This one was rough, I have been in my feels for A LONG TIME about whether to even share this one. Ultimately, I feel I need too. But, these are my guts, please handle with care.
Dear Past Me,
I am so sorry to be the one to tell you this isn’t love. I know we think it is, and that this is forever, but it’s not. No one else is going to tell you, they are just going to accept like we do. I know you feel you have no one to go too, but I am here for you. Ten years later I still reflect on this time in our lives often, and wish it could have been different. I wish I could go back and change it, I wonder often how different things might be today had we not been so naive. People tell you not to have regrets, but that’s just impossible. We all regret things, but we just can’t let it hold us back.
We were always taught that love is everything, and I never wanted anything more than that. Love and a family and to make a house a home. So it was easy for us to fall into those arms, even though they were never going to give us those things.
The rules, the control over what to wear, the threats; that’s not love. It’s not young love, and it’s not old love. It was manipulation in its purest form.
I know it snuck up and we didn’t even know it was happening. Two pivotal years of our development were lost, and we’ve struggled to make friends for all of our adult life because back then we ‘weren’t allowed too’
But the fights were so bad, and we were afraid of what he would do if we left. I KNOW. But at fifteen it wasn’t our problem, and we let it take up so much of our young lives. We should have been making friends, and hanging out at the beach and learning about who we were, and instead we pretended we were happy and that the manipulative control was normal.
We spent our sweet sixteen party glued to his side, not even talking to the friends you invited. They danced on a tabletop, and we were forced to be held across the room. No one will step in and tell us ‘this isn’t okay’, ‘this isn’t how you should be treated’. They all watch us be sad and ‘in love’.
Someday you will look at photographs from that night and will feel like a stranger to yourself.
When we got our driver’s license, and a car from our aunt, we still weren’t even allowed to drive ourselves to school. No one will tell us this isn’t okay, not even our mother who still has to drive us. Our car will sit in the garage, as alone as we feel.
When we start looking at going to college, we are afraid of what he will think, what he will say, what he will allow. No one tells us this isn’t okay, we shouldn’t be making major life choices based on these thoughts. When we finally leave, we vow to never make another decision for anyone other than ourselves.
No one will tell us this isn’t okay, and we won’t even realize how bad it really was until we are a lot older. All we wanted in high school was to be free to hangout with friends and wear a damn pair of shorts without causing a fight. We wanted independence and to be teenagers.
BUT NO ONE WILL TELL US THIS ISN’T OKAY. We have to learn it for ourselves, and want freedom. We spend so many nights alone, in bed working up the courage to leave, being unhappy. Not having anyone to talk to about what we are going through. When we tell people why, they STILL won’t tell us it was all wrong, and that we did the right thing. We weren’t looking for validation, we just wanted freedom. We won’t even realize the reality of the mental abuse we endured from 15–17 until we are much older.
I wish I could tell you that there was someone we could have gone too, someone who would have understood what we were going through, but the truth is I don’t know that there was. It is heartbreaking to say that outloud, but back then there was no light on this sort of thing, and we let ourselves become so isolated. We had no one, but now we have everyone and we never have to face anything alone if we don’t want to.
We will be 26, it will be TEN YEARS later, before we finally really open up about it. Before we finally confront the damaging things we did to ourselves back then that we ignored. We locked them away in a part of our soul and moved on, forcing ahead when the past was causing a roadblock. It shouldn’t have taken us this long, but we are capable of handling so much more now.
Sure, things have come up and we’ve blamed the past for our own insecurities with our now husband, but it’s not fair. We should have been able to deal, and process all those feelings back then, and I am sorry that no one allowed us too.
You can be mad, it isn’t fair, but we learned from it. Even though we will go through a lot of tough times yet, a lot of times of not really knowing how to be a good friend to others, we will get there in the end and we are stronger because of it. We will end up with a great support system of friends to talk to, and people who understand that we may still be learning how to be a ‘good friend’.
We grew into a really strong, independent and driven young woman. You may think now that you will never be able to accomplish things, but you would be so damn proud. You are so young, and so fragile, but someday we will stand up for ourselves and realize that who we are is independent of any other person.
I want to tell you that we will be okay, it takes a lot of work and a lot of growth and right now I know you are confused and don’t know where to go. But call our best friend, even though she hasn’t heard from us in months I promise you she will pick up. She will always pick up.
We’ve tackled a lot in the last ten years, and I am proud to say that we are finally, truly happy and stable and excited for what is to come. We have a great job, a loving and supporting husband, and a great life. I can’t wait for you to get here.
Love,
Yourself.
