lat's symptom tracker @symptomtracker - Tumblr Blog

Thomas,

Great. I am not going to reply, reassure, forgive, or even acknowledge this email, or some of the emails you send in the months ahead. The effects of messages from you over the past month at minimum have rewritten my life several times over, and it's exhausting, I hate it, and I don't have the time for it. I have a lot of library books checked out that I need to get to!!

I, too, have experienced several massive life changes in an extremely short period of time.

"Writing to you is exhausting. Do you think I'm existing in some kind of a stasis bubble? That I don't have a job? That I'm not constantly in tears? I live in constant misery which I am only occasionally able to distract myself from. The keening absence you've left in my life is the only thing that I've been able to think about since May 14th. I'm a shell of a person - I mean that literally, I've lost close to 20 pounds this summer."

It's extremely bad, my pants literally don't fit anymore. And my pants were really really expensive!

(This is a riff on what you wrote. I think about many different things and have since May 14th. I've also lost more weight. It's kind of concerning.)

I talk to a lot of people at the library who are having a weird and bad time, and much of the time, using religious imagery is a bad sign.

Please reference:

"But I also know that there is literally nothing you could do to me that would cause me to treat you the way you've treated me for the last half year. You have hurt me in a way that I don't know you are equipped to understand, and that really sucks! You've constantly reffused to acknowledge that I also have emotions, let alone that you have a HUGE influence on those emotions!"

I do think that the answer to this problem, this cycle of harm that I experience, is easily solvable. Stop harming me. Stop being insane to me via letter so that I stop experiencing destabilization. Only time will tell if you have the ability to do this.

Unfortunately the harm that I have experienced through your continued contact with me, a relationship without Doing The Work, has been so awful that I don't want it any more.

In October, all I felt from you is that you hated me and you hated talking to me. I was trying to press anything I could, anything for you to see that I AM A PERSON, I EXIST, I HAVE FEELINGS, I HAVE EMOTIONS, I EXIST WITHOUT YOU. I wanted my intimate relationship back in a safe way that I could control, because I wasn't getting what I needed, and I wanted it so badly and I thought that I could have it if I was in control of it, and I was trying to force control back to me.

Throughout all of November and the rest of October, I was having this reoccuring nightmare that I have pretty frequently anyway, with little provocation. In the dream, I'm having a regular normal dream, but something bad is happening, and I start crying and I'm telling my parents that we have to do something about it, and I'm begging them to listen to me because I'm right about whatever it is, and they won't listen to me, or they tell me I'm wrong, they won't listen to me. The dream always ends with me waking up crying and upset. While I was exchanging Small Letters with you, I had this nightmare at least three times a week, except you were there in place of my parents.

So I don't really think this was working for me, as much as I was tryng to force it to.

There can be no relationship without accountability. I don't have the kind of capacity to extend that grace any more, and I like to think that I don't actually have to prove that I am a person with feelings and emotions and reactions and a rich inner life to you. Because I can't do it if you already don't believe me.

This email isn't real, so it feels dumb to sign off.

Nevertheless, Latitude

Thomas,

I'm so sorry for how I've acted. I could not deal with a world in which you did this to me. I didn't know what I needed, but I wanted so desperately and so badly for this to work out that I tried to do everything in my power to make it not have happened. I tried to make up alternate explanations and excuses to absolve you, I tried to blame it on past events that happened in my life, and I tried desperately to rewrite reality into something less devastating, or something that you could somehow 'fix' by doing a series of actions. This wasted both of our times, caused unnecessary harm, and prolonged the process.

You were so resentful about every part of the process that I should have given up months ago, but I forced us to continue because I really really really wanted the future I thought I had, or thought I could still have. This was very selfish of me, and I'm sorry. I thought that I could squash down enough of my own feelings so that I could forgive you. I thought I had an endless well of compassion for my favorite person in the world. I thought I could do it. I am so sorry to have been wrong.

I'm sorry that I wasted so much of your time. It was very sporting of you to continue even though you hated it. I worded statements very carefully so as not to blame you directly, which ultimately caused both of us harm. That was foolish of me; it absolved you unnecessarily, and it tricked me into thinking that maybe this hadn't happened. But it has.

There is nothing I can do to make this not have happened. I have to live the rest of my life knowing that my favorite person in the world sexually abused me for two and a half years without my knowledge or consent. I will never feel safe around you again. You are a persistent danger to me while you are in my life in any capacity. I wish that this was different, but it isn't.

Do you think there was something I could have done to prevent you from sexually abusing me? Tell me. Tell me if there was something I could have done to prevent this. I'll do it instantly. I'll do anything.

I do not owe you reconciliation or forgiveness. You are not forgiven.

