Ever heard therapists say it’s a therapeutic thing to write a letter to someone even if they’re dead or gone and they’ll never read it? I just did that. I wrote a letter to my own mother. I don’t know if her, or my father, or my sister, or anybody in my family in fact, are alive or dead. I ran from them right about the time of Obama’s first presidential term, and I haven’t spoken with them since.
But I needed to write something, because PTSD won’t let you run. Not really. And I’m very seriously considering finding her and sending it to her. And ruining her whole fucking world.
It’s long. But it’s all real. And I needed to do this.
____________________________________________
Hi. This is your son, Ray.
I know it's been a while. I've hidden myself to get away. Running is all I knew to do. Staying and enduring things would never have worked. I'd already lived it all once. I endured more than enough.
But the problem is, you take it with you. And with PTSD, your mind relives it and rehashes it over and over, so you really can't run, other than to not stay and have to endure more. The memories remain, to further punish you for what was done to you.
Even now at age 47, my mind remembers stupid details and stupid things that made no sense. But eventually you put the details together and they do.
I'm on disability now. A court finally decided my diagnosis was strong enough. But I didn't have that diagnosis until just a few short years ago, finally getting someone to analyze me to give an accurate description of what I'm suffering. These terms are horror shows, each one of them, but I didn't have words for them, meaning I struggled decades with not one, but three nameless enemies:
F43.10 PTSD with Dissociative Symptoms of Derealization
F23.2 Major Depressive Disorder, severe, with anxious distress
F60.6 Avoidant Personality Disorder
Those who understand these terms would, and have, told me they are severe. They are not to be taken lightly. Did you know I was trying to describe these symptoms of what I was suffering to the principal when I was still in elementary school? That is how long I’ve fought them. But I was a child. There was no way for them to know I was explaining PTSD flashbacks, trauma, derealization, only that I was a little boy they thought was just making excuses. I didn't have words. They wouldn't have listened anyway. Complete and total nervous breakdowns don't happen to children, right?
How could they know? How could I?
My memories bugged me. I remember so many dumb details. I remember you telling me, much later, after you realized how much of a liar Holly is, that you told Ruth and Nadine I was the good child after all. And they didn't agree? A backhanded compliment that, I guess, I would've said thank you but it came with the sting, telling me you discussed how awful I was and they thought I was the bad one? Really emphasized how alone I was.
Because, as Holly shouted at me once, I'd written "Kill mom" on something? Another weird memory that jumps out at me. What in the world was she talking about? I couldn’t remember at the time. I do now. A memory made it make sense, and it opened up a rage in me, enough to write to you.
Memories flooded in: how she marched friends in and out of the house, but I didn't really have any. Or know how to have any. How she flaunted her (delusional) popularity at me, in this scrapbook of memories she had been making with them. Pictures. Stupid little things teenagers in their very early teenage years would write. I for some reason remember word for word one of them:
Country sucks
Disco will pass
But rock and roll will always kick ass
Why would I remember that when I can often not remember what I had for breakfast that same morning? And why was my mind pushing it back into my thoughts? Why wouldn’t my mind leave me alone about this stupid scrapbook?
One with stupid things like pictures of Daniel and Erin. Remember them? Daniel was of age, dating Erin who was early in her teenage years, and her mom, Mrs. Rocker, not approving. I think they had a boy named Zed. Makes sense she'd name it Zed, cuz she liked being weird and she loved the Beatles and all things British. The English call the last letter of the alphabet "zed" while we call it "zee.”
Stupid memory until suddenly I recalled that scrapbook.
This is probably something you never knew. This is going to break your world wide open though. It did mine. Just a stupid little memory but now I know why my mind wouldn't stop throwing it at me.
In that scrapbook were two photos of Erin and Daniel, Holly's friends. In the first photo, they're in bed pretending to fool around. In the second, they look up at the camera, hands up, looking fake-scared, going "ahhh" because they were pretending to be caught by Erin’s mother. And there, on the page, someone had written, to be interpreted as Mrs. Rocker's voice, something like "What are you doing to my daughter?"
