To the one who wrote to me

In writing these lines, I hoped my experience might be useful to others. When I was young, I was looking for voices like mine — people who had been through something difficult and talked about it without flinching. I found very little. That silence weighed on me for a long time. So I wrote, years later, partly for myself and largely for those who would search after me. I didn't know if anyone would stumble across it. I didn't know who it would speak to. And then I received this message.

I received a message. Someone who might be one of my students wrote to me after reading my posts. She didn't know me, I didn't know her. She told me what it's like to live on the margins, to make yourself small, to keep to yourself what overflows. She told me that my words had opened a space where she could exist as she is. Her message was very personal, and I won't reproduce it here.

I wanted to reply. The email bounced: account deleted. So I'm replying here, because this is the only place where she might be able to read me. And because what I have to say isn't addressed only to her.

Thank you. Not a polite thank you — thank you because your message touched me far more than you can imagine. I read it several times.

What you may not know: when I wrote those posts, I had people like me in mind. People with DYT11, who would search for accounts of dystonia and find nothing. I hadn't imagined that someone very different from me would find a space of their own in those words. And yet, reading your message, I understood that this might be the most beautiful thing that could happen to those texts.

Because at heart, we're talking about the same thing, you and I. We're talking about what it's like to live in a world that isn't wired for us, to have to bend, adapt, make yourself small (or tremble in silence) to fit into boxes that were never drawn to our measure. The words are different, the bodies are different, but the loneliness is the same.

When I was your age, I was looking for exactly what you found in reading me. A voice, an account, someone to say: yes, it's hard, yes, it sticks, and yes, we move forward anyway. I found no one. I still remember that void. That's why I wrote, years later, so that those who search after me wouldn't fall into the same silence. Knowing it worked, even once, even for you, gives meaning to everything I put into these pages.

Your message isn't that of a fragile person — it's that of a lucid one. You write better than most adults I know. That's not an empty compliment; it's an observation from a teacher. The clarity with which you describe what you're living through — the too much, the not enough, the something that stuck — is a strength, even if it doesn't look like one yet. It will come, believe me.

You say you tried to make yourself small. I'd like to ask you not to do that anymore. What you call "too much or not enough," others would call a singular way of seeing the world, and that's precious. The world doesn't need a reduced version of you — it needs you as you are.

You write that you kept everything to yourself, like a fragile treasure you don't dare show. Your message is proof that this treasure deserves to be shared, and you just did that, which is braver than you think.

One last point, as advice from someone who's been there: when you're suffering, you need to talk, and you end up telling everyone what you're going through. That's not always a good idea, because not everyone you confide in is kind — and honestly, too many of them are assholes. The injustices you experience, don't air them to the idiots whose entire existence amounts to making your life difficult, because they don't deserve your energy. Save them for people who will listen, or write them down — but don't stay silent. And if one day you need a loud voice when dealing with teachers or institutions that aren't doing their job, let me know, and I may be able to lend you mine.

My door is open — it was before your message and it will be after. Keep moving forward in your own way, because that's the right way.

And to everyone reading these lines who recognizes themselves in what this person wrote to me, whether it's dystonia or any other difference that makes the world feel too narrow: my door is open to you too. I'm not a psychologist, a social worker, or anyone's savior. I'm an academic researcher and engineer with electrodes in my brain, some experience with institutions that hurt when they should help, and it's something I care about deeply. If it can be of use to you, it's yours.

Don't make yourself small. Write. Speak. And if no one listens, find someone who does. We exist.