again.

Enough of me. If you made it this far, I implore your perspective on the matter. How can I find what I’ve lost? Or center myself right again as this foreign person? Please leave your thoughts below if you have any- if you relate, or just wanna comment, I appreciate any of it.

Thank you -Anonymous scourge fan

Stories in the same category