Dear "You"...From "Me"-Letters Unsent

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Dear 20 Year Old Me,

What did you think??

Did you think you'd find acceptance if you just looked hard enough??

You should have stuck to your cold view. You should have stuck to building yourself for yourself, in a life that depended entirely on you.

You have everything you ever wished for in your most secret moments. Everything you didn't believe was "in the cards" for you.

And you're a shell. Getting it and keeping it has hollowed you out from the inside.

People tried to tell you. But 20 never listens to 40. I guess 40 doesn't paint a very pretty picture.

Do you like the way your picture turned out??

Didn't think so.

Thanks for f*****g everything up.

Sincerely,

Older Me

Dear You,

Please give back my songs. It doesn't matter that they're off-key and out of tune. I want them back; I want to enjoy them again.

Please give back my colors. I know they were mostly the colors of root and leaf and berry, plain and dull, with the occasional too-bright splash that jangled. I know they were not the stuff of a decorator's scheme. They were mine. I want them back please.

Please let me have a sunrise without judgment, a fire without recriminations, a moonrise without inadequacy, a simple conversation over a cup of coffee without fear.

Remember that aluminum "sun moon and stars" charm that someone found in a parking lot and gave me?? I wore it constantly for a couple years, then lost it?? You ran out and bought me a replacement with a gold sun, a lab sapphire moon, and zircon stars?? You were angry that I cried, not happy tears, over the 'better' replacement??

Remember the $5 ring that I lost when we moved the washing machine, that you found squished flat when we had to replace the floor in the hall?? You put it in your wooden box until you had the tools to pound it round again?? I won't let anyone cut it off my finger, even though it digs into my skin when my hands swell?? I begged so hard not to have it cut off, they let me keep it on in labor and delivery with our last kid??

No, we didn't have the big things. No fancy dinners, no new cars, no amazing vacations. We had a beat-up trailer and a used car between us and a forty-dollar tent. Chock Full o' Nuts in the coffee pot, chicken quarters in a frying pan. Nothing we could brag about. We had the little things; we had everything.

Please give back my dull colors, and my too-bright colors, and my off-key songs. Please give them back. I don't need beautiful palettes and fine music. I NEED my little things.

--Me

^That's beautiful.

Dear Florida Cousins-In-Law,

You laughed and said I was crazy when I said, Monday and Tuesday, "Fill up the car now. Fill up a gas can for each car now. LEAVE WEDNESDAY AS SOON AS YOUR BOSS WON'T FIRE YOU FOR LEAVING."

By the way, that last sentence is why a right-to-work state is a BAD THING.

You've always mocked me and looked at me like some kind of ret*d hillbilly bug when I've said ANYTHING at the annual Christmas gathering. I learned to shut up years ago.

I didn't shut up this time. Because you are human beings (and therefore your safety is valuable) and YOU HAVE KIDS.

You STILL didn't listen. I hope you find gas. If money is the only thing stopping you from evacuating, text me or message me on FB (I KNOW you know how, because you keep inviting me to buy MLM s**t and play CandyCrush) and I will be on my way to the nearest place I can send a money order like my pants were on fire and my ass was catching.

If not, STORE WATER. ENJOY IRMA. I'll be praying.

--The Stupid Crazy Weird Hillbilly

Dear Most-Recently-Fired Therapist,

It took three years, but I finally trusted you. I really trusted you. I almost honestly believed that you were telling the truth. About me, about people, about correct social interactions especially in close personal relationships.

I trusted you enough to give medication another chance. Because I believed you when you said THIS psychiatrist would listen to me, would see the patient in front of her and not the book in her head. I didn't expect you to know whether the meds would work or not. I DID trust you to hook me up with a psychiatrist who would believe me if I said they weren't, and help me wean back off again if I said the side effects were worse than what I was taking the drug for.

I trusted you to be a voice on my side-- remember all those times we talked about how much it upsets me that, because I have both a developmental disorder and at least one mood disorder, I need someone to speak for me because I am not taken seriously when I attempt to speak for myself??-- if I needed one. I straight-up asked. You straight-up promised.