Latitude

"what I do know is that you need to think long and hard about the part you've played in this, and that you need to give me some kind of apology. Unlike you, I value apologies whether they're "actionable" or not (no idea what an "actionable" apology is supposed to be) because that's how you're supposed to demonstrate your understanding of why the actions you took were bad, and how they harmed the other party."

okay so this is insane as a sentence. whatever. but the logical inconsistency here is that "an actionable apology" is surely not that hard to understand. AND ALSO. it is the main topic of this book? anyhow I thought that was very funny.

#12

anyhow. this last one. some quotes.

"I wanted to spend my birthday with my favorite person in the world, but that person no longer exists. Instead you've been replaced with this version of yourself that's stuck in this loop of constantly having unresolved trauma being triggered by interactions with me, and I'm not even allowed to interact directly you."

"Everyone in my life who knows anything at all about what's been happening is pretty upset with you on my behalf, including the very small number of people who know the full context of my actions. I'm tired of defending you. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of feeling inadequate."

"I know I hurt you. I know it was hurtful in a way that I am probably not equipped to completely understand. But I also know that there is literally nothing you could do to me that would cause me to treat you the way you've treated me for the last half year. You have hurt me in a way that I don't know you are equipped to understand, and that really sucks! You've constantly refused to acknowledge that I also have emotions, let alone that you have a HUGE influence on those emotions!"

"You're seemingly disinterested in actually addressing the literal & emotional roots of our conflict in a constructive way, you're avoidant, and you're hostile whenever I try to express the barest shade of the emotions I'm experiencing. At this point in time, I don't believe that you actually want to fix things."

"but jesus christ Lat! If you had spoken to me in May, I would have done anything, if it meant you would've felt better. But you fucking COMPLETELY IGNORED ME FOR OVER A MONTH. And then, when you finally did reach out again, you didn't explain your expectations, or set any boundaries around the contents of our letters, and then proceeded to completely ignore most of the emotional work that I was trying to do with you." (What)

"I have 0 confidence in your willingness or even capability to do & say the things you need to do & say to mend the parts of this rift that you are responsible for."

" Once upon a time, I wanted being in each other's lives to look like the way things were, but without me taking secret photos of you…" (I feel like this was achievable? Many people are doing it. I feel like most people are not taking secret photos of me. Although I guess the surveillance state…)

"If, tomorrow, or next week, or in another 6 months, you realize how badly you fucked up and you decide you want to try and fix things, you have my phone number. […] send me a text and we'll have tea together with Judah as a chaperone. And we'll have a lengthy in person discussion. But I'm not interested in hearing from you again otherwise. You've made it abundantly clear that you do not actually want to be friends with me anymore. I'm sorry I was the cause of that, but I wish you could at least recognize that's how you've been acting."

#12

Anyhow I tell him that he needs to get his head on straight about me committing thoughtcrimes because it will only bring him despair. "Which 1) wasn't what occurred from my perspective, and 2) is not a thing that will be fixed by my apology (partly because it didn't happen so the apology therefore cannot be actionable, and also because Being a Cop will never be a solution to a problem). I Think Personally that this is a situation where it's like, you are outsourcing something happening in your head onto me, and basically nothing I Personally can do can help. I can support you and listen to you about it, but because Thoughtcrime is not real and you cannot become a Thought Cop, I literally can't fix the problem."

Anyhow whatever. On December 3rd Thomas sends me an insane email that is kind of delightful in its insanity. Like, I'm the dumbest most trusting most earnest person on the planet and also I've gotten this far and even I couldn't be like "well actually he has a point"

Also he invited me to his family's thanksgiving???

this was on November 6th

OH before I forget again - I understand that you are almost 100% going to decline, but I wanted you to know that you are still invited to my family's Thanksgiving this year. I know there's a bunch of huge barriers that kind of make that not something you'd want to be at, but I felt like I should explicitly make the invitation anyways, even if you won't come.

#12

(crazy to me that you didn't tell Noor/Zayn et al until so recently, it would be driving me crazy and I would probably be talking about it to as many geographically removed people as I know)

I understood that 1) it was a terrible thing for Thomas to have done and also 2) it was extremely embarrassing to try and reconcile with him about it and I was like. if it works out which I really want it to. I don't want anyone to think badly of me / of Thomas.

AH, BUT THEY ARE TOO LATE! Thomas and I begin to exchange mundane emails (thru the rest of October and all of November) because it seems like the least offensive thing that I can do that might help. This seems like it's going fine by which I mean I stop eating and have consistent nightmares. But I'm like that means nothing. That's a coincidence. I do not believe in dreams being affected by your subconscious thoughts or whatever.

