Letter to my teenage self

Dear Bridie,

I'm sorry you're hurting right now, I know you are. I can't make it stop. I wish I could but unfortunately, you will have to feel every ounce of this pain on your own. People can and will try to help but they can't fix this.

I know you cry at night, you wake up each morning and feel physically ill (some times you are literally ill)
I know you hate yourself inside and out. I know you wish you could be different. Be anyone else, well I can't change that either sorry.

I want so badly to fix these things for you now so you don't have to go through years (yes, years) of hurt. Because I'm also sorry to tell you, it gets worse before it gets better. But please, please believe me when I say it really does get better.

It's not just a tired cliche, you do have an extremely hard road ahead. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, you have to put in a lot of effort even on days when you want to give in, on days when you have bad and scary thoughts. YOU are strong enough not to act on them. YOU stick around, you keep going. YOU do those things, you are so much stronger and braver than you ever give yourself credit for (we still struggle a bit today)

I wrote this because, we are in the best place we have ever been in our life and it keeps getting better each day. I thought you might want this letter. So on your darkest day, you know there is light. You can't see it yet but it's there. (Please trust me)

Here are some things you will experience to help you through. (not in order)

Our family gets bigger and so much better and you will love the extra additions like they're your own children, they also adore the bones of you just the way you are.

We aren't straight. (shocker) if you really think about it though, it makes sense. Look at all the crushes you have, or people you want to be "super best friends" with.

We do lose the weight*
disclaimer, we do get bigger before we make a change, but it happens. I know you're worried that we won't look good even if we lost weight. Spoiler we are fucking hot!

You will lose your virginity.
You're not going to die a virgin it's fine. relax.

And you meet someone absolutely fantastic.
(he just proof read this and complained we didn't mention his name, but we still won't because we're still annoying :D )

I hope this helps us when we're down.

Love, Bridie xx