Like Taylor Swift once said, “This might be hard for you to hear. In your life, you will inevitably misspeak, trust the wrong person, underreact, overreact, hurt the people who didn’t deserve it, overthink, not think at all, self-sabotage, create a reality where only your experiences exist, ruin perfectly good moments for you and others, deny any wrongdoing, not take the steps to make it right, and feel very guilty, let the guilt eat at you, hit rock bottom, finally address the pain you caused, try to do better next time, rinse, repeat. And I am not going to lie; these mistakes will cause you to lose things. I am trying to tell you that losing things doesn’t just mean losing. A lot of times, when we lose things, we gain things, too.”

 These are some of the things we all have experienced in our lives. There are moments when we trust people blindly. Do things they say. Not questioning them but believing them. This might make you think that you are probably too dumb to realize that they are using you. But no, you did it because you believed in them more than you believed in yourself. You trusted them more than you have ever trusted yourself. You wanted them to feel prioritized and special. You wanted them to make the shifts that changed your course of life. Mostly, you allowed them to do that because you believed in them. And then what happens? You are trust broken, shattered into millions of pieces inside you, and now you self-doubt yourself and go through those difficult phases of life that you believed were never meant for you. You fail miserably and let the guilt destroy you. You have trust issues now and think you are a mess. You are not capable of loving anyone. You still question yourself every day if you are better or not. You start acting differently, create distance, inevitably mistreat people, and are absolutely unsure of what will happen with your life and where it is even taking you. And you know what? None of this is your fault; it’s the situation you are in right now.

 (They say your trauma made you stronger.)

 No, my trauma made me traumatized; it made me weak. Gave me sleepless nights and memory loss. It gave me feelings I’ve never wanted or deserved. I dealt with my trauma by dragging myself. And dealing with consequences that were never my fault. No, my trauma did not make me stronger. I am the one who made myself strong. And believe that. Believe you deserve better. You are strong and not alone. No, you are not in a mess. You are just afraid of hurting yourself and, in the process, hurting others. You are just confused, but it’s absolutely okay. We all go through that. We all have been through that. So no, you are not alone.

 Looking rationally won’t lead you anywhere except judging yourself repeatedly. Sometimes, positivity can defeat rationality. Think positively. We do not have the power to change our past, but we do have the power to do something better and change our future.

My advice is to keep an open mind and an open heart, and most importantly, keep yourself open and move along with your journey. Life has so much to offer you, and you truly deserve it.

This was written by our contributing writer, Atia Sanjida.