“Dear Jade
You’re just turning fifteen. The end is in sight. In one year you will be able begin forming your own destiny as an adult and no one will be able to stop you.
At this point in time you are alone. You are desperately alone. You live for the two evenings a week where you can feel something at a film club in Launceston. There are many cool people and there is a boy whom you quite like but nothing will happen with him. Instead you’ll date the boy who is your closest friend at this point. This relationship won’t last, life moves on but he will be dear to you and you will be dear to him.
The two evenings at the film club though feel like they give you purpose. The rest of the time you spend alone in your room, walking the dogs or with other people but feeling detached and never really involved. There is a force in your life in the form of a guardian. He tells you he loves you like a daughter and then tells you you’re a failure in life. You believe him for a time but eventually you’ll learn that everything is not as it seems.
Over the past few years my little dove, you have been suffering from depression. Teenage years are hard enough without the added bonus of divorced parents, megalomanic guardian and confidence issues which leaves you with a crippling fear of kids your own age. You’ve run away once but didn’t get far and have received a telling off which will ensure you don’t do it again. This cry for help goes largely unnoticed. Your distant father doesn’t bat an eyelid. Every night you go to bed you wonder what tomorrow will bring. This optimism that drives you with hope that one day it will get better. It does get better but you’ll have a tough crawl up hill first. Sorry about this but our life has not been easy.
I remember one point where we were walking along the road side. We hadn’t washed our hair in days, we were around thirteen maybe fourteen at this point and we didn’t like to be noticed. Large coat against the wind accompanied by tracksuit bottoms and expensive trainers. Our trainers were always expensive even if the rest out of clothing wasn’t. In the distance of Upper Fore Street in Bodmin we saw a truck driving towards us. In that moment we wondered if it would hurt to throw ourself underneath this truck. Would it kill us instantly? We stop by the road and wait for it as it drives towards us. We think, it could all be over and we would go to sleep. A thought creeps into our mind telling us that no, it will get better. Our pain will cease and our scars will heal. We will keep going and we will not let him win.
We are told things a child should not be told. We struggle with these secrets and the gravity of the situation. This is not taken seriously. These secrets affect those closest to us and change everything forever.
Our guardian is unkind. We are told at the tender age of thirteen that we loved but not liked. That we will never amount to much. We smell. We are ugly. We are a failure. We are not allowed to be in the same room as him. We are the devil. We are manipulative. We don’t matter. We have got to shut up. We are wrong. We cannot eat that because it is too good for us. We cannot catch watch TV because we’ve been bad. We need to stay in our room for the next few days to think about what we have done. We are a person only a parent could love. We are lazy. We lack motivation.
This preys on our mind and the little voice in our head takes on a male tone over and over again we look into the mirror wanting to disappear. We want it to be all ok. The grey clouds rumble ahead and we cannot see the light but we know its there.
We have hope. So you should because I will let you into a secret. It does get better. We win. You, my little ombre, will find your feet. It takes a little while. You make some bad decisions and you have to go through several reincarnations before you find out who you are. When you do though it falls into place. We become stubborn because we know that where we are now has taken everything we’ve got.
It took everything we had to keep walking when we could have tried to end it. It took everything to not pick up the bottle of aspirins in the bathroom. He was just a man but you are so much more.
You won.
Yours,
Your future self.”
I have written this letter for several reasons. Today is International Women’s Day. Today we thank our sisters who gave up everything for our freedom and look to the future to see where we need to go next. But every battle is personal. Collectively we need the move forward and embrace gender equality but every single one of us pursues our own goals. We must overcome our own obstacles but we must support each other in doing that.
In my life I can think of a handful of people who inspired me to drive forward. When I was fifteen though, it was the leader of the film club Krystyna. She is a remarkable woman to whom I owe a lot. I have sadly never been able to give anything back personally to her despite the enormity of what she gave me and therefore I hope instead that one day I’ll be able to repay her by being there for someone else who needs it.
Secondly as part of our personal battles we seek to win what is in our mind can be one of the hardest. Sometimes you just cannot switch the “TV” off. Sometimes it just ticks away in your mind and you cannot get away. It is several years since I have plunged the depths of the dark pool of depression but I will never forget the feeling of helplessness and darkness that can overshadow everything you do. Someone telling you to “smile” just won’t cut it.
This moment right here is a moment where I am pausing and looking back. Scars do heal over time but our experiences shape us into who we are. We never forget but we can learn.
This hope which kept me going through my teenage years is what fuels me now. This is why I believe in change and I have faith in the human race. Hope keeps us ticking over. No one will ever convince me this is just the way it is and nothing can change. If I believed that I wouldn’t be here now.
Much love.