And then words that baffled my young mind... because I'd paid attention in English class, and I understood the rules of grammar, and that the order of words changed their meaning. The words were: "Daniel kill."
My young mind thought, what? That makes no sense. Why would Daniel kill? Mom's the one that's upset. Mom's the one with a reason to be angry. Mom, especially a crazy woman like Mrs. Rocker, would be the one doing the killing. Daniel isn't going to kill. MOM is going to kill.
"Mom kill," I wrote, correcting their grammar.
I corrected grammar, and that's all there was to it. Seriously, I remember this now, quite clearly. I remember I was looking at the scrapbook in Holly's room, the bigger of the two bedrooms in that trailer I grew up in. So since she was in that room before you changed the rooms around, that means I was still going to DeChaumes, so I was still in elementary school. Weird how I can piece together the when. That means I was ten years old at the latest.
Pay attention, because that detail is important. That means Holly was 14 at the latest. And I think it was earlier than that.
So if she showed you a page in a scrapbook, and told you I wrote "Kill mom" (it's actually "mom kill") for no reason, just randomly on a page, then something also occurs to me. She would've taken all of that off of the page. She would've taken the pictures of Daniel and Erin off, so all the context is removed, and probably taped something over it. And covered everything up except those two words. And then showed you those two words so as to make you think I wanted to kill you? Is this what she did?
I'll bet if that scrapbook still exists, you could take an Exacto knife, cut away whatever is covering it all up, and find the fake words of Mrs. Rocker hidden underneath. Then you would've seen the actions of a girl not even 15 years old, and how she schemed and manipulated you into thinking I wanted to kill you.
Holly was a manipulative, narcissistic, borderline-personality psychotic, a person of incredible evil and ego. She was who tortured, assaulted, abused, and tormented me with words, manipulations, brutality, until I was scarred so badly that even now at the age of 47 I am finally diagnosed and declared disabled. I've endured enough. But it's one action on a mountain of many. And it apparently did its damage, because, I’d like to think, it’s what turned you into a monster towards me. I remember so many other things. Things that have no other excuse.
I remember Heather Anderson. I had a friend for a few minutes. And she liked to make prank phone calls. But I was never the one who dialed the number. I just participated at her direction, since this was a whole new concept to me. She dialed a number and I mimicked the weird things she'd say on the phone with people. Apparently one of them was the number of Moon, the guy at work you fancied. Remember telling me he knew I'd called him? Remember? How she ended up dialing his number is beyond me. Apparently though, it happened.
I don’t have the luxury of forgetting this. I was a child. And suddenly my mother calls me from work and tells me, in a frightening yet sadistic calm, that I'd better run away and never come back, because if I'm home when you get there you will murder me. You went into detail how you would slice me with a knife, and hide the body, and nobody would ever find me.
I cried, and I ran, but I had no idea where to go. I went in terrified circles trying to think of where I would go, but I was still in the neighborhood when complete panic took over, and neighbors saw me and took nearly an hour to calm me down. And when I could speak and explain, all I got was, "Oh Ray, parents just say I'm gonna kill you, but it doesn't mean anything."
Just another example that nobody really heard me. Nobody ever really heard me, nor ever would. I'd known that throughout the entire time.
But then, we weren't back on Cooper road yet, still living on Trickey, when you would tell me you hated me. This means I wasn't even 8 years old yet when you said you hated me in front of Craig. So really, that scrapbook page didn’t begin it all. It was already well under way. Holly just gave fuel to that fire.
How do you say things like that to a child? How? What possible excuse is there EVER to say to your child that you hate them? Or that you will murder them? Or another thing you’d said: that you can't wait until I'm 18 so you can throw me out on the street and never see me again. Oh, Holly can stay, you said, but me... you can't wait to get rid of me. You said that. It tore me to pieces.
And you think I wanted YOU dead?
