If you're reading this, you have most likely endured some sort of pain in your life. A pain so strong that it felt like you were suffering every minute you experienced it. Maybe even now, you're still suffering and don't know who to go to or what to do. I'm sitting down to tell you everything no one ever told me when I was in pain. I'm sitting down to tell you everything I needed to hear but never heard. Because you are a person worthy of hearing the truth and worthy of help even if you can't see it right now.

The first thing you need to know is that you are not your mistakes. You are not your past. You are not what has been done to you or what you have done to someone else. You are not a grade on a test. Your worth is not measured by the number of people you've slept with. You are not unworthy of someone or something just because you've ran into obstacles and made mistakes in your life. Your mistakes do not define you as a person. You are not defined by your past. Even more so, you have the power to define your future, a future where your past is in the past.

You are not the reflection of those who can't or will not love you. Just because one person doesn't love you, does not mean that no one else does or will. You are more than someone who deems you "unlovable." You deserve more than an unrequited love. In fact, you deserve all the love in the world. Some people are not capable of loving you. That is not your fault in any way, shape, or form. We can't always be loved the way we want to. You are loved even if the person you love the most doesn't love you. You will find someone that loves you entirely and doesn't make you question how they feel. You might not even need to "find" someone necessarily. Sometimes all the love we really need is from our friends and/or our family, who never left us even when the person we loved did.

You are not the opinions of other people. You are not "ugly" or "fat" or whatever someone calls you. You are not defined by other people or the names they call you. You are defined by you and only you. You are not the whispers in the hallway. You are not what someone thinks of you. You are what you think of yourself. It's easy to listen to the chorus of voices ringing in our heads telling us what we are and who we are. You are not defined by the voices taunting you in your head or the thoughts and opinions of your peers. Who you are is a person that is more than how others define you and label you.

Just because you haven't gotten to the point in your life you would like to be, does not mean you aren't going to get there. You are not the amount of money you make or a ring on your finger. You are not a college degree or an acceptance letter into college. You are not a high school diploma or your job. You will get to where you need to be in life because you have struggled and worked hard to get there. Sometimes we have to run into obstacles before we can get to the finish line. You have to go over speed bumps to make it to your final destination.

You are not who hurt you. You are not the scars and bruises on your body. You are not the damage done to your heart. You can overcome all of those things and become a better person because of it. Who hurt you is someone who is unworthy of your heart and you as a person. You are worthy of more than the physical and emotional pain you have gone through. The person that hurt you or the people that hurt you, they do not make up who you are as a person. You are your own individual.

I hope you read these words and understand that they are true. They apply to you and anyone else who has been hurt. You are stronger and smarter because of the mistakes you have made. You are brave to have kept going through every struggle you have encountered. You have kept walking no matter how many times someone has kicked you to the ground. I applaud you for that. It takes a strong person to get up after being beaten to the ground so many times. You should be proud of who you are and what you've become, even if other people aren't. Going through these challenges in life and making mistakes does not make you damaged. It makes you a better person.