To those who hurt you - unsent letters

Anch0r33

Here's a space to write to the people who have hurt you. Feel free to anonymise your letters. Express yourself in any way you want, do it in multiple comments. Honestly let it all out. Once it's out there for others to see, hopefully you'll feel a weight off your chest.

You can write it in proper letter form or any other way you can think of doing it. Hopefully we can all encourage each other by using this space positively and supporting each other.

📮📮

Anch0r33

To the classmate when we were 10 that I snuck into my house through the window whilst my mum lay in bed depressed and unaware - thank you for helping me try to clear up the mess that I lived in. That's just about all you did for me. It ended up making it worse but that's alright. You didn't speak up for me, you didn't tell anyone how I was living. I don't blame you. We were 10 after all, but you would've saved me. When I moved to a different high school from you, you never kept in touch. We were best friends for years. I wasn't far away. When I joined the same high school as you, you told me we couldn't see each other at lunch because you had new friends. Were you so ashamed of me that I couldn't join your friendship group? You'd have been doing me a favour. I ended up spending my lunchtimes away from most of the school. I never dined in the cafeteria and I never went out at lunch. Maybe you could've changed that by simply including me.

To the teachers at primary school who ignored all the warning signs - you were concerned enough when I was turning up late and distrupting lessons, but that's about all you were concerned about. You blamed me for bullying when I was in fact being bullied. You didn't bother to check that everything was okay. You let me go home every day to face neglect and abuse. How could you have known though, you weren't educated on signs of abuse. The system failed you as well. I hope now you can see the signs and save someone else.

To the police officers who came for an unrelated incident - I was probably only single digits at the time, maybe 9 pushing 10. Maybe even older actually but not by much. I was still a scared little child and you saw the conditions I was living in. You smelt the same urine soaked bare stairs that the social workers failed to mention in their social work report - yet told CAMHS about. You saw the tip of the iceberg when it came to the living conditions but you left it there and did nothing else. That's okay, how were you to know any different.

To my grandparents - you straight up knew how I was living was wrong. You told my mum that social work would take me if they were to find out. You didn't get me out of there. Instead you attempted to clean once, and in the process you threw away my cardboard box den - the one place I used to express myself and feel safe. You left it for years afterwards and only took me in once social work forced you to.

To camhs - you were told by an 11 year old that they wanted to live with their grandparents forever and never see their mum again but that didn't set off any alarm bells? You encouraged me to talk in front of my mum about why I was the way I was. You said I didn't have anxiety, just "anxious energy". You said I wasn't depressed. How's that working out? You said that I had trouble sharing people and even said I was jealous of my own puppy. You said that even though I rarely engaged in sessions, I continued to request to come back. You missed every single warning sign with me and you were supposed to be the ones to help me.

To social work - you never took what I told you seriously. You said that because I was vague with timescales that it was hard to believe. That because I didn't have any bruises that things still weren't happening. You said that any incidents that did happen may have been because of additions stressors within the household. The additional stressors you were talking about were me. I was the troubled child, I always was. I was the one that ran away and climbed up trees and I was the one that didn't go to school. I was the one that could be manipulative according to my vice head teacher. You believed her over me. You didn't put any safety provisions in place once you shipped me off and said I couldn't live with my mum anymore. You didn't put anything in place to stop her taking me back. You didn't put anything in place to stop her seeing me. You didn't do anything to help me at all. You forced me out of everything that I ever knew and expected me to cope with it as if I'm not a care experienced individual. You won't class me as a care leaver and now you don't even have the decency to respond to the questions that I directly asked you in relation to my files.

I need some time before doing the next couple but I just need to take a break.

Anch0r33

To my dad - I can hardly blame you for anything tbh. You've been so absent in my life it's almost like you don't exist. But you do exist so there's my problem. Maybe if you'd made enough of an effort to get to know me then I'd have maybe felt able to open up to you. Maybe if you'd fought for at least some custody or even wanted to see me more than twice a year for like half an hour if I was lucky then you'd have realised I was hurting. Why did you never question visiting me at my grandparents house and never at my mum's? Was it just easier for you to go along with it? Did you just think that everything was fine? You didn't even want to see my living conditions, never asked to see my bedroom and you know what - you stopped calling me when I was still single digits. Why was that? Oh because you had another daughter that was living with you and suddenly I became so much less important.

Lucy307

Love this @Anch0r33 !

To him - Thank you for making me the person I am today. Thank you for changing me. I’ll never forgive you for what you did, I’ll never forget it, but I am who I am now because of you and because of what you did. And I am able to understand, help others, and know my purpose because of you. I am one thousand times the person you are or ever will be, because of you.

Anch0r33

To my mum - I don't even know where to start with you. You've hurt me in so many ways, but for some reason I'm still super loyal to you. I worked it out and It's coming up the 6th anniversary of when I technically (and unfortunately unofficially seeminly) went into care. I haven't lived with you since I was 14. You know, I thought it was 7 years but tbh it's all merged together. It was just before I turned 15 which was why social work didn't do anything properly. They thought I was old enough to choose where I lived, but you couldn't provide me a safe home, could you mum?

I know you were mentally unwell and generally unstable, but you could've done something about it. You could've asked for help. When you stopped taking your tablets, you got unpredictable and could be violent. I know I wasn't much better, and I'm sorry for that, but I was the child. It took me a while to realise that, but it's not okay for you to kick my head because I didn't want to get up for school. It wasn't okay to launch whatever was beside you towards me - as much as I did it back, you were supposed to be the adult.

