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84 Write a letter to your younger self (05/07/2023)
Hey young BG,
I hope life is going alright for you. This is BG from the future or you when you are an adult. I know you recently celebrated your 13th birthday after immigrating to the US. In this letter, here is some advice. If you choose not to follow my advice, that's completely fine. Worst case scenario, you end up like me.
For some background, I am currently 22 and about to be 23 in three months. I am currently deployed in the US army for 10 months total and I am 7 months in. It's ok so far but I have had a lot of time to think.
"Teach a man to lift, and he will lift for a day. Give a man body dysmorphia, and he will lift for life."
I fucking hate my life. I am full of regrets wishing that I did more stupid shit as a teenager. I wished that I had talked more, had more fun, and was socially competent of dating others. I am full of regrets constantly trying to overcompensate for my youth that I lost. You know how lifters lift because of body dysmorphia. I self-improve constantly because I have life dysmorphia. No matter how much I improve, I never feel like it will be enough to overcompensate to make me feel like I avenged my shitty childhood, teenagerhood, and young adulthood. This is solely caused by the trauma I feel everyday of feeling like I missed out on all the fun everyone else was having while I was being anti-social stuck in my own room.
A part of me wants to blow my head off right now but I also realize that if I did, then I would die as a nobody who never amounted to anything. Not only will I cause trauma to my friends and family, but I will also bring shame to them as well. Why the fuck was I born? Why was I given the green card? Why was I voted for AS representative, or AS Student resource board member? Why was I the one picked to be mentored by my older sister or why did my best friends choose to hang out with me when they could have hung out with somebody way more confident and funny? Why me?
I don't know. BG from 10 years ago, even knowing I will be this miserable in 2023, I don't think past me would change at all. I used to be a persistent bastard back then and I am still now. I am still clinging on to the false delusions of glamor from my overcompensation. The road ahead of me appears to be full of wonderful things that I end up rejecting because I am so obsessed with my past failures.
I have family and friends that I care about but I am scared of losing them. In pursuit of self-improvement, I have isolated myself from them and if I continue this, the damage to our relationships will be irreparable.
Why am I even writing this letter? I can't change the past. Yet I still write.
Best,
BG from 05/07/2023
85 Write a letter to your future self (05/07/2023)
Hey future BG 10 years from now or 50 or 88 years from now. If you are reading this, then that means I haven't killed myself or got murdered in some back alleyway.
What am I supposed to tell you? Everything I know, you know as well because you are me from the future. You know that I am miserable right now and I constantly feel like a failure and disappointment inside. Does it get better at all? Why am I constantly in pain and in regret?
I admit that I blame most of my problems to my circumstances. I didn't ask to be bullied and betrayed in 7th grade, I didn't ask to live in 3 different countries, I didn't ask to live in a strict household with an immigrant bubble in America. I didn't ask for any of those things. I just wanted to be a normal kid like everyone else. I wanted to be accepted. I wanted to be able to have fun the same way everyone else seemed to be having fun at school. Years of social paranoia and slow mental development got the best of me. Even now it is.
Blaming those things for the last 22 years hasn't improved my life much. It wasn't my fault those things happened to me, but it's my responsibility now to decide what to do going forward.
It's up to me decide whether I want to spend the next 20 years of my life keeping those problems bottled up and just writing them in private while I suffer in silence and hold a grudge against everyone else who don't seem to be suffering like I do. A part of me wishes for other people to suffer as well so that they too would understand what I am going through and I wouldn't feel as alone in this world.
Or I can start being more honest about who I am and I start therapy. Rather than overcompensate, I accept my losses, my shitty past, and try to avoid ruining my adulthood as well in pursuit of avenging my lost youth. Maybe I begin to find peace and freedom from my trauma and pain. Maybe I stop being obsessed with self-improvement and actually be present with my friends and family. Only you know the answer as to what I end up doing.
Best,
BG from 05/07/2023