Let me take you through another memory. Living on Trickey, so again, I wasn't even 8. I'd seen dad get out of the car and hit you on Trickey road. And at some point we were at his home on a weekend visit, that other trailer he was in, who even remembers where. And he tells me he wants to kill you. He would murder you, and then do some time, and then the three of us could live happily without you. (He tried to deny it in Arkansas, saying I must’ve misunderstood him, but I did not let him get away with that.) So that's two parents now telling me, as a child, something horrible. And how was I to process this? I couldn't. You have no idea how much this also damaged me.
I didn't even know how to say it out loud, but I know this. I know it tormented me. I did not want my mother dead. She was telling me she hated me, but it still scared me because I was a little boy and you were my mother.
He had a friend named Tom who owned all those bars. T's Lounge, Tom's Bar, and of course, TNT. He would take his young kids to these places. And one fateful day TNT was having some big event, with the bar packed with Houstonians, dancing and listening to a live band, having chili and happy hour prices.
And of course, raffles. And what better way to kick off a raffle than to have a cute little kid come up and pick the winning ticket out of a jar? I did it one of those times, and wouldn't you know it, I picked dad's ticket! I did! What are the odds? And the prize was a shotgun.
It was Texas, so I mean, come on, of course it's a gun.
Do you know that all of a sudden I felt like I'd just given my father a weapon to kill you with? That it would be my fault? Oh don't act surprised. Everything was always my fault. You and Holly always made sure everything was always my fault. So one night I didn't know how to act, and you were screaming and Holly was screaming (because she couldn't shut up or stay out of anything) and I broke down, completely broke down, in yet another of a child's complete nervous breakdowns. And I told you what he said to me. About wanting to kill you.
I was losing my mind, because I did NOT want my mother to die. And yet you think I would just write "kill mom" for no reason at all? That I wanted you dead? Holly was able to convince you of this?
Holly? You once told me about how some analyst asked Holly to draw a picture of her family. And there was tiny little you, and slightly bigger dad, and this sad little dot that was me, and this GIANT PERSON THAT FILLED THE PAGE, THAT MATTERED MORE THAN ANYBODY ELSE that was Holly? That narcissistic child, you even knew her to be one because analysts informed you? And you told me when I was analyzed I had almost no self esteem or self importance whatsoever? You think I'm the one who would want you dead because she said so?
Because this is something I don't think you know. I think this is what would rip your entire world apart, and I don't want this memory anymore. I want YOU to have it.
Dad did not just tell ME he was going to kill you.
He told us both. She was there too.
Notice if you will, she did not say a word to you. I'm the one who had a complete meltdown over it. Holly, however, didn't care. In fact when he said it and went over the fine details of it, I sat in silence, horrified. Holly, a tiny little child herself, was asking how soon he could do it. When would we be together again? She seemed thrilled. Because she’d be daddy’s little girl again.
You never knew that, did you? You let that girl torment me for my entire young life, and blamed me for everything. But at least at one point you told our aunts that you thought maybe, just maybe I would turn out to be the good child.
Thank you for that vote of confidence, I guess.
And how significant was I? Dad thought you were so awful that he wanted you dead, but he abandoned me with you. You thought a man who would murder you was so bad but you still kept saying, "Do you wanna go live with your daddy?" when you were sick of me. I was so awful that I should be thrown away to a killer. Eventually I said sure.
My time in Arkansas was my second vacation away from that abuse. The first, of course, was DePelchin. You figured I was so intolerable I should be thrown away into a 24 hour institution for kids. And I'll never forget that first family therapy session with Karen Selby, telling me both sides will be heard without interruption, and I knew immediately that this was useless. I would not be heard. What the hell could I even say? In one hour session? So I didn't even try.
But I could've told so many things. I instead sat and was lectured, by Holly, who felt so victorious because I was thrown away into a crazy-kids home, so clearly she won and I was the bad one. And she just talked about how I broke her jewelry box, or her this possession, or her that possession. I said nothing.
I regret only that I didn't break more. Because I was the one being broken. I was a child, and I was being broken. Every day. That place wasn’t filled with kids who were the loser of the fight with siblings. That place was filled with abused children who barely knew how to function. That was me.