I am literally coughing up blood right now which is an insane portent tbqh

I'm like this is going great I'm going to start talking about MY feelings and see if we can work towards resolution. Nov 13th. I send an email about how Thomas did sex crimes to me and then has consistently erased me since then. I get a response and I am fooled by his articulate nature and his seeming understanding of the problem. See below:

"The role I see myself playing is the role I'm playing now, which I'd describe as penitent. I feel like as much as possible, I have to put all of my hurt feelings into a little box and tuck that under my bed, and focus on validating and supporting you, and demonstrating to you you that I'm safe to exist around. It has been my understanding that this is the point of our non-emotionally-charged emails about recent reads and fountain pens (which I've genuinely been enjoying). I don't think boxing my feelings is a great strategy, but I also think that your safety and sanity and happiness have to be made the priority. My hope is that one day, when things are happier, I will be able to bring out that box for you to look at and acknowledge. I think you want a better answer than "keeping exchanging emails until you feel safe enough to start working through this process in person," but I don't have a better answer than that right now."

#12

I think it's been very stupid of me to go chasing after Thomas and trying to wring anything useful or redeeming out of him especially after he expressed how resentful he is about this and that is really on me. however he did Sex Crimes to me and I experienced Trauma so I was not good, at, you know, judgement.

Also as a fun side note at some point over the summer Thomas supposedly read Danya Ruttenberg's ON REPENTENCE AND REPAIR: MAKING AMENDS IN AN UNAPOLOGETIC WORLD. this will come up later and it's funny I promise. in that it's extremely stupid

some stuff happens in october.

thomas writes a long letter to me telling me that he's done because i have persistently refused to engage with what he's written to me and i need to do a lot of "emotional inner work"

jude apparently read this draft and agrees that it was a reasonable thing to say to someone

i see thomas's mom at the library and i have an all consuming panic attack

jude and i have a discussion where he's like. and also thomas doesn't respect me and i feel insane all the time and it's going really bad

I have my sleep study that is an end result in me getting diagnosed for narcolepsy!! wow yay uWu

Jude and I go to Chicago to compete in the Midwest Crossword Tournament!!!

Thomas breaks up with Jude, citing the reason that I'll never feel safe around him and that I think he's a monster

Jude and I both have a miserable time in Chicago

When we return home, I write a very long letter & send it that even upon my current reflection is pretty good

Also around this time I finally break and tell Someone Else Besides My Therapist about what has been going on, my bffs Zayn and Noor, who encourage me to never speak to this man again.

Oh, also at the beginning of this, Jude was reading all the letters that Thomas sent to me and all the letters I sent to Thomas, and he asked to stop because it was stressing him out. We also switch at one point from using Jude as our postal carrier to The Literal Mail including stamps. Jude describes extreme emotional dysregulation from Thomas every time he receives a letter from me, and requests to stop carrying them because it is making their dates kind of annoying.

I am extremely upset with Thomas's letters and functionally unable to reconcile the Thomas that I love with the Thomas that is sending me these terrible letters. I try to blame other factors for how Thomas is acting, functionally absolving him of his actions. I try to make the problem more of "my fault", because then if it is my fault then I can control it and therefore solve it.

I am not eating or sleeping regularly at this point (August through September), and I have narcolepsy so it is kind of serious when I am not sleeping. I am also preparing for my sleep appointment where I will be diagnosed with narcolepsy, so I am trying really hard to have regular sleep. Also my second job ends around this time, as well as the Summer Game which was a lot of extra work. I actually don't do as well in the summer game as I would like because I spend two days catatonic from emotions at the end of the Game and fail to get enough points to get #1 on the staff leaderboard.

"catatonic" here meaning I can basically only lie horizontal drifting in and out of sleep, a weird and stupid thing that happens to me sometimes

I am making it sound like a lot of letters, but really there are just a few: 1) 1st letter where he demands a response from me because he is miserable & he asks for something he can do. A choice line: "I get you're a slow processor. I just don't want you to be surprised if I'm not 100% conciliatory whenever you decide we can speak again." [I ask for an apology in written form] 2) 2nd letter where he tells me to stop stringing him along and says he feels petulant

3) Long letter where he apologizes at length but fundamentally fails to explain how he will prevent this situation from happening in the future. He also prefaces this apology by saying that my asking for it made him so angry that he considered ghosting me. 4) Letter that apologizes for letters #1 and #2, asks for my feelings at length, says that I am deliberately ignoring how he feels (possibly true) [I send a letter explaining that literally every relationship I've ever had with a man, they either transition or become irrevocably obsessed with me and attempt violence to me or themselves when I inevitably reject them] [I send a letter that praises his first draft of an apology and encourage him to look it over with a therapist for a second draft. I encourage him to listen to what his emotions need & consider how to express them. I describe the range of emotions I am currently aware of, which is mostly extreme despair.] 5) Separate message because this was the start of October and events happened

I will recap. In May, Thomas (Jude's boyfriend and previously my favorite person on the planet), texted me a confession about having come across my nudes and kept them (in early 2024), and also he had been taking secret photos of me partially clothed for masturbation purposes. He also referred to having thefted my underwear to masturbate "with". This happened over a period of two and a half years. For ease of time and energy, I will refer to this as "sexual abuse".

