When it comes to a kid who's traumatized, maturing splits itself into groups. There's the group everyone notices: the one you get compliments for because you're so much more mature than the other kids your age, the maturity that comes from surviving things too much for a kid to handle. Then there's the other group: the one that develops only after the healing process has started and, in most cases, the trauma has already ended, the maturity not everyone reaches, the one where you slowly learn the skills needed to live a better life and handle situations better, learn how to start liking at least small parts of yourself, deciding you won't grow up to be like the ones who hurt you and putting in the work to make that true. It takes a lot more work to reach that second group. Not because it's harder than surviving the trauma, because that and accepting the realization trauma never leaves even after it's over to everyone else is probably the hardest part, but it's because most people don't notice it. Unless you have people specifically looking for it, you have to figure out how much more mature you've gotten in that second group on your own, and more often than not it feels like you haven't gotten anywhere and that you should just give up or that it's the other person that used to hurt you who's changed and that's why things are better. It's easier to accept beliefs like that sometimes, because you want to believe they've changed. It's both an extremely sad while simultaneously proud moment realizing it was you and not them. I wish more people knew the difference between maturity in knowing how to survive vs the emotional maturity it takes to become a person who can start healing. And that's why telling someone they're mature for their age isn't a compliment. It was a matter of life or death, physically, emotionally, metaphorically, literally, a mix of all, a mix of a couple, that made us this way with so much more to come after so we can live vs just continuing to survive that the non traumatized and emotionally healthy people didn't have to experience because while they grew up maturing in the first group slower, they got to grow in the second group at the same time. So compliment me on how much I've grown if you want, but telling me I'm mature for my age has and always will be an insult.
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12/25/2022
YOU ARE READING
The Knife
PoesieShort story poem thing, lol. Idk, 330 words. Literally. I checked. So just read it. If you don't like it... you wasted like 2 minutes. I did mention stabbing someone, so like... If you're into that it's there... *** Okay, so cuz I made this last yea...