They asked why I wrote that letter to that kid that time, the one that caused so much ruckus. One of the many kids I'd been bullied by, because bullies are always able to find abused kids like me and abuse them more. I told Karen the truth. The idea for my ill-fated revenge plot was, in fact, something I saw in the Porky's movies. It was almost exactly word-for-word what I'd seen from that movie. And when we were away from Karen, you were angry with me because you'd gotten yelled at for letting a kid watch Porky's? Apparently all the yelling must be done towards me? And what, I'm supposed to say that letter was from my own imagination? I didn't even understand the words I'd written! And you did let me watch Porky's. The real thing they should've yelled at you for was the fact I'd been bullied and beaten so much I resorted so desperately to any way to defend myself. I certainly couldn't have done it by physically defending myself.
Did you know I wasn't just small and weak? I was born with a deformed spine, three different deformities in fact. There was always a risk one good hit in the right place could've left me paralyzed, but I didn't find out until an X-ray in my late 30s. That part of my spine always hurt when any tension was experienced, but I didn't know to tell anybody I was always hurting, because nobody cared. P.E. class was dangerous to me. Riding roller coasters hurt like hell but everyone just thought I was scared and they didn't like hanging out with the scared little kid. I mean I can't even count how many ways I was judged for things I couldn't help.
I lived the first decade of memory in a delusion known as solipsism. A terrifying way to describe solipsism is to watch the movie the Matrix. I really thought I was in a fake world being punished, and the whole world was in on it. I wasn't even 10 when I first fell into this horror show of a psychosis.
Doctors tell me delusions like that are a person's desperate attempt to make sense of a world that simply does not make sense. Other kids would be grounded for prank calls, but I was threatened with murder. I think that counts.
They also tell me that memory problems like I suffer come from repeated head trauma. I asked them if repeated blows to the top of the head with a closed fist would do it. They said that would definitely have caused it. Guess what Holly's favorite way to beat me was. Go on. Guess. Nearly every chance she got.
And if you think I didn't fear for my life, let me remind you of a man named Donald Lewis, and that fateful time our cousin Cathy visited. Somehow Holly and Cathy and Donald and other friends went out, not even of age, to a bar. Cathy got into a fight with Holly, over what we’ll never know. Holly accused Cathy of starting a fight between Donald Lewis and some other guys at the bar. Remember, if you will, he was found dead in a ditch somewhere that next day? She always accuses others of what she herself did. We went to the funeral home for a viewing. You all saw a friend who left the world too soon.
I saw Holly find out she could get someone killed and get away with it. No, I've no idea if she had a hand in it. We’ll never know.
Donald Lewis is but ONE of the many boys she had sex with. After Erin had Zed, she figured a great way to get all the attention was to have a baby, and she tried REALLY hard to have one. Tommy, Lisa's boyfriend, Leann's boyfriend, all her girlfriend's boyfriends. Holly was an easy lay so they all took a turn. There are things I know that you did not hear about. I overheard so much.
Nick was born because she wanted to use him as a weapon against me. How in the holy fuck could I tell anybody this without it sounding insane? But it became evident the more things passed, and you threw me in DePelchin cuz she convinced you I would hurt the baby. And then she kept trying to get Nick to bother me in hopes I'd lose my temper and hurt him. And she told DePelchin she feared for his life because of me. (You actually screamed angrily at her over that, as I remember.) Of all the boys she banged, the only one with a working sperm had to be Johnny the scary drug dealer. Of course it was! Johnny, who was feared by other gangsters and bad boys. (And, as I later understood, who had slept with and dealt drugs to Aunt Wanda and her daughter Dee Dee both? According to dad anyway. What kind of white trash Jerry Springer bullshit was all this?)
So she tried telling him I hurt his son because, and I will never be convinced otherwise, she wanted to see me end up like Donald Lewis. I was TERRIFIED. And he did, in fact, threaten me. I saw her smile. It sickened me.
