letterstohealmyself

[letterstohealmyself]

Why did you do the things you did?

What did you really feel about me?

I think if I never talk to you again, I’ll never be able to move on. I started this page so I could vent my feelings and say the things I need to say without actually talking to you. But there’s no closure in crying into the void.

I thinking sharing this page with you would be cruel. I know I don’t want to hurt you, even if sometimes I think I do. I’m tempted to drop this link into your inbox somewhere and run away without dealing with it properly. Do I even want to hear back from you? Do I want to start up communication? Can I survive reading your words again? Hearing your voice? I can barely survive seeing your picture.

Maybe email? I think I remember your email. I need to be clear with myself. I want to know why you did the things you did. I don’t want to get back together. I don’t want to be friends. I would like you to understand how you affected me, and apologize, but I can’t let myself wait around for an apology. I can’t let myself hang on to your every word. Am I strong enough to handle it if you tell me how I hurt you? Am I strong enough to apologize for the hurt I caused, but not apologize for the way I felt?

[letterstohealmyself]

Was this abusive? Was this toxic? Were you? Why do I feel like I’ll never be able to trust anyone again? Why do I feel trapped in the memory of you? Why do I feel so compelled to excuse your behavior? How do I feel whole again?

[letterstohealmyself]

YOU WERE NEVER THE PERSON I THOUGHT YOU WERE. I NEED TO ACCEPT THAT.

[letterstohealmyself]

I made it all the way to Georgia without crying. I was doing better. Not thinking about you. Not thinking about all the ways I’ll never trust anyone again. But being back here brings back all the memories I’ve been trying so hard to repress. I miss you. I hate you. I hate myself for knowing I would go back to you in a heartbeat if you said you love me. I hate myself for knowing you never loved me in any sense of the word. I hate that I lied to you when I said I trusted you. That I lied to you when I said I was okay with what you were doing. That I lied to you when I said I wanted whatever you wanted. I hate that I let you take advantage of my love for you. I loved you so much. I loved you so much that I did anything for you. You must have known how much everything you did affected me. How much power you had over me? You knew I couldn’t say no to you, no matter what you did.

I can’t blame you for everything that happened because I allowed it to happen by not saying no. I’ve been blaming myself for all of my unhappiness because it’s still so hard for me to think you could be at fault for anything. It’s true that I didn’t stand my ground and say no, but there were so many things I did say to you that showed I wasn’t happy with what you were doing, and you chose to ignore those signs. How many times did I anxiously message you late at night or early in the morning with long paragraphs of how uncomfortable was with them, and with sex, and with long distance. And every time you were there to say it would be okay eventually, or that we didn’t have to do the things you wanted if I didn’t want them. I was too afraid to lose the little favor I had with you, so every time I said that I would be okay eventually. If we just kept doing things the same way, I would get used to it. I would get used to your distance and lack of affection and be happy with what I had.

Every time I wanted to be closer, you pushed me away. When I gave you space, you pulled me in. I was always in unstable ground when it came to you. I thought my crush was unrequited, but you told me I wasn’t single. You never kissed me or told me you liked me, but when I stayed the night you untwined yourself with me, holding on so tightly I thought that was your way of saying all the things I wanted you to say. When we were physically intimate for the first time, we never talked about what we were doing, I didn’t know we had sex until weeks later. I didn’t know you had previous experience. I thought that intimacy was the next step in our relationship. I wanted to be intimate with you because it made me feel like we were bound together by that experience. Letting you see me and touch me and letting me touch you meant we chose each other to love and to cherish. I couldn’t wait to see you again, to be that close to you again and again for the rest of my life. My favorite time was in the kitchen afterwards. Making breakfast, my arms around your waist, as close as possible and in love and trusting my place in your life. Then crying as I drove home because it felt like being ripped apart. Then crying in ecology class after you told me about them. As you were texting me about the definition of sex how little it meant to you. And all I heard was how little I meant to you. And how stupid and desperate I was as I told you okay. Again and again I said okay when I wanted to fall to the ground and sob. Sobbing uncontrollably in my car as he was waiting for me. As he came out of his dorm in search for me. As he waited for me to calm down and tell him what was wrong. That you had cheated on me and how I was desperate for you to love me. How I would do anything for you, even if that meant forcing myself to give up everything that mattered except you. You downplayed everything I placed importance on, and my response was to throw away everything I valued in favor of whatever you wanted. I wanted you to talk to me. To tell me what you felt and what you wanted. I was constantly telling you how I felt, and at the same time downplaying my feelings with stupid desperate lies like ‘but I still trust you’ and ‘I want to...’

