Letter to my Younger Self

I was asked to take part in an art project for a participation programme for Goldsmiths College. We were asked to write a letter to our 15 year old selves, and then a 15 year old would respond with a letter in reply. Here was my letter to myself. It was painful but cathertic and I would recommend doing this to anyone.

Acceptance will come when you stop pretending to be someone that you are not.

Aged 15, you are so painfully shy that you are outspoken, loud, a motor-mouth. You are so unsure of your feelings that you need to voice them so people can tell you they are real. You worry so much about what other people think. You will think that you are being open. You are not. You will think that by being open you are drawing people closer. You are not. You are pushing them away. I wish I could tell you that you do not need to do this – people will love you for you, not a projection of you.

You do not have to be who you think people want you to be - not being yourself is a form of lying about who you really are. You can talk about your achievements. To do so does not mean you are showing off. You can take credit where credit is due. Your needs and wants are not nothing, You do not have to be so desperate to be liked that you feel you can’t ask for help. Ask for help. You need it.

No one will love you less by admitting that you are not always strong. You do not always have to be strong. You do not always have to be the best. You are allowed to fail. You do not need to always be in control, as you will overburden yourself, and people won’t understand your frustration and sadness. To control is dismissive of others who would do things a different way. Why is your way better than theirs? Do not make them feel you do not care about what they think – because you do.

Talk. Talk. Talk some more. Don’t stop talking when the words get difficult to say. These are the words you need to say and the words people need to hear. Be loving. Be kind. Be caring. Be gentle. Be loving. Be kind. Be caring. Be gentle. Everyone is merely finding their own way, and you can never know what has happened to them, or what could happen. Life is long. 

Your body is yours to do with as you wish, and don’t let anyone tell you how you should use it, adorn it, or offer it to others. Do not spend time devising ways to punish yourself for its aesthetic failings. Instead use the time to play, sing, laugh, write, create, have fun. Please have fun. Please don’t let life crush your sense of silliness. Laughter helps.

You will go mad. You will lose control of yourself and psychiatrists will tell you what label can be applied to you, what medications you need to take to stop your thoughts spiralling. Counsellors will make you unpick buried memories, navigate neural pathways, explore past traumas. Listen, learn, but be sceptical. Do not pathologise your personality. Do not let them break your sense of self. There are good things about a brain that can’t stop thinking sometimes.

There is a part of you that will always be sad, and there is a joy in that. Every bad thing is an opportunity to learn. You will hate people who will say that to you when you are in what seems like the bottomless pit of despair you will find yourself in. But you will learn that they are right, once you are able to re-align those misfiring synapses. You will lose everything. But when you get it back again, it will seem all the sweeter. It will get better. It will. It will.

These experiences will make you who you are. Do not be afraid to love. Do not be afraid to do. Do not be afraid to try. Do not be afraid to fail. Do not not be you. Just please be you.