The Right to Exist

It has taken me over fifty years to realise something that should be obvious: I have as much right to be here as anyone else.

That sentence might seem simple, but for most of my life, I didn’t believe it. Not really. Not deep down where it matters.

Like many people, I was shaped by words spoken to me in my formative years; words that, even when the person who said them was no longer in my life, still echoed in my mind. If you’d asked me, I would have insisted they had no power over me. And yet, they did. For years, I carried a weight I didn’t fully understand, because I never made the connection.

The words that stayed with me, the ones that hurt the most, implied that I should not exist. That my presence in the world was a mistake. Worse still, that is was the single force that destroyed others lives. And so, without even realising it, I spent my life feeling like I wasn’t meant to be here. That I was in the way. That I ruined lives by being in them. That I had to justify my existence, prove my worth, or at least be what others wanted me to be, as if I owed the world an apology just for existing.

For years, I lived with that belief, never questioning where it came from. I just thought that was how I was; broken, inherently wrong, somehow fundamentally flawed. An infection towards others’ well being.

Until two years ago.

Two years ago, I finally saw the link. I saw how those words, spoken so long ago, had shaped my self-perception. I saw that my core struggle, the one that had haunted me all my life, was built on a foundation of someone else’s words. Words that were never true.

And with that realisation came something life-changing: the understanding that I do not need to fight to exist. I do not need to prove my right to be here. I do not need to be anything other than myself.

I can simply be.

If you have ever felt this way, if you have ever questioned your place in the world, I want you to know this: you belong here. You have the same right to exist as anyone else. You do not need to earn it. You do not need permission. You do not have to fit into someone else’s mould. You are enough, exactly as you are.

It has taken me a lifetime to fully embrace this truth, but I am here now. And if you are still carrying the weight of words that were never yours to bear, I hope one day you will lay them down too.

Because you, too, can simply be.