Who I am not who am I

I'm 20 now and only on a whim am I writing on here again, after seeing a photo of me when I was 18 with long hair, with my birth name, the old me, the person I was born to be. Still broken and damaged but at least I was who I was. And as I looked at that photo i didn't resent the girl in it, in fact I felt a lot of love for her. I instead questioned the path I myself had took in changing my hair and changing my name and identifying myself to be this completely different person. And to a degree it worked, but there was always still traits of my old self within me. For example I am still kind, I value kindness a lot, I still love and forgive a lot more than I probably should.

But I asked myself, what led me to changing my name? Why had I hated my old self so much? Why did I quite literally want to kill her? And try very much to an extent.

I thought it was everything, I thought it was because of my Dad. Things my Dad had done to me that I'd never told anybody. Or it was everything everybody else had done to me, abuse and...well you know what I'm talking about.

And then I thought no it wasn't that that killed me. It wasn't any of that that had broken me I was too resilient and strong for it to be any of that. So I knew it had to be my biggest weakness, the pinnacle of my life and the one person who has complete control over me, but the one person who would never abuse it.

My now boyfriend.

You know, the guy i told you about i was in love with him, he broke my heart blah blah, I've discussed parts of the ins and outs of him so you all know.

It was him. I didn't want to be the person he didn't love and didn't want. I couldn't live being that person, so I changed myself to be someone complete independent of family of him of everything. Somebody who would be in complete control of myself. But thats never the case, the realism of that is so minute.

We choose what hurts us and what changes us to an extent, and to an extent we have no choice at all. But what we can control is how we adapt to those circumstances, do we give in and give up on who we actually are. Or do we find a path in which at the moment feels tolerable and work ourselves up from there.

I am facing a lot of new feelings writing this. I'm allowing parts of who I was to speak again and come to the front of who i am so i am allowing myself to be hurt again and I am allowing myself to simply be kind and thoughtful and opinionated. I am allowing myself to be the person the love of my life loves. My family are still not my family, i still would prefer no association because its all been tainted, its all wrong its all fake and fractured memories, and silenced walls.

But I know what I want for myself and i know who I am and it has taken me years and years and my hair is growing back and I am still my new name. my real name.

But I am, always will be, always have been. Juliet. The Juliet the love of my life loves.

I think I'll be getting back into this. This was just a preview.

All my love,

Juliet X