moebius syndrome: 2017 awareness day

I wish that I liked you, I wish that I could see past what you've done to me and move on, but I can't. I am so hung up on the way you've turned my life completely upside down and left it strewn in pieces right in front of me. I look at myself in the mirror and pretend to accept what I see, but how can I? I am not the person that you have made me, but I can't escape myself. 

I try to say the right things to the people around me so they don't realise just how broken you have left me. But it's hard when I can't face my own face. I can't escape you, you're the first thing that people see. People always say that a face can tell a thousand stories, but you've left me with just one, yours. 

People say that I have you in my life for a reason. But what if I don't? What if it's purely a coincidence, a genetic fate that was predetermined upon conception? There are over seven billion people on this planet, and one in two million babies are born with you. Why did one of them have to be me? I am not this strong entity that can cope with you or be a better person because of having you in my life. I hate you. I hate that you have stolen from me the normality that I so desperately crave. 

I would give everything that I have in the world for other people to see me how I see myself - without you. But that can never happen, you've robbed me of that as well. I don't want to relate to you, or to think that you're in my life to make me a better, more resilient person. I am those things and so much more, but it is nothing to do with you. 

I am strong because I have courage to keep going, even though I hate myself. I am strong because I try to look past you and see the person that I was always meant to be. I am strong because I do not let you define my inner beauty in the same way that you dictate my outward appearance. I am the person that I am today not because of you, but because of me. Whilst you will you always be a part of my story, you will never be part of me.