When I was crying in the bathroom, waiting, hoping that you would notice me and comfort me and ask me what was wrong, I felt manipulative. Like my unhappiness was a terrible thing that I was using to make you feel something towards me. I couldn’t stop crying any more than I could force myself to say what was making me so unhappy. When I was crying, you physically turned away from me and refused to talk to me. I didn’t want them in my life, let alone have them try to comfort me when they had nothing and everything to do with why I was upset. If you had done something, anything, I would have calmed down. Maybe we could have talked. But you withdrew from me, and that made it so clear that you were never the person I thought you were. That the person I loved was an illusion. You would never love me. You would never put my needs before your wants. I was crying right in front of you and you turned your back on me. How much more literal can it get? I can tell myself all the ways it could have been different if I had been more honest and spoke my mind, but the truth is that you didn’t want to hear what I had to say. I loved you. You didn’t love me. I prioritized you. You didn’t prioritize me. I wanted to live with you. You didn’t want to live with me. I wanted to be close to you. You didn’t want to be close to me. I wanted everyone to know how much you meant to me. You didn’t want anyone to know I was a part of your life. I needed you to show me you cared. You turned your back on me.

[letterstohealmyself]

I get really irritated at people who sleep in so late, especially when we went to bed at the same time. And especially when they’re visiting and your time together is so rare and precious. Is 12 hours of sleep really necessary??

[letterstohealmyself]

I had another dream about you. We were at the same restaurant, sitting with different people. Not partners, and not parents, though I can’t remember who exactly. We made eye contact across the restaurant a few times. I think you texted me first. You told me some short little story about your roommate, a girl I didn’t know. And then I texted you an apology for handling things badly at the end and that I didn’t intend to end things between us. We left the restaurant with our respective parties, but you were happy and asked to call me later. I woke up before the call, but I was planning all the things I wanted to say and how I could fix things between us.

I do regret the way I handled things, and I didn’t intend for that moment to be a breakup. But I know what I said hurt you and there were real feelings behind the things I said. I expected us to be able to talk about it more, but I didn’t provide the space or trust to have that conversation. I think I wanted you to make some kind of gesture that I meant something to you and you wanted to be better for me. I think, if it was just you there, you wouldn’t have shut down and let them lead the conversation and emotions. But if it was just you there, I wouldn’t have felt the way I did. Their presence, at that moment, in our relationship, and in my life, made me feel so shitty all the time. I lashed out at you. I blamed you for all of it. I know I could have done a lot more to avoid getting into that situation, but I kept letting it go on, too weak and afraid of losing you in the process, which I did, in the worst way possible.

I’m so sorry for the pain I’ve caused you.

I’m so sorry for handling my pain so badly and lashing out at you.

I’m sorry for not having an honest conversation with you much sooner about my pain. We had many conversations about my concerns for them, but I didn’t offer the solution I wanted, and you didn’t suggest it.

I’m not sorry for ending it with them.

But if things between you and me had to end, I’m sorry we couldn’t end it with the dignity and respect you deserve

[letterstohealmyself]

The best thing I did for myself was delete your phone number and old messages. I know I would have broken down and begged you to love me if I hadn’t. I know I would be much worse off now if I still had all those old messages to relieve at my worst moments.

[letterstohealmyself]

I got used to them. But I’m still just beginning to understand that being used to something isn’t the same as being okay with it. I accepted that that was how you wanted it, so that was how it was. It was a forced acceptance. I adjusted. The same way my mother got used to my fathers messiness, hypocrisy, and egocentrism, I got used to yours. Neither of us were happy with that arrangement, but we accepted it as the way things were. That is, until we were so unbearably miserable that we couldn’t take it any more.

Am I happier without you? I don’t know.

Are you happier without me? Were you happy with me? Me specifically? Did my distinct presence make any impact in your life?

At least when I’m alone I can keep my life in order. At least when I’m alone I don’t have to carry the physical and emotional burden of two (or three) people all by myself.

[letterstohealmyself]

I remember walking with you. You said you could never cheat on me, that you weren’t capable of it. And I didn’t say anything. I didn’t say the immediate response in my mind, which was that ‘you already did though. In every way that counts. You cheated on me with them. Physically, emotionally, you cheated. And that hurts. Every time I see them it hurts.’ I didn’t say anything. Because I thought I needed you. I thought I could put up with it for a little while. Until we could be together forever and you wouldn’t need them anymore. I thought you deserved to have them since I was going to be in a different state. I thought you needed to have someone when I wasn’t there, and when I could be there for you full time, that you would end that.

