I was scrolling my feed on the train an hour ago and came across a post that I've seen before, in one iteration or another. The caption is something like, "What would you say to your younger self?" And the image is of "current-day self" bitchslapping "younger self'. 9 out of 10 times I would have reposted that or at least liked it. Tonight... I couldn't. I can't. I don't want to hit or punish my younger self.

Fot the last few months in therapy we've been unearthing old truma for me to process, because I never did, and overwhelmingly I've been feeling profoundly sad about my young self. So much stuff that shouldn't have happened. So much self-blaming and self-loathing, for things that other people - adults - were responsible for and instead I blamed myself for. I don't want to bitchslap young Misha. I want to find him and hug him, and hold him, and let him know that he is allowed to be sad and hurt. To tell him it was not his fault or responsibility. That the grooming and exploitation was not his fault. That when friends died it was not his fault but the entire system that failed them and that he couldn't have filled the entire Maslow pyramid for them - it wasn't possible, he was only a child.

I want to hug him and grieve with him for all the times he stole alcohol and diazepam just to make his days bearable, crushed by the guilt and self-hatred. I want to comfort him and to lend him my strenght. And I can't, because this young self is gone, and I have only me here thinking these thoughts and... and I'm not yet at the place where I can extend myself the same courtesy. While I hurt for young Misha, curren-day one is still my punching bag and I don't know how to be kind to myself. And I feel guilty and a loser for saying that, but I could really do with showing myself some kindness. i really, really crave a hug and some patience and compassion from my current-day me to my current-day me, and I don't know how to give myself that. i feel very sad tonight.