I am the one person who never hurt Nick in that family. And his younger brother, Mikey. I wouldn't. And yes, this includes you.
That’s why I left. Now pay attention, because this is all going to make my departure make complete sense. That is, if you didn’t already understand.
I called you from work that one time, and you were at your work, and we talked, and you told me how much you were tired of Nick's troubles. And I said to you that Nick had come out as gay to me. And I knew he was probably in danger and needed you, like maybe contracting HIV if he's not careful, or being bullied beyond belief at school for his sexuality. That made you say to me over the phone, if he's gay you just didn't care any more about what happens to him.
You said that. And I said to you, "Now you know why I've not talked to you."
You took it as me coming out to you. Well, I did, but that's not what I meant. When you can just carelessly cast off a child like that, you must surely know, at least now, this wouldn’t sit well with me. But there you were, doing exactly that. You told me you couldn't condone homosexuality, and it hurts you because parents want grandchildren. Well you have two, one was gay, and you were casting him off, and me. Why the hell should God bless you with more kids?
Yet again, a little boy needed you and you decided to dispose of him, but Holly still lived at home with you, safe and sound, protected. The girl who actually told her son if he turned out to be gay she'd cut his penis off and put it in a blender.
In front of a LOT of people.
I mean that’s the absurdity of all this. Remember when Dad moved me in with that woman, Carloyn Dickerson? Her nephew, Rick, went to high school with me. I kept in touch with him on Facebook and he went into the military and now suffers with PTSD from his time in war. He decided to belittle me once, telling me my PTSD wasn't as important as his, because he thought I claimed to have it because people were mean to me at school. For being gay. Isn’t that a hoot?
Nobody had any idea I was gay. Reread this entire letter and you'll easily see being gay isn't even on the top 100 reasons that got me here! And if you think I wasn't contacting you because I thought you'd be mean to me if you knew I was gay, that is just adorable.
After all that, you were all living partly subsidized by Nick's money, I was told. Money that he made working as a gay go-go dancer at Swinging Richards in Atlanta. Guess you can't condone gayness, but you can sure take its money. All that time Holly wanted to get him into modeling but he made his fortune as an exotic gay dancer instead. I cannot tell you how much joy that brings me. That must have eaten you two up.
Truly I hope he's doing okay. I did hurt him once, when I saw him hurting Mikey. I snapped. I will never forget it, and it kills me that I did. Not so badly as anything she did to me though. But enough.
You have not one, but two grandchildren. And Mikey also later had problems. And once again, you were standing by Holly, and disposing him. You call me to ask me to pick him up, not telling him where you were dropping him off because you were going to dump him back in Georgia. Underaged. Unaware I’d be there. So I told you to take him to the same Starbucks he and I went to hang out. I was hoping this would clue him in on the idea I'd suggested it, when you got there, so he wouldn't get there terrified out of his mind.
I called his friends to let them know what fucked up thing was about to happen to him. Apparently they got there and took photos. I was happy they tormented the two of you. I was happy that in this conflict he had someone on his side. I never did through all of my wars. Didn’t mean I wasn’t blamed for it all though, later on, so I understand. Of course I was. Sure I was. Knew I would be.
So you see, this was strike three.
I used the $100 payments you were giving me to get out of there and I never looked back. I dropped all contact. We were done. I was in Tucson long enough to see the political war chased me down, to watch my representative (who I’d just met) gunned down at a parking lot right next to where I worked. Gabrielle Giffords’ office was on my street. I was on TV worldwide holding a candle for her.
When I was still in Tucson I called dad one last time. I didn't give him the privilege of knowing it would be the last time we would ever speak. After all, that thing with Carolyn was pretty much a drop in the bucket of reasons I was done with him. You shouldn't have to blackmail your own father to care about you and let you stay with him, telling him if he didn't lay off of me I would just call you and you could have his wages garnished to pay off owed child support.
But I needed to call him. You see, the things I suffer from, I recognize many of them in him. I mean I don't go around wishing people dead and talking about it to children, but we all know he was brought up in an evil family of his own. Maybe that's how he ended up with you? I don't pretend to know.