For reference. I am autistic and I will continue to be autistic, and I have alexthymia, where often it is difficult to tell what I am feeling while I am feeling it. Sometimes, like a migraine aura, I will experience the "symptoms" of a feeling before I figure out what the feeling is. I have just graduated from grad school. I am shocked and upset. I decide that Thomas is a very important person in Jude and my's life, and I would like to reconcile with him. A month passes. Jude and Thomas continue dating. I try very hard to have feelings at a speed that is convenient for me.

At the end of May, I interview for my dream job (desk clerk at AADL). (I get this job. Obviously). Around the end of June, I decide that it is a good idea to start exchanging letters with Thomas to express how I feel and how I would like to work towards a reconciliation. This goes okay* until Thomas sends me a hostile letter on July (18th?) and I decide I would like to stop for a while. I receive increasingly angry and resentful letters. These letters press me for how I am feeling and what I am going to do to solve the problem, because Thomas is miserable and I am the only person who can fix it [sic]. I am extremely upset, but it is difficult for me to figure out why.

*I am dissociating 65% of the time I am awake so much that it becomes a problem at my new job where I am seen as kind of a forgetful (but friendly!) person

#12

slfcare

How something feels isn’t always how something is. Sometimes what feels like the end of the world is just the end of an era, and what feels impossible is just difficult, and what feels like betrayal is just miscommunication. One of the most important things you’ll learn in life is to not limit the world to your perception of it.

textie with my bestie in the group chat if he feasible

Everyone in my life who knows anything at all about what's been happening is pretty upset with you on my behalf, including the very small number of people who know the full context of my actions. I'm tired of defending you.

there is shit wrong with him that is so profound that he can't deal with this

he is not going to meaningfully apologize or change his behavior

you are in persistent danger from him while he is in your life in any capacity

when you have a multi day spiral about the insane fucked up shit in his latest letter, that is harm that he is doing to you

he has been continuing to harm you for months, since the confession

once you go through the grief of really losing him, you will find your life improved without him, on the the other side

what has happened here is that Thomas cannot cope with the reality, and so he has constructed an alternate reality where everything is different, and he lives in that reality

and you can have your reality, or you can have him, but you can't have both

Having him in your life means giving up your reality

It is a death of the self.

I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST I EXIST

what can i do to make this not have happened what can i do to make this okay what can i do to make this not have happened what can i do to make this okay what can i do to make this not have happened what can i do to make this okay what can i do to make this not have happened what can i do to make this okay what can i do to make this not have happened what can i do to make this okay what can i do to make this not have happened what can i do to make this okay what can i do to make this not have happened what can i do to make this okay what can i do to make this not have happened what can i do to make this okay what can i do to make this not have happened what can i do to make this okay what can i do to make this not have happened what can i do to make this okay what can i do to make this not have happened what can i do to make this okay what can i do to make this not have happened what can i do to make this okay what can i do to make this not have happened what can i do to make this okay what can i do to make this not have happened what can i do to make this okay what can i do to make this not have happened what can i do to make this okay what can i do to make this not have happened what can i do to make this okay what can i do to make this not have happened what can i do to make this okay

You say you "want this to work," but you've provided me 0 evidence to that claim.

Nothing I do will ever ever ever ever be good enough for him

I CARE IF I AM GUILTY I CARE IF I AM GUILTY I CARE IF I AM GUILTY I CARE IF I AM GUILTY I CARE IF I AM GUILTY I CARE IF I AM GUILTY I CARE IF I AM GUILTY I CARE IF I AM GUILTY I CARE IF I AM GUILTY I CARE IF I AM GUILTY I CARE IF I AM GUILTY I CARE IF I AM GUILTY I CARE IF I AM GUILTY I CARE IF I AM GUILTY I CARE IF I AM GUILTY I CARE IF I AM GUILTY I CARE IF I AM GUILTY I CARE IF I AM GUILTY I CARE IF I AM GUILTY I CARE IF I AM GUILTY I CARE IF I AM GUILTY I CARE IF I AM GUILTY I CARE IF I AM GUILTY I CARE IF I AM GUILTY I CARE IF I AM GUILTY I CARE IF I AM GUILTY I CARE IF I AM GUILTY I CARE IF I AM GUILTY

this is cathartic for me

But you fucking COMPLETELY IGNORED ME FOR OVER A MONTH. And then, when you finally did reach out again, you didn't explain your expectations, or set any boundaries around the contents of our letters, and then proceeded to completely ignore most of the emotional work that I was trying to do with you. What's more, you got actively upset at me for trying to do that work, & acted as if I was crossing a boundary (which you had never set) by doing so.

