Dear abuser

Dear abuser,

I’m writing this letter to you through a mixture of awesome pain, anger and disgust. I won’t be sending this to you as I don’t want any connection with you and honestly I don’t think you even deserve to hear from me. I’m just releasing some of my emotions onto this paper.

I want you to know that I have never forgiven you and I don’t know if and when I’ll ever be able to forgive you. I honestly don’t know how you go around your life, living a regular normal life, without feeling the slightest sense of shame over what you have done to me.

I know that you have no shame because when I confronted you, you just blatantly denied it all and just threw the blame on me. I was horrified by your response. The pain that you caused me at the time was almost indescribable. However, after doing some research into abusers and the way their brain works, your denial actually validated me. It showed me what an animal you are. Most abusers deny their crimes and you acted like “the perfect abuser”.

I have something that I need to take care of tomorrow and for reasons that are none of your business, it will remind me and very strongly trigger me back to your days of abuse. I’m so full of anger towards you. Where was your heart? Where was your compassion? Did you even have a heart? Do you know what the meaning of compassion is? Do you care about another persons entire future life?

Or rather, you are and were a selfish, non caring and narcissistic human being. You cared only about yourself and your selfish and sick desires. You cared only about your disgusting gratifications. You bought me with all your sweet talk and then once you owned me, you used me to fulfill your every desire.

If that meant burning me in the process, it didn’t matter to you at all. You burned me. You broke me. You stole my voice. You stole my innocence. You stole my free will. You stole my self esteem. You destroyed my innards. You robbed me of any sense of self. Each time you used me, you extinguished more and more of my internal light. By the time you were done with me, all that was left in me, was darkness. Cold, scary and brutal darkness.

And then years later when I gathered the courage to confront you, you said it’s all my own unhappiness and I should find a Rabbi to talk to. What a coward you are! What a lowly individual! You can’t even own up to your own actions. You needed to throw it all on me.

Back then you were so charming yet so powerful. You were so caring and sensitive yet so egotistic and selfish. Where is all the power that you had back then? Where is all the sensitivity that you claimed to have back then? When I confronted you, all your power just melted away and you showed your true colors. Your narcissistic and selfish self came out so clearly.

So for now I can’t forgive you. The nightmare are too painful. The triggers are too powerful. The constant hurt and pain are too strong and I can’t forgive you. You had a choice back then, to either seek help or use me as you please. You chose the weaker of the two and simply used me as you pleased without any trace of shame or guilt.

Now I am faced with two options as well. Either to be bitter and live a dysfunctional life or be strong and face all my traumas straight in the face and work on it all. I chose the harder way and am working through it all. The pain is almost unbearable but the gain is too immense to just live my life without working it through.

So although I still have nightmares and flashbacks and many other sources of pain as a result of your barbarism, I know that I’m growing and getting stronger every day. I am getting past all my traumas and I feel myself healing more and more. The power it takes to go through a day after a strong trigger, or the power it takes to open up yet another memory in a therapy session is so enormous that no one other than another victim will understand it.

So I ask you, who won? Me or you? You stole my power. Yet I fought and acquired more power than you. You stole my self esteem, yet I fought through it all and came out with more self esteem than you ever had. You stole my innocence and preyed on my vulnerability, yet I am now a healthy and strong adult, very very far from what you were and apparently still are.

I still have a long way to go in my healing however I promise you one thing, I will never stop fighting and pushing until I get the healing that I want and deserve, and until then I can’t and won’t forgive you. In the meantime I ask you to take a good look in the mirror and ask yourself, are you really as strong as you claimed to be back then? Are you really so caring and sensitive as you claimed to be? Are you really as connected to a Hashem as you claimed to be? I know the answer to all these questions and I ask you to please be honest with yourself and answer them with all the honesty that you claimed to have.