Letters never written.

My hands were shaking as I grasped the crinkled-up pages in my hands. My palms grew sweaty and I felt the heat leave my face, flushing me out. I never expected to receive this letter. But I have been waiting for it for years anyway. I call that anticipation anxiety.

As I read the words out loud, I felt my heart rattling around in my ribs like a tiger in a cage. I could not tell if I was filled with more relief or rage. But I understood that this was the best version outcome. An explanation, even after so many years had passed. Some ounce of... closure? Revelation? Healing?

" Dear Jean,

I hope this letter finds you well. I know it's been a long time since we last talked and that was my doing. I messed up. I know I hurt you and if you will keep reading, I just want to try to explain myself. I think I owe it to you to give you some kind of reason for why I did what I did. It has taken me this long to define that reason and honestly, to get help. I am ashamed of what I did and I know I cannot change the past. When I met you I had no idea how toxic or abusive I was, I hated myself and I was deeply insecure. I took advantage of your kindness, eventually also taking advantage of your love. I was not equipped to love anyone or build any kind of relationship. I felt this deep void, anger, and depression that kept me searching everywhere for something to make me feel better. I am so sorry. It was never anything you did or were lacking. I was so cruel. I used you in ways that I know hurt you so beyond repair, so in the end I just ran.

I ran right into the arms of whoever wanted me next. Then told you that I did it because she was better than you. It had nothing to do with you not being enough. You were never not enough. You did everything you could for years to make me feel important and loved. I took it all for granted and I risked your safety + well being to make myself feel something. I cheated more than you even knew. I lied about things for no reason other than to get away with it. I was smoking more than I led on and drank way too often. I was irresponsible and never had money for anything because I let myself waste it all. I had no motivation to be better or do better. Nothing was going to get through to me. No amount of effort or love or support from you could have changed me at the time. I destroyed so much around me in the process of trying to feel anything at all because of these addictions I had. To sex. To comfort. To alcohol. I was impulsive and I used you as a scapegoat to excuse my pathetic behavior. I am so ashamed that I made you pay for so much. Literally and emotionally. I hurt you the most and did not give you the decency to just break up sooner. And in a decent way. Not with promising you so much and then disappearing. I did get the messages. I chose to not reply on purpose and I am so sorry for that. I let myself belittle and shame you so I could feel justified in how I was being. I did not replace you because anyone was better. I leaped into the home and arms of the next person who gave me attention and I am still working on fixing that. I am ashamed as I tell them what I did and try to fix what I hurt in their life too. I was not just selfish. What I did was disgusting. I am not trying to make excuses and I am working on how to better myself now. I have deep issues that stem from my relationship with my parents and how insecure I was since I was so young. Years before meeting you. I am working on these steps here in this program and part of it was to work on fixing past mistakes. Even though I know if you read this it will change nothing about what I did, I still want to send it to you. Just in case you read it and some little part of you feels even a little bit of relief instead of all that grief I handed to you the day I left.--"

I sat there for a while after the last words rolled off my tongue. I was frozen in that moment and taken over by flashes of what used to be. I was brought back to how it felt. Not one moment. Many moments all pushed together to create this deep, radiating pain at the base of my neck. I felt that tight tension, the muscles burning, and a shooting pain down my spine. It was grief.

He had deeply wounded me. As a person. As a young, bright-eyed woman learning how to date and be in a partnership. As a best friend, because that is what I considered us at the time. As a lover, because I thought being physical meant absolute loyalty and it destroyed me when it was so easily given to others like I did not count or matter at all. I felt so used and betrayed.

But I also had a lot of learning to do over the years. I had to look at my own role in my past relationships, including the most violent and abusive ones.

I had been doing my own inner work, trying to find answers to why I felt so broken and damaged. Why I was so easy to use, manipulate and cast aside. Why men chose to cheat and lie. Why I was so easily ghosted and ignored.

I felt really unworthy of the most basic forms of decency and love. I wanted to give every ounce of myself to show my dedication, loyalty, and faithfulness. I wanted whoever I was with to feel like I was worthy of being treated well. So when they did not treat me well, I blamed myself for lacking qualities or looks that would grant me the acceptance I desired.

I was looking for acceptance of who I was even though I was greatly masking my real identity, desires, and needs to begin with. The watered-down version of myself who just wanted to be given a cookie and some praise for being a good friend or partner, she wanted to find some way to love herself too.

I spent years imagining what a conversation with this person would look like, sound like, feel like. I wanted to be given an explanation. I wanted a sound and logical explanation told to me so I could forgive the person for betraying my trust, my heart, and my body. None of it was going to get a genuine utter of forgiveness from me though. I honestly could not forgive the specific actions, the calculated pain, and the decided betrayals.

I had already figured out that my abusers were wrong but that took a lot of time and learning about abuse. Then I had to take what I learned and introduce it to how I felt.

It had been years and yet in those moments, sweating on those lined sheets of paper, I felt a ping of sadness. A bitter taste in my throat, a sickness in my belly, and the spinal shock of earlier days when I cried hard on the kitchen floor clutching my chest. Wailing out and asking the sky "why me? Why am I not enough?!"

But as I took a deep, soulful intake of breath I closed my eyes and rolled my shoulders back. I felt a deep crack and rolled my neck around to massage out the tightness. I let the sunlight pour over me from the window and I looked up to the sky once more.

This time I had no questions or pleas for the air. This time I spoke deep into my own soul and asked for acceptance to wash over myself. I asked to move forward and told myself I was enough.

Hello! I'm Jean, a mental health blogger who creates content from home about trauma and abuse. I created this series to write letters to myself from my abusers. Letters that do not actually exist and I have never received. I am writing this to make a potent statement about abuse, forgiveness, and acceptance. I do not believe we need to seek or give out forgiveness when it comes to abuse. Instead, I think we should strive for education, self-awareness, and acceptance (like I wrote about here). These letters are a form of therapy for me as I write things I imagine my abusers would say if they were actually mentally and emotionally capable of realizing their past actions.

Often survivors of abuse cannot comprehend what the person they loved did and wish they could have an explanation + apology from that person. But the abuser(s) are sociopathic, very mentally ill, very abusive, narcissistic, or completely incapable of providing any valuable thoughts or apologies to their victims. It is painful to wish your abuser had remorse or a viable explanation for their behaviors. It is therapeutic to explore what that might look like in a fiction letter. What you might feel, imagine, and experience if you had read a letter from your abuser that says all the unspoken words they could never provide. I am exploring this exercise to find that exact notion out for myself.

Thank you for reading, for the subscribers who follow my work, and for the tips that help support my content! - Jean Grey