1. YOU SEXUALLY ABUSED ME FOR TWO AND A HALF YEARS.

2. I have no idea what "emotional work" you were trying to do with me. You didn't ask or explain yourself. One time you sent two letters with Jude at the same time, and the first one was like, "shall I tell you the whole story? I'll wait for you to respond" and then the second letter was your tragic backstory (which functionally didn't make sense and didn't seem relevant) which I guess was "the whole story"??? ???? And then you told me the story of our friendship, in which you said I was gross and stinky and you would never have looked at me twice if we did not spend functionally all our time together and I was excited to see you.

3. IT'S FINE TO SET BOUNDARIES LATER. SOMETIMES YOU DON'T KNOW YOU HAVE A BOUNDARY UNTIL IT'S BEEN CROSSED. THAT'S NOT YOUR FAULT OR MY FAULT. SOMETIMES MY NEEDS CHANGE, BECAUSE I AM NOT SET IN STONE.

The group chat says:

Genuinely I don't think I can unpack the insanity here. So you're mad at Lat for taking space, and also mad at them for contacting you, and also mad at them for expecting you to like, not degrade them via letter as if that somehow wasn't implied by like being human people in a conversation, and you're also mad that they didn't.... I'm losing the thread here, probably because it doesn't make any sense.

Everyone in my life who knows anything at all about what's been happening is pretty upset with you on my behalf, including the very small number of people who know the full context of my actions.

who is that exactly? your mom? your therapist, who is paid to sympathize with you?

You have hurt me in a way that I don't know you are equipped to understand, and that really sucks! You've constantly refused to acknowledge that I also have emotions, let alone that you have a HUGE influence on those emotions!

I totally agree that you also have emotions. They are not appropriate to share with me, your victim. It sounds like you're having a lot of trouble expressing and regulating your emotions, and that is frankly, not my business. We are not friends. You have abused me.

If you had spoken to me in May, I would have done anything, if it meant you would've felt better.

Again, I can't imagine you taking my words at face value right now or ever again, but I promise to answer any questions you have truthfully and without dissembling. However you want to proceed from here, I will go along with it. This feels so stupid and hypocritical to say right now, but I do love you and want the best for you. If you decide you never want to see me again & want to cut contact immediately, that is your right. If you want something else, I will do everything in my power to work towards that solution. I'm so so sorry it came to this.

I needed time and space. I still need time and space. You resent every moment of that time and space. I am an object to you. You do not respect me. You do not trust me. You do not love me.

That's fucked up!

I have been writing in my journal a lot, and by "writing in my journal" I mean "sobbing and consistently writing and thinking, BUT I AM A PERSON! I AM A PERSON WITH FEELINGS! I EXIST! I EXIST!!" I have never felt so erased by anyone before except by my own parents.

Sick burn.

I was actually having nightmares about this one for a while. I have a reoccurring nightmare of something happening where there is an emergency and I'm yelling at my parents that we have to get out of here and we have to get help or do something, and they ignore me, and then the dream always ends with the memory of my parents standing over me while I scream and cry and beg for help from them. That one is interesting because the end of it is based in a memory from when I was a toddler. Anyhow for a couple of weeks in November I was having this nightmare again but you were there in place of my parents.

I apologize if the phrasing of it made you uncomfortable. I want to immediately follow up by restating that you are in complete control of this situation. If you want to never hear from me again, all you have to do is say the word and I will vanish from your life as if I never existed. To be clear, that's not an outcome I want, and I'm willing to sit in the Bad Feelings Pit and do the work for as long as it takes, but I'm also petrified of you feeling coerced or obligated to stay in contact with me.

For the record, this did happen. Because you wrote to me in anger. I felt coerced to reply with how I felt. I felt coerced to reply to you. You dragged my feelings out of me and I was the most honest with you I had been yet. And you responded and told me that I was condescending, and wrong, and that I had compared you to Neil Gaiman which you disagreed with. If you review that letter in particular, you'll find that I compared you to your past self; YOU were the one that said "It's just so easy to not be a sex pest". I just find it insane that you said this to me and yet were sex pesting behind my back to me. Is it easy to not be a sex pest? Because if you weren't, you could've had it all. You could've had me in "skimpy little outfits".