I needed to let him know I forgave him. Tell him what it is he's experiencing, that they have names, and that some of those symptoms are not his fault. He didn't know it would be our last talk. You see, I needed to forgive him. But I also needed to forget him.
Which brings me to why I'm writing this. I mean, deep down I'd like to forgive you, but I mean Jesus, how does one do that? I tried just forgetting you, but you see how well THAT'S going.
The best I can do is to tell you that this is what I still go through. These memories. This struggle. My adult life has been me trying to survive, but not being able to work or function, nervous breakdown after complete mental meltdown whenever I tried, sleeping on the couches of friends until they weren't friends anymore, always having to find somewhere new. I lived in constant fear of homelessness. I’ve had seven partners, each less suitable than the last, until I realized I needed to be on my own in my own place of my own power. And that will be a struggle with financial services, Social Security, HUD, etc. that keeps going nowhere. But I won't give up.
I have survived too much to give up. I joined a cult to get out of the house and away from you, and it is not something I regret. I mean those people were different but they were some very nice folks who, for whatever reasons of their own, also fell into a cult. So I could relate with them. And they were my first taste of having people I cared about, who cared about me, who guided me in some way. It began with bible studies that seriously forced you to think about who you were, face your most horrible facts about yourself, and take a good look at who you really are and how you need major fixing. All under this stupid idea that every bad thing you’ve ever done is responsible for a man, who lived 2,000 years ago, to have had to be brutally murdered so you wouldn't go to hell for eternity. I mean that's pretty stupid. But I survived those studies. They were like a mental boot camp. They broke me open, made me become a man, made me able to face myself in a mirror. Made me take a good look at myself.
Just not how they'd hoped. See, they want you to feel guilt, break down and cry, feel like a sinful little worm. Usually people in them think they need forgiveness, blame themself for Jesus' torture, pray for forgiveness in tears. No, I looked at myself and realized, he went through torture like I did. He didn't speak when people hit him (according to the story, because chances are he didn't even really exist), and I didn't get to speak when I was tortured. What I came to realize is that I survived monumental torture, and somehow I survived.
I realized, I am fucking amazing.
When I realized that about myself, I realized I deserved love. I deserved peace. I didn't deserve a damn thing that happened. In a way, I escaped death. Not unscarred. But without the worst scar of all: I did not blame me anymore.
I survived off of hate and a vendetta. I refused to give up because that meant Holly would win. It is no way to live but it’s how I had to. I saw people stronger than me face a tenth of depression and mental illness that I did, and several of them could not take it. Friends named Jody, Lionel, Tim, just to name a few, all took their own lives. They didn't have my rage. Apparently it saved me. I sure as hell can't say I am still here because of strength, virtue, or any other reason. It was all because I refused to let her win.
My one regret for so long is that I never once got to hurt her. That seems like an awful thing to say, but she started a billion fights knowing she would win, and that I would be defeated, and I would slink off hurting and suffering. I never once beat her and made her feel the same.
And what hurt most was that I was in a world where nobody cared, and for the most part everyone who had any say in the whole thing always seemed to take her side. She had the friends (notice though, she can't keep any), and she had you, and nobody knew nor cared how badly I was hurt, because back then everyone piled on weak people, because beating the crying kid made him cry more. It was so much fun for them!
I have one moment that finally gives me satisfaction though. A truly weird, vicarious instance of victory. When a child is bullied, and the world turns on the bully, that makes me feel fantastic. It finally happened.
Remember? She would always get her words in, and when I tried to speak, she would shout over me and interrupt me so I wasn't heard at all, and then you would just yell, "BOTH OF YOU SHUT UP!" Which is what she wanted you to do. Then it was over and she won and I was never heard. Remember that?
I saw man who had suffered with a stutter as a child, grow up to be a world leader, stand in a presidential debate with another Narcissist bully by the name of Donald J. Trump (and I do not thank you giving me the same first name as that evil piece of shit). He interrupted Biden, belligerently, poking at him until all Joe could say was, "Would you shut up, man?"
