Andie.ink

I resemble the people who hurt me the most. Both in looks and personality.
One biological.
One adopted.

I’ve shared about some of my struggles with Dissociative Identity and Body Dysmorphic Disorder. About how I hate my body, my face, and my character traits. About how so much in me comes from those who harmed me the most my brain can’t recognize my own face sometimes.

But I realized tonight as I lay next to a child who doesn’t understand we spent good money on her bed and mattress…
She doesn’t know or understand any of that… Any of my internal struggles… She doesn’t see any of the pain I walk through my day holding just as Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress carried his burden.

I realized laying here cheek to cheek with a child that may one day know exactly how I feel… to her… to any of my children… I only look like Mom.

I don’t look identical to a person who chose to give up her child after being given a chance to keep me.

I don’t look like a sexual abuser who placed their anger on me and blamed me for their pain.

I just look like Mom.

Their safe place.

Their person.

To me my body represents abandonment, rejection, anger, disgust, and shame.

But to them.

It’s home.

It’s time I welcome myself home.