Trigger warning? This could possibly be triggering. I don’t really think it is, but I’ll put the trigger warning at the top of the post anyway. And to be honest, replies aren’t necessarily needed, but if you have one, it is welcome.
Brad Paisley sang a song a few years back called “Letter to Me.” I don’t know if he wrote it or not. I’m sure it would be easy enough to look up. I really like this song. The first words in the song are, “If I could write a letter to me and send it back in time to myself at seventeen…” It makes me think. What would I say to myself at that age? What did he say? He said quite a bit, some about heartbreak, but this is what really sticks out to me in the song. “And oh, you got so much going for you, going right; but I know at seventeen it’s hard to see past Friday night…”
I guess in some ways it’s true, but looking back, I have a hard time seeing what was going right. Forget looking past friday night. I had a hard time looking past the next five minutes, and to be completely honest, I still do.
If I could write a letter to me, what would I say? To be honest, I don’t really know how I would advise myself for the future. I know what I wish I would have done when I was younger.
I wish…
I wish I would have told my mom the first night he touched me, instead of never saying anything. I wish I wouldn’t have felt bad for him when he told me he would get kicked out and be homeless if I told anyone what he was doing to me. I wish I wouldn’t have had to spend the next two years living in the same house as him, when he finally moved out on his own. Maybe I might be somewhat normal now. I might be more open to new people. I might actually be ok with someone touching me instead of running the opposite way when someone tries to give me a hug.
I wish I would have stopped all contact with him as soon as he moved out, instead of waiting another 20 years. I wish he wouldn’t have brought it up everytime he saw me, and I wish he didn’t stand there and tell me it didn’t affect my life. I wish he wouldn’t have went around telling all of his friends what he did because, as he put it, “I was feeling bad about myself.” I feel like he took my story from me, making himself out to be the one who was wronged. I know that in the end, maybe that doesn’t matter so much because it’s still my story, and I’m the one who lived it, but it isn’t his story to tell. It’s mine.
I wish I would have quit school instead of putting up with the daily bullying. At this point in my life, I feel like I would have been better off without the education, and I feel like that’s saying something in a world where it’s hard to get a job when you don’t have a degree. If I would have quit school, I might at least have some respect for myself, and I might not tell myself everyday that I’m dumb and fat and useless and worthless and ugly… a few things among others. I might have figured out what to do with my life besides being a useless lump.
One thing I would tell myself is that getting that weight loss surgery was one of the best things I’d ever do for myself… And it would help me to realize that the reason I was always overweight is because I had PTSD from about the age of four, and the crap that happened to me when I was young changed my body, changed my metabolism and made me end up being fat.
But then… I wish I wouldn’t have gone to that so called “doctor.” The one who lied about everything he wrote in my files. I wish I wouldn’t have had my license taken from me for absolutely no reason. I wish I wouldn’t have had my body shocked so bad that I thought my brain was being torn apart in the moment that it happened. If I wouldn’t have went, maybe I would be able to leave the house without having a panic attack. I might be able to work, and bring in an income to help my mom with the bills, because the government sure as hell doesn’t want to help me. I might be able to walk to my doctor’s appointments without having a panic attack, and maybe the semi’s and dump trucks that drive past my house wouldn’t cause me to have a panic attack. I might not wake up in the middle of the night whenever someone hits the manhole out front, in a panic that there was an accident. The weight loss surgery might not have been a complete waste of time, money and energy, and maybe if I wouldn’t have gone to see him, I might not have gained every single pound back that I worked so hard to lose.
I still can’t see what’s going right, in the present. Life is… complicated… to say the least.
I wish… I wish so many things, but it’s pointless to wish them when you can’t move past yesterday. It’s pointless to wish that things were different because they happened and they are what they are. But I still wish them.
). Can help to put the past, present and future in perspective, all together. As you said, maybe the present is too complicated for the moment. But you have wishes, desires, feelings. It’s not pointless at all. It’s part of your inner strengths and what’s going to help you to keep going on, in a safer way for yourself.