growing into yourself after prolonged trauma is realizing how much of your personality was shaped by survival
and when looking back at old photos, you can so clearly see the wound + what needed to be held
you must believe you are special and then go so hard, for so long, with such violent refusal to accept any other ending, that reality itself starts running out of ways to tell you no. you must wage a war daily against the ordinary outcome, until the belief you invented out of nothing in a room by yourself has been hammered into the world so many times that it stops being a claim and becomes reality.
whoever said “you MUST BY ALL MEANS develop a strong opinion of yourself so you don't end up internalizing the beliefs others have of you” changed my life.