If you were able to convincingly demonstrate to me that you do care about me, and that you do want to be friends, and have a future together, and a house, and a life, I would be willing to work with you to get back there, because historical precedent suggests that we're both happier when we're in each other's lives.

Right back at you. I actually don't need you to prove that you care about me at all, because I also know that my parents care about me. I would need you to prove that you respect me, which my parents will never be able to do. Are You Better Than My Mother? Weird question for the ages.

what I do know is that you need to think long and hard about the part you've played in this, and that you need to give me some kind of apology.

"This is disgusting. Deplorable. VILE. I think this is an evil man. How the fuck are you the one who has to grovel at his feet." [the group chat]

Unlike you, I value apologies whether they're "actionable" or not (no idea what an "actionable" apology is supposed to be) because that's how you're supposed to demonstrate your understanding of why the actions you took were bad, and how they harmed the other party.

I shopped this around to see what people are saying. Friends are saying:

This is wild to me because after knowing you for five years, I fully understand your communication style and why and how you want apologies to be actionable. Wild that Thomas does not understand that despite being so close.

NO IDEA WHAT AN ACTIONABLE APOLOGY IS SUPPOSED TO BE????

Jude said you read Danya Ruttenberg's book on redemption and repair? I assume that she discussed Maimonides' principles of teshuvah? I'll copy them here for your reference.

[Teshuvah which means 'return'.]

Verbally confess your mistake and ask for forgiveness (Mishneh Torah 1:1).

Express sincere remorse, resolving not to make the same mistake again (Mishneh Torah 2:2).

Do everything in your power to “right the wrong,” to appease the person who has been hurt (Mishneh Torah 2:9).

Act differently if the same situation happens again (Mishneh Torah 2:1).

Sorry that all of this apparently went immediately out of your head after reading it? Swiss cheese brain. Horrible. Maybe get that checked out? Like, do you have a brain tumor?

he keeps saying that he loves me, right. and not to cite the television show t100 in the year of our lord 2025. but in the episode "murphy's law" raven and finn are trying to work it out and finn keeps being like "i love you raven you're the only girl for me" and raven's like "yeah but you're also really into clarke" and he's like 'no no no I love you I'm so sorry I hurt u". and then clarke passes out and finn catches her in his arms. and raven looks out into the forest and she's like "yes.... you love me.... but not in the way I deserve to be loved."

and that's the thing, right? I deserve to be loved. I DESERVE TO BE LOVED.

Well! Fortunately I will live a long and full life. I have many fantastic friends and I work at my dream job and I live on a bus line. Unless I kill myself! Which is pretty likely. Hope you feel weird when you are inevitably drawn to my funeral. Or will you look at me in the coffin and think to yourself, "wow, it's so fucked up that they never apologized to me for setting boundaries and I was upset about it, after I assaulted them for two and a half years. I will carry this burden forever because they would not acknowledge my emotions". ?????? I apologize if the phrasing of it made you uncomfortable. I want to immediately follow up by restating that you are in complete control of this situation. If you want to never hear from me again, all you have to do is say the word and I will vanish from your life as if I never existed. To be clear, that's not an outcome I want, and I'm willing to sit in the Bad Feelings Pit and do the work for as long as it takes, but I'm also petrified of you feeling coerced or obligated to stay in contact with me. For the record, this did happen. Because you wrote to me in anger. I felt coerced to reply with how I felt. I felt coerced to reply to you. You dragged my feelings out of me and I was the most honest with you I had been yet. And you responded and told me that I was condescending, and wrong, and that I had compared you to Neil Gaiman which you disagreed with. If you review that letter in particular, you'll find that I compared you to your past self; YOU were the one that said "It's just so easy to not be a sex pest". You said this to me and yet were sex pesting behind my back. Not even in general, but literally to me. Maybe also in general. That's not my business. I couldn't stop you from assaulting me, so why would I be able to help anyone else.

I have a 101.4(F) fever, which is the platonic ideal of a fever

I was talking to Jude about this, and he was like, I don't think you should contort yourself any more to fit Thomas's needs, and I was like, I haven't contorted myself at all. I'm perfectly in control. Maybe I could do a little more and it would be okay. I want this so so so so bad. I want you to magically not be a person who harmed me. Something I think about a lot is that for a week or so when my RA was really bad you brought me hot tea in bed in the morning. I never asked you to do that. I assume this was driven by a wave of guilt for the abuse you were doing behind my back. I have to assume that all of your kindness and generosity was driven by this, because as soon as I have not played your willing victim, you have not extended that kindness.

I think a lot about the scalding on my thigh. I imagine to you that it must have felt like divine retribution, a god coming in and punishing you for your actions. The colder months have started, and sometimes the burn pulses and flashes and hurts. It is a reminder of how I have changed since I got the burn.