And then you saw me sitting on your couch like a zombie. You saw me mostly answering questions with "I don't know. I don't know. I don't know." You saw that after YEARS of thoughtful and reasonable conversations. You saw that, and you saw them up the dose again, and all you said was, "I know it's tough."

And that's why I didn't come back any more. That's why I'm done with therapists. ALL THERAPISTS.

Because I can see a therapist for THREE DAMN YEARS, and still be somehow shocked and surprised when they throw my well-being under the bus in favor of the psychopharmalogical canon.

And that throws doubt on EVERYTHING you said. If I'm not willing or able to believe you, continuing to show up in your office once a week wastes money (whether it's the insurance company's or mine), time (for both of us), and effort (again, for both of us).

--Your Former Patient (You know who I am)

PS-- I took myself off the Zoloft a year ago now. I STILL have the anhedonia.

Dear Eye Contact Freaks,
would you force me to look in your eyes if I were blind?
If you talk to me,
you have all my attention:
I follow your ideas,
accept your feelings,
I'm totally focused on you.
When I look in your eyes, I'm confused
and you would be too
because my eyes
are just eyes,
not the entrance to my soul.

never been so infuriated by your teenage spirited recklessness. you've... boarded up the windows, and put your bmw in the trailer?[sarcasm]glad to see you’ve got your priorities straight for once.[/sarcasm]

watch out for confused water moccasins and alligators wondering what you’re doing in their home, and don’t you or your husband die.

-your child

Dear You,

I gave you the best of myself. You rejected it.

I gave you my abject service. You rejected it.

Now you want me to "just be myself." You already rejected that. See above.

Who do you think "myself" is, anyway?? This IS myself.

You just don't like me. You never did. I wish you could have accepted that BEFORE we built a life that requires both of us to keep running and had a pack of kids. Back then, breaking up would have hurt. Now we have a PROBLEM.

Hopelessly,

Me

Dear Feminist b***h

Your "harmless act" of reporting my husband for sexual assault all those years ago just because he kept trying to talk to you wasn't harmless.

No, he didn't get thrown out of college.

Yes, the charges got dismissed.

Yes, YOU were the one who was threatened with dismissal if any more false charges were made.

That one act still completely changed his personality. And the entire trajectory of my life.

I'm glad you have MS now. You know why we're still friends?? Because I will enjoy watching a degenerative autoimmune disease slowly rob you of your functionality and leave you broken, dependent, and ultimately insane, but still aware of everything that's happening to you, while you die oh so slowly.

Karma's a b***h, ya f****n' Dianic Wiccan cunt-muffin.

PS-- I really, for the life of me, don't know why I'm posting this anonymously on an autism forum instead of getting on FB Messenger and giving you the kicking you so richly deserve. He keeps saying something about "forgive and forget."

I guess that's because his consequences are over. Mine go on and on and on. I'm so glad yours do, too.

so why is it every time i ask you to hang out, you blow me off? in fact you're so comfortable blowing me off now, you don't even make excuses for when you do. why do we even talk to each other? all we ever have to say is hi how are you. we have absolutely nothing interesting to say to each other. with all due respect, if you don't want to hang out, and if small talk is all you offer my life, i'd like you to stop texting me. i'm not holding out hope you'll be the friend you once were or thought you were, i'm not on the bench waiting for you to appreciate me while you spend your time on your real friends. you're either my friend or you aren't, and your actions scream that you aren't.

Dear You,

It's like being back in the family I was born in, only I don't even get to get high, the music isn't near as good, and we're stuck in Yuppie Hell instead of up a holler somewhere.

I finally realized why. You're just like them.

Why didn't I see it sooner??

Disgustedly,

Me

Dear Person,

Ugh. I'm feeling intimidated again.

You're so much smarter than me. You know more. You have so many more friends.

Y'know, you're exactly like him,
except that didn't end well.