A Letter for Aug 26, 2026 - 21st Birthday

Dear 21 year old Swetha, I’m writing this from my room in the EDU psych ward currently, 15 minutes before night snack. I don’t know what to write to you because I don’t know how you are, where you’ll be, or what you’ll be doing. If you are still hanging onto your ED, planning to lose weight at the ‘perfect time’, or moving onwards and forward to greener pastures? If you have finally jumped over the fence to see what life is like on the other side? If your mind still tortures you with slideshows of trauma and negative thoughts? It doesn’t seem fair to have spent my teenage years fighting from things that I could have been protected from. It doesn’t seem fair to put all the extra effort in to re-write and re-wire my brain, whilst others can put all their effort into their futures and their real lives. It doesn’t seem fair to have lost myself and to have never fully experienced creating my identity in my prime years. I dont know what I expect from you, to be fully honest. I can’t see myself in ‘all-in recovery’, letting my scars fade instead of making new ones. I can’t see myself not fully letting go of my ED. I see myself putting on a facade, a pause, a fake identity - hoping that if I fake it long enough, it will pass, or I will finally get a chance to starve myself into that perfect skeletal body. But either way, I never want to feel alone. You’ve got your family and they care for you. You’ve got people who love you for your personality and your kindness - Tracey, Lucy, and Lyle even perhaps? It cant be fair to be forced to lose a childhood and then spent your teenage years putting the broken pieces back together. There has to be a way out. And maybe things will fall into the place, at the right time with the right people, because the only way is through. Because you have to trust the process. No one has a magic fortune telling ball and No one can be certain for you. It has to come from within. So find it. Find it for yourself. Find it for me. Find it for the innocent young 8-year-old Swetha who merely wanted the best in the world and dreamt for peace and comfort for all. You’re forced to live your life. So why not enjoy it? Put both feet into the sea and see how it feels. Dipping one toe at a time will never be a genuine replica of fully immersing yourself, so maybe just do it? Maybe just let go for once. Maybe just live. Because you deserve it. It’s only fair. It’s only logical. The other patients here praise your personality and your character - charm, wit, care, love and genuinity. Wouldn’t it be illogical to deny the facts that lie right in front of you? Why can I not believe that I deserve and am allowed to be kind and loved? I hope that you feel slightly more optimistic and self-compassionate. I’m scared for me. I’m scared for you. But time will pass. Lots of Love, 20-year-old Swetha x