Woman I Is – Forgiving Our Past Selves

For so long, I have punished myself for my emotions. I have stood in front of mirrors, tears running down my cheeks, wishing that I wasn’t so “sensitive.” Hidden away in dark rooms to keep my hysteria contained. Looking back on frustrations, cursing myself for even caring. Always scrutinising my reaction, never the action that provoked it.

Only recently have I discovered the words to explain all the hurt I have faced over the years. All of the hurt women have faced for much longer. There’s no point in pretending I am above feeling wounded just because my experiences may not measure up to others. I have shut down on myself, judged my own sorrow just in case someone else was watching.

My private journal filled with lies. Filled with a false strength. Filled with words to keep up an image. To never be viewed as crazy, dramatic, sensitive, emotional. Anything that exposed my humanity. Tucked away.

I’ve always heard the stories of women feeling hopeless, weak, and disadvantaged even in today’s modern world. I have seen women around me grow frustrated and feel that the only way to find peace is to be silent.

Women warned me: if I speak up, if I get angry, if I argue, I will fail. I will be dismissed, just as they have. I knew this, believed them. I had experienced sprinkles of this dismissal, and yet it wasn’t until I left the safe bubble of high school that I saw the world for what it truly is.

It wasn’t until I found myself in a relationship that mirrored the stories I’d been hearing my whole life. It wasn’t until I was so lost and no one, not even another woman, was perceptive enough to meet my struggle with empathy.

The few people I reached out to insisted that any issue was no one’s fault but my own. Any small part of pride I had dissipated.

I was so hateful. Not towards the one who tarnished me. Not towards the friends who judged me. Not towards those who gossiped about my idiocy behind my back.

But myself. For being spineless. For going against every value I had ever named.

I think back on this period with such frustration. Emotions, like colours, flood my vision rapidly as I try to walk – so cautiously I force myself to keep ahead.

I like to think that no matter what, I will always have my own back, and for the most part, I do. I regularly wish that I could go back in time and give my old self the correct words to use. To transfer my knowledge into her brain. To tell her the people she is focusing on repairing are not her responsibility. That the disrespect she bears is a direct product of sociological structures, not a fault at her hands.

But I find myself stuck. Cemented in a position where I know the only reason I found any sense of clarity is because of what I went through. I would forgive any other person for treating me with irreverence, so why shouldn’t I forgive myself?

Suddenly, all of the stories, all of the women, all of the hate come into one. Moments where my closest friends criticised me. Where other girls put me down in front of boys. Where I gossiped about another person just to look cool.

They connect. They make sense. I forgive them. I forgive myself. I let go.

Women learn a new insecurity daily. I see it at work. I see it online. Women put each other down in an attempt to fit into a world that was never sized for us in the first place. Women laugh at jokes used to belittle us. We comply. We hide. We listen. We understand.

I forgive us for “letting” society pull the carpet from underneath us, just as I forgive myself for “letting” bad things happen to me. Because never do we choose to endure pain. We didn’t choose oppression. But what we can choose is to find a medium that allows us to strengthen what we already know and build.

Forgive her. Forgive yourself.