I have contorted myself for you. You were so upset about sending me an apology that I have taken it off the table so as not to upset you again. It was a good first draft. It was not a good final draft. When I told you this, you told me I was condescending and that I pissed you off.

I think you could write and brainstorm and workshop for a thousand years and not come up with a sentence more perfectly crafted to piss me off & enrage me. To say nothing of, "Your apology, I think this is probably fixable." Like holy shit! I don't even know how to begin to respond to that.

Easy way to respond to that. "What do you think needs fixing?" But you also started the apology with, "This made me so angry that I almost completely ghosted you". So I dropped it, because everything around it felt so volatile and violent.

First is the implication that I haven't been discussing any of this with my therapist. What is it exactly you think a therapist is for??? (That was rhetorical). Second is the implication that it's impossible for me to do any emotional processing at all without a therapist.

You seem to be experiencing problems expressing your emotions. I suggested that you discuss your apology letter with your therapist because it needed a second draft. It seemed to me that anyone could see the flaws in it.

I contorted myself and cut myself down and said, well, if he can't do any of that yet, that's okay. I still love him and it is okay to not be perfect the first time. You said that I was not sufficiently engaging with your letters. I changed my operation and started typing up letters and writing them by hand. I tried to think about everything. I considered if there was anything I could do to help the process. I said things very carefully so that I did not blame you directly. I tried very hard to feel emotion. I think this one is very silly, because I polled my friends about this, and they were like "it is well known that you are a slow processor of feelings".

You also said "the only thing you seem to desire is in person total unfettered access to me and all of my inner emotions". This simply isn't true.

Why not say to yourself, "what could I have said to make it seem this way"?

I cut myself into pieces and I started blaming other factors instead of you to explain how I felt. I said, my mother tried to kill herself in front of me, and I felt triggered. I said, men have been violent to me in the past, and I am expecting you to do the same. I said, it's not your fault that men have been violent to me in the past.

That is so silly. Of course none of that is your fault. I should not have brought it up. That was all silly misdirection on my part to make you feel better. Stupid of me. The problem is that you sexually assaulted me for two and a half years whilst I was unawares. Do you think there was something I could have done to prevent that? Tell me. Tell me if there was something I could have done to prevent you from sexually assaulting me. I'll do it instantly. I would do anything for this not to have happened. I want to put the last two and a half years inside a box and burn it. I constantly want to kill myself. You were my favorite person on this planet. I can't get over it. I can't get over it.

The only thing I could think of to do was to make you as non threatening as possible through small letters, where we just talked about whatever. I am a person. I exist, I exist, I exist without you.

I was actually having nightmares about this one for a while. I have a reoccurring nightmare of something happening where there is an emergency and I'm yelling at my parents that we have to get out of here and we have to get help or do something, and they ignore me, and then the dream always ends with the memory of my parents standing over me while I scream and cry and beg for help from them. That one is interesting because the end of it is based in a memory from when I was a toddler. Anyhow for most of November I was having this nightmare repeatedly but you were there in place of my parents.

I erase myself. But you erase me too.

I needed time and space. I still need time and space. You resent every moment of that time and space. I am an object to you. You do not respect me. You do not trust me. You do not love me.

The safest I ever felt in my life is when I came home from Washington DC and I was all curled up in bed and I was talking at length about my trip but I was so tired. You said that you would sit in my chair and listen while I talked about it. I was so sleepy and so excited and so curled up. And you listened to me even though I probably didn't make sense.

I have rearranged my entire bedroom so that this can never happen to me again.

I'll get over it, of course. I have fantastic friends and coworkers and I partake in a variety of hobbies. I can probably even get someone to make me a fried egg sandwich. I can certainly learn to make myself a fried egg sandwich. Many people are going to care about me through the course of my life. Humira has basically cured me. I am treated for my narcolepsy and I'm better at staying awake all day now. I'm respected and admired at work because I'm fantastic and kind and generous. I was picked to be on a big project at work.

I worry about you a lot because you don't have fantastic friends and coworkers and you don't have any hobbies. All you do is sit in a room and think about how sad you are, I guess? I never asked you to do that. Jude says that this is hyperbole. I feel so sorry for how pathetic you are. That has also been a driving factor in my continued attempt at reconciliation with you. You don't have a group chat to textie with the bestie to if he feasible. I guess I'll always worry about it. I think you are going to destroy all of your relationships if you continue in this fashion. I hope you get better.

It's just that. For one of the first times in my life, I thought about a future, a future where I wanted to live. And it wasn't real.

"Lat, but it was real, my feelings for you were real and genuine". Well, they were also delusional, so, I don't know. I guess I don't know why I expected you to stop having insane delusions without apparently doing anything to address it? That's on me. I guess that's why we're here now. Fool me once, etc.

I have been writing in my journal a lot, and by "writing in my journal" I mean "sobbing and consistently writing and thinking, BUT I AM A PERSON! I AM A PERSON WITH FEELINGS! I EXIST! I EXIST!!"

I shopped this around to see what people are saying. Friends are saying:

NO IDEA WHAT AN ACTIONABLE APOLOGY IS SUPPOSED TO BE????

Jude said you read Danya Ruttenberg's book on redemption and repair? I assume that she discussed Maimonides' principles of teshuvah? I'll copy them here for your reference.

Verbally confess your mistake and ask for forgiveness (Mishneh Torah 1:1).

Express sincere remorse, resolving not to make the same mistake again (Mishneh Torah 2:2).

Do everything in your power to “right the wrong,” to appease the person who has been hurt (Mishneh Torah 2:9).

Act differently if the same situation happens again (Mishneh Torah 2:1).

Sorry that all of this apparently went immediately out of your head after reading it? Swiss cheese brain. Horrible. Maybe get that checked out? Like, do you have a brain tumor?

#12

Notes on an apology

Thomas,

You didn't ask. Here's how you can fix your 14 page apology letter.

You talk about how you sexually assaulted me because you needed control, novelty, and intimacy. Your needs are not just going to disappear if you squash them down and stop sexually assaulting me. The "actionable" part of the apology is where you say how you will meet those needs without using me as your coping mechanism.

How will you fulfill your needs for control, novelty, and intimacy?

#12

and it’s like this: you have the choice to continue contact with Thomas, but it’s going to be at the cost of suspending your reality, which is going to be corrosive to you

In a certain light, isn't nuclear war kind of exciting?

Dear Thomas,

You won't get this, which is in its own way, kind of nice. A man could get a diary, but why not write directly to you instead? We are friends, and therefore you should be the receptacle for all my feelings, no? This sounds ironic and incorrect because it's an extremely stupid thing to say, and yet, you have been doing it to me. I had a deleted line in a letter that said every time you have "the choice" between killing yourself and writing to me in anger, you should venmo me fifty dollars instead, because it would serve both of us better. So I am free to say what I like, and if you open it instead of using the Gmail block feature that comes with every Google suite of features, that is your fault. Sowwy.

Just noticed that you wouldn't leave the apology letter on 13 pages because it was "too auspicious" but our number of "friendly" emails has been left on 13. Don't worry it's the Taylor Swift number so it's chill. Life of a showgirl, am I right? (This is broadly considered to be her worst album.)

The imaginary you that lives in my mind to point out pedantic mistakes and criticize me says, well, shouldn't you be sending me [imaginary Thomas] $50 then since you are writing to ME in anger? I think the key difference is that I am not writing in anger. The way I am feeling is suicidal, depressed, sad, kind of relieved. Also kind of cold because I have a fever. And also coughing a bit because of the novel coronavirus.

As you may know, I love to avoid things. Interestingly, I think aggressively addressing this between us in the way I have has been another way of avoiding things. This weekend, I feel like it's happened to me all over again. I thought that if I could fix what broke in between us, you magically would not have sexually assaulted me. But you did, for two and a half years, and I have to deal with it.

Everyone in my life who knows anything at all about what has been happening is also pretty upset with me, on my behalf. It's a very stupid conversation to have with anyone, because I have to start it with, "okay so my best friend Thomas sexually assaulted me for two and a half years, during a time in which I trusted him completely and utterly, and also I was putting myself through undergrad & grad school" and then I follow it up with "we have been exchanging letters because I want to still be friends with him and he has been saying insane things to me???". And everyone is like dude you have to give up this is so fucked up. This is never going to be what you want because this is so fucked up.

Some quotes from the group chat. [Textie with my bestie in the group chat if he feasible, etc. Readers, he was not feasible.]

"That person no longer exists." Why? Did someone sexually assault them for two and a half years?

9/28/25

Dude like shut the fuck up

He thinks you need to apologize to him? He is out of his goddamn mind

5/15/25

My resume "has never stolen anyone's nudes" is bringing up a lot of questions already answered by my resume

Thomas is evil. This is evil.

I think when I fuck up and I am trying to make things right I would in fact allow my own health and happiness to be a cost (to a reasonable extent). He wants all the guilt to go away but doesn't want to BE guilty.

This is because what he actually wants is for you to be like a little toy in his life that he can use, and he specifically isn't into it if it is consensual so you have to be both his nonconsensual victim and also his loving friend who tolerates anything with zero boundaries. A thing that is impossible on the face of it.

If he wanted used underwear to jack it with, well, the internet can supply that, this was the plot of Orange is the new black

#12

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