If I had said something, what would have happened? Would you have ended it with them? Would I have ended it with you sooner? I let myself suffer in silence for too long. I hate how desperately I loved you. You were my first everything. I let you destroy me.

[letterstohealmyself]

I wanted you to ask me whats wrong

I wanted you to ask me what i want

I wanted you to ask me about myself, instead of waiting for me to volunteer information

I wanted you to care enough about me to ask

I wanted you to care enough to want a future together

I wanted you to choose me

I wanted you to care enough about me to choose to pursue a future together

I wanted you to make the effort to be with me

I wanted to not be the one to make the plans all the time

I wanted to not have to beg my partner to visit me, to live with me, to live in the same city as me, the same state as me.

I wanted to be together forever, just the two of us

I wanted you to stop treating our relationship as a chore

I wanted you to stop treating our relationship like a joke

I wanted you to stop treating me like something you could collect

I wanted you to treat me like something you could lose

I wanted you to ask me before even considering bringing someone else into our relationship

I wanted you to never consider bringing someone else into our relationship

I wanted you to talk to me before making decisions

I wanted to make decisions together

I wanted you to be considerate of my feelings

I wanted you to care about cleanliness and personal hygiene

I wanted you to be involved in my life

I wanted to be involved in your life

I wanted to be enough for you

I wanted you to want to be with me

[letterstohealmyself]

I didn’t know I was living for a future with you until I had nothing left to live for.

[letterstohealmyself]

I’m not okay today. I don’t know how to stop missing the idea of what I wanted us to be. Of the security and commitment I craved, and the feeling of being wanted, of being chosen. I didn’t know how much I wanted to be loved until you took that hope away from me.

[letterstohealmyself]

I will not be afraid of you for the rest of my life. One day my heart will no longer jump out of my skin when I see you or hear you mentioned. I will not remain damaged forever. I will heal.

[letterstohealmyself]

I feel so weighed down by meaningless possessions. Actually, even possessions with meaning and history feel like I’m required to keep them because of that meaning and I hate it. I want to own exactly what I need and has a purpose and nothing else. But I want all those things I need to also hold value and enrich my life. I want to treat everything in my life like it is irreplaceable. I don’t want to own anything that is disposable or easily replaced, but I also don’t want to hold on to things just because they are valuable if they don’t serve a purpose/just take up space. It’s a hard balance to find and I get the feeling it’ll be a work in process for a long time. I think I’m going to purge my movies next since I literally haven’t watched any in years.

[letterstohealmyself]

I need to stop seeking you out when I know it only hurts me. Maybe I was mildly anxious before I met you. Now my anxiety and depression stems from the trauma I went through during the course of our relationship. I am stuck in a loop of every way you hurt me, and every way I let it happen and keep happening without doing anything to stop it until it was too late.

[letterstohealmyself]

I’m going vegan. I don’t even have a good reason for doing it, other than it would reduce my carbon footprint and probably be healthier. But I’ve wanted to cut out meat for a long time and now I have the opportunity to do it. Eggs are easily replaceable with tofu and other substitutes. Fish is the hardest to give up, but also the most urgent to do in my mind, due to the imminent collapse of the oceans fisheries in my lifetime. So I’m doing this. At least when I’m by myself. I will probably still eat some animal products when I see my family so I don’t inconvenience or insult them.

[letterstohealmyself]

Noteworthy by Riley Redgate

All he wanted was the wildness of the present, and he wanted it all at once. It was exhilarating, right up until the point that it became selfish.

He wasn’t perfect, which I’d known, but maybe he wasn’t even perfect for me, which hadn’t occurred to me. It seemed a little clearer to me now. It wasn’t enlightenment to live like you had no history and no consequences. The world wasn’t just made out of instants -- it was made out of plans, too, and the ability to learn from your mistakes. I wish he’d learned.

These days, the only ways he lingered were the ways he’d changed me.

Love was a sea of red ink, and once you folded under the waves, there was no solvent that could scrub it out of your skin. You could only wait to discover what you were when you wandered out of the shallows: something rose, or chrimson, or carnelian.

With all that going on, I guess it’s no surprise the world feels totally unmanageable sometimes........But it keeps turning, so at least there’s that.

Time was the rope that hung into the pit of heartbreak and I”d finally climbed over its lip. I had no desire to look back over the edge. Some things are made to end. Storms, and winters, and hurts.