Dear Hannah Lord:

Thank you for sharing your experience and feelings.

You wrote: “And I remember feeling so desperate and so alone. I felt that way because I couldn’t accept who I was and everything unique and special about me.”-

A child, and an adult child, rejects himself/ herself only after being rejected by a parent, or a parent figure. Clearly you were rejected before you rejected yourself.

You mentioned physical pain in comparison to emotional pain, and a stay in a hospital- would you like to elaborate?

anita