Dear 16-year-old me,

This post is part of the Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge hosted by WEGO Health. I will be writing a post a day for all 30 days. You can learn more about it here:http://info.wegohealth.com/HAWMC2012.

Today’s topic:

Write a letter to yourself at age 16. What would you tell yourself? What would you make your younger self aware of?

Dear 16-year-old me,

I could tell you all the things that are going to happen in the next 10 years, but I think it would take some of the fun out of living. So, instead, let me tell you the life lessons I have learned in that decade of life…

You…

…are so much stronger than you think you are. You can deal with so much more that life throws at you than you can even imagine.

…are not alone in this world. Friends and family will support you. Stop trying to do everything all by yourself. Life doesn’t work that way.

…need to remember that things that don’t always go the way you plan. You have to accept this, and believe that something else will work out that will still make you happy.

…ought to understand that some things aren’t meant to last. Enjoy them while you have them, and let them go in peace.

…need to believe that you are beautiful – no matter what. This means no matter the weight gain, the puffy face, the swollen joints, the hair loss, or the face rashes.

…should realize that friends who abandon you when they hear news that should make them want to support you were never truly your friends in the first place. Let them go. You’re better off without them.

…must learn to take chances. This means putting yourself out on that ledge that you’re so scared of, and not hiding behind your well-built wall that keeps people out so that they can’t cause you pain. Some things require taking a chance. Yes, you might get hurt … but you life can’t move forward without those risks.

…are a good friend to people, because you love and believe in them. They won’t always be good friends to you. Know that this doesn’t mean that you aren’t worthy of their friendship, but rather that they are not worthy of yours. You don’t need to be a loyal friend to people who aren’t loyal to you. Don’t waste time on people who don’t see your true worth. If they can’t figure out how wonderful you are, it’s their loss. Chasing after them won’t convince them to change their minds. Focus your energy on people who see and love you for you. Those are the people who deserve you.

…must do this most of all: Learn to love yourself. Learn to love yourself despite everything in life that makes you not want to. At the end of the day, only you truly know yourself, and if you don’t love yourself it’s awfully hard for you to let anyone else love you either.

There are so many more things I would love to tell you, but I think some things have to be learned through experience….

Love always,

Shruti

The Ugly Duckling Feeling

This post is part of the Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge hosted by WEGO Health. I will be writing a post a day for all 30 days. You can learn more about it here:http://info.wegohealth.com/HAWMC2012.

Today’s topic:

Ekphrasis Post: Go to flickr.com/explore and write a post inspired by the image. Can you link it to your health focus? Don’t forget to post the image!

This is the randomly generated image that appeared when I typed in the url. (The owner has disabled downloading of her photos, and I want to respect her rights, so you will need to click through to see the picture.)

One of the common stories I grew up with was the story of the “Ugly Duckling” by Hans Christian Anderson. If you didn’t, here’s a quick recap: The “ugly duckling” is actually a cygnet/swanling, but the ducklings don’t know that so they make fun of him for being so ugly. In the end, the “ugly duckling” actually grows up to be a beautiful swan. He doesn’t know this and still thinks that he is ugly. Until the beautiful swans accept him, and he finally sees his own reflection in the water, when he finally realizes that he is a beautiful swan.*

In the picture, the swan seems to be looking at his own reflection in the water. Of course, I can’t read bird expressions, so I have no idea whether or not the swan likes what he sees. I do know that I don’t like what I see in the mirror. Meds can cause weight gain, and symptoms of joint stiffness, pain, fatigue make extensive exercise hard. This means being overweight is something I continually struggle with. To add to this, issues such as feeling like I am less than a fully contributing member of society (or at least not the way I always wanted to be), being chronically single, and often being unable to go out with my friends constantly erode my mental picture of myself. In the end, I feel ugly on the outside with the weight gain, and I feel ugly on the inside because I don’t feel like I have the social life and societal status that I wish I did. Trying to come to terms with these facets of my illnesses is something I struggle with daily. They chip away at my sense of self-worth, and I often feel like the “ugly duckling” when I compare myself to other people. Whether or not those people are actually judging me the way the ducklings judged the “ugly duckling” is open to speculation, and is therefore perhaps a discussion better reserved for a separate post. Regardless, I feel like they judge me that way, and that is what affects me.

The sad thing is, when I look at other people, I look for traits like kindness, compassion, and loyalty. I don’t see them as overweight or underweight or judge them for what they can or cannot do. Yet, I do judge myself for these things superficial things – and I judge harshly. When the “ugly duckling” meets the swans, they accept him into their fold. Just like the chronic disease community accepted me into theirs. Perhaps the rest of society would be willing to do the same, but I’m too scared to find out when the world generally judges the chronically ill so cruelly.

On a rational level, I realize that what I look like isn’t the only thing that’s important about me. I know that there are plenty of things about me that could probably be considered swan-worthy. On a rational level, I can recognize that I’m one of the swans. The problem is that the “ugly duckling” feeling is impenetrable to that common sense. Even though I know that I’m one of the swans, I also still feel like the “ugly duckling.” I can’t seem to reconcile the two, and so the “ugly duckling” feeling keeps feeding the self esteem battering going on in my mind. When I look in the mirror, my head knows that it should be seeing a swan, but instead it sees an ugly duckilng.

Was the “ugly duckling” really even ugly? Of course not, but the other ducklings kept telling him he was. The real tragedy is that he came to believe that he was. Of course, the “ugly duckling” didn’t stay ugly. He became beautiful, he just didn’t know that. Most people seem to think the moral of the story is about him becoming beautiful in the end, even if he was ugly in life. Maybe that’s what Anderson was thinking when he wrote it. I have no idea. In my opinion, that moral misses the point. I think the real ending of the story is when he actually believes that he’s beautiful. After all, who decided that swans are beautiful and ducks aren’t, right? The “ugly duckling” figured it out the first time he saw his reflection in the water. It’s taking me a few more glances at my reflection, I guess.

The point is that at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if people think you’re an ugly duck or a beautiful swan. What matters is that you believe you’re a beautiful swan, and I hope that someday I’ll be able to believe that too.

*NOTE: There are different versions of the story, some more harsh than others. Also, there is all kind of speculation about the meanings behind the story in terms of definitions of worth and hidden meanings about his true father, etc, etc. For the sake of this post, I am taking the story at face value, and seeing it in the way that I saw it as a child. The recap is written accordingly.