I would yell shut up to Holly and she would go into: "I won't shut up, I don't shut up for 'shut up,'" which is bullshit because she wouldn't shut up because she's just fucking incapable of ever shutting the fuck up.
I could not watch the debate. I had to go outside, walk, breathe, as every fight, every screaming match from memory flooded back to me. But I got to see the world respond. The world watched that debate. And the world was horrified, outraged, disgusted at how Trump bullied him. Many who were also abused found themselves similarly tormented by memories of their abuse. I was not alone in this. And the world told me this was not okay.
Okay yeah he has some rightwing assholes on his side, but everyone with any sense of a heart, the majority. 81 million more voters, in fact. I never got that from you. Thankfully I no longer need it from you. I have it from 81,268,924 voters, all saying this was not okay, and sending that piece of shit back to Maralago. And I have it from myself, saying to myself, with every ounce of certainty a person could possibly have, it was not okay. I did not deserve any of that.
I am fucking amazing, and you never got to know me.
Remember how that felt, I feared people wouldn't see Biden, but would only see him as he responded to Trump. Trump filled the entire room with himself so nobody else could be seen, just like Holly always, always did. (Come on, tell me I'm lying. Tell me Trump isn't Holly but with a tiny little mushroom penis. They are the same fucking person.) You never got to know ME. You only knew me or heard me as I was responding to her, filling the entire house with herself and snuffing me out so that all I could be was a person responding to HER.
You don't know me. You never got that privilege. I am fucking amazing. And I will stay that way, over here, way away from the two of you, struggling what I have to struggle, fighting what I have to fight, and never again being in one of those moments where I see you two doing the same shit to yet another child.
I amazing, and you wasted your life instead with the girl who didn't give a shit whether or not you were killed by dad. Nick is amazing, but you chose the girl who threatened to Cuisinart his penis. Mikey is amazing but you dropped him in the middle of nowhere because he hit her once, and let me just tryyyyyy to muster up a single tear for her being the one getting hit, FOR ONCE.
Despite my challenges, I’ve traveled to Europe twice, seen things in this country and abroad I never could have dreamed, participated in things that would boggle the mind, and have been admired and loved by several in ways I never thought I’d ever know. I’ve lived in several states, met amazing people, witnessed things that you couldn’t even guess at. I’ve flown over the north pole, looked down at Greenland’s amazing beauty, splashed in nearly every ocean, learned how to look up at the night sky and identify virtually every constellation, and well….. I know it’s supposed to be the sign of someone who doesn’t “have a life,” but if Jeopardy comes on, and I never miss it, I can answer so many of the clues. I have personally known four different contestants (one of them dropped me off when I came home to Emerson that time from Kentucky in fact….. probably the only contestant ever to put Alex Trebek in a headlock to demonstrate his love of wrestling, although I’m sure he didn’t tell Alex he enjoys erotic wrestling). So much for that being not having a life, huh? I can converse about nearly anything and leave people laughing and wondering and questioning things they never thought about.
You wasted your lifetime instead with the other child, the most disgusting, manipulative, narcissistic piece of shit that ever walked the earth second only to Donald Trump, and you listened to her yammer on endlessly about the importance of her oh so saintly work at Taco Bell, or act like she wrote some words on a paper and that somehow makes her a great songwriter.
You cheated yourself from ever knowing ME. I am not the one who wanted you dead. I am the one who couldn’t stand the thought of it so badly that I suffered internally. I am an amazing person. And I became amazing all on my own. And it was a terrifying journey to have to take on my own, but it would have been a thousand times worse had I stayed.
I just needed you to know that.
I think I just needed you to know, in however much a few pages could possibly accomplish it, who I was. Who you missed knowing. And maybe, just maybe, I can get these memories to stop bothering me.
But even if they won’t, I will still survive and I will still be an amazing person. And in this brutal, sickening contest with her, that I never asked to be in, I want her, and you, to always know this:
