Letter To My Abuser

Letter to my abuser…..


It has taken me such a long time to even get to the place that I could write this letter. And still I am struggling with what to say… I do realize that I have carried so much fear, anger, shame and guilt around for such a long time. I have allowed those emotions to limit me in so many ways for 24 years. I have walked around with no self-esteem & labeled myself as "permanently damaged goods", for as long as I can remember. Do you even know what you did or what it cost me? You violated a child, stole my innocence & caused me to walk in fear and doubt. Always feeling so inadequate. Never could tell the secret. Scared that if I told that you would follow through with your threats to kill my parents and my sister or that you would hurt me worse next time. I allowed you to keep me silent and that silence kept me in bondage to the fear. I had no one that I could turn to. I was only a child. I was not a bad person & I did not ask for it. I did not lead you on. I was afraid of you. I have lived in that fear ever since. Always scared to say what I need or what I think. I was so messed up in the way that I saw myself. Always like looking at myself through a broken mirror. You stole my innocence and my voice and replaced those precious things with shame and quilt and fear and so much self doubt. I have carried this burden way too long & I am tired. Tired of being my own worst enemy. Tired of thinking that I do not deserve anything good to happen in my life. Tired of feeling like everyone else has it all together & that I am just messed up. But most of all, I am tired of feeling broken inside. Filled with so much shame. Always feeling inadequate & somehow dirty. I want you to know that I am a beautiful woman of worth and I have every right to walk in the knowledge of who I was created to be, not in the person that you tried to make me believe that I was.
Kristy Turnage
3/14/07