You have spent so long believing the worst about yourself that even kindness feels like a lie. Praise sounds like pity, affection feels undeserved, and the smallest criticism becomes proof of everything you fear about yourself. Perhaps the cruelest thing a person can do is spend so many years hating themselves that they no longer recognise love when it finally finds them.

There is a peculiar kind of suffering in knowing yourself too well. You begin to recognise your own weaknesses, understand the reasons behind your actions, and see the damage you cause yourself, yet somehow you continue to repeat the same mistakes. You become both the prisoner and the guard, the wounded and the one who keeps reopening the wound. The most painful part is that you can no longer blame ignorance. You know what is destroying you, yet a part of you still reaches for it. And perhaps the cruelest realisation is sometimes, the person standing between you and the life you desire is the person you see in the mirror.