So many people documented us to be more like a friendship group than you as a mother figure. This meant I had to grow up without a dad and without a mum. I grew up in a friendship group.

I still resent some of the things you've done. Especially the living conditions. I know it was tough for you, but you set me no boundaries and this was hard for me. Sure at the time it would've been a blast. I enjoyed staying up until every kids channel went to teleshopping and watching TV way after you went to bed to occupy myself - but I never did any homework and there was never any food in the house.

You left the bath so dirty that it was black with dirt. I'm not sure how you expected me to wash in that, but I had to.

Mum sometimes the toilet was so bad that I opted to use the kitchen sink, which to be quite honest was not much cleaner. The kitchen wasn't a functioning kitchen. The fridge was broken and the cupboards were empty. Mum I only ever ate when we went to my grandparents house. When we did have snacks, you expected me to eat them whilst sitting in a bed naked beside you. You sat there naked beside me and it's so uncomfortable to think about. The house was a mess, fly infestations were regular.

You expected me to clean out all the small pets by myself and would shout at me if I didn't. I struggled to hold the bin bag open to get the sawdust in. Sometimes it was left so long that it was too heavy for me to deal with. The sawdust merged into a solid block of piss and shit. You complained if I didn't pick up the dog shit when I was 11 years old.

Mum you expected too much of me and didn't know how to be a proper mum. I know you tried and I know you love me, but you're not a proper mum. I've never had a proper mum or a dad and that's okay.

I don't blame you but I certainly don't blame myself.

I wish I'd gone into care at a much younger age so I could've maybe had a normalish upbringing. Instead I had to face the world by myself, embarrassed to share my problems and living with my grandparents, seeing you every day.

It hurts every single day.

I was lucky enough to live in the equivalent of a group home and a foster home under the guise of living abroad, but I really learned a lot about how to function properly in society when I was there. If I didn't live with those families and the people I lived with, I'd have never understood how a teenager was supposed to live and act.

I learned how to be a human, not from you mum, but from my peers and strangers.

Emma_

@Anch0r33 thank you for creating this space for others, and yourself

It takes a lot to be so open and vulnerable and I hope sharing it takes a weight off of you.

Anch0r33

Thank you @Emma_

As you can see, it took me a while to actually finish what I wanted to say. It's definitely not easy but I can really recommend opening right up like that to anyone looking here or considering it.

It's almost like I can try and put those memories and grudges to rest now that they've been acknowledged by not just myself.

I'm sure I'll have letters to others but in the meantime hopefully the community engages. @Lucy307 wrote a brilliant letter to someone who hurt her. Makes me proud to see people feeling able to open up

Anch0r33

To a previous teacher - you're one of two teachers that stick out like sore thumbs for being awful. I'm sure you were a brilliant teacher at your subject, shame I never really turned up to your classes. I spent most of your classes in the support base or not in school. The one time I remember coming to your class to get work you expected me, in front of the class, to explain why I wasn't coming to classes. See the thing is, you knew why. You were also my head of year. You pulled me out of class on *that* Wednesday and walked me to a meeting with the two social workers. You knew fine well why I wasn't going to class and you got mad at me for not coming. I was doing the work most of the time. I was passing anyways. I remember the last time I saw you was just before I went in for my exam - you pulled me aside and told me no matter what happens, you were all proud of me. That was a change of tune from you trying to get me banned from taking my exam. I got a B in that exam with an attendance of about 50%. You know, I'm studying that subject at uni now. You thought I'd get nowhere with it. Thanks for nothing.

To the other teacher - I can't even write to you, because you died. Not just died, but you died in a stupid freak accident on the first week of the summer holidays. Your husband nearly died too. They managed to save him. I grieved your death. You meant a lot to me. I couldn't turn up to your memorial because I was too upset as I'd trusted you. Turns out my trust was misplaced when you told the social workers that I was "manipulative". I'm not sure what that was meant to mean. You also said that my mum was always well presented. You totally discredited me to the social workers and you're one of the reasons they fucked me over so badly. I wish you were alive for me to tell you what was really going on for me at that time. If there is an afterlife of some sort I really hope you're reading this now and realise what I was going through.

Anch0r33

To a coach - I moved halfway across the world for you to treat me like total shit. I was quiet, and for good reason - the year before I met you I'd been taken into kinship care and gone through years of neglect and abuse. I remember we got on well to start with. The first bad memory with you wasn't even to do with me. You put a vulnerable 13 year old girl in an awkward position by announcing to her new teammates who she hardly knew that her mum had died of cancer when she was about 5. Wtf gave you the right to do that? Well 5 years later I still talk to her and I consider her a close friend, even if I can't see her. You played mind games with me, you effectively excluded me and bullied me. You put the blame on me. I thought it was my fault. I blamed myself. I thought everyone hated me. It turned out the others (about 50 of them) at the academy just avoided me to avoid your crap. You suspended me for no reason, blamed my low grade in the class you refused to get me help in and told my teammates that I wasn't turning up, that I hated them and was just waiting to go home. I didn't find that out from you either, I found it out over a year later from the same teammate that's mum died. She's the same girl that you kicked out for being a "bully" after false claims were made about her. Pretty rich coming from you, isn't it? Even though you turned most of them against me, I had a strong group of friends who stood by me. You told the other staff such horrible things about me that they wouldn't even take me to the medical specialist that I needed to see after you let me go untreated for almost 2 weeks. I was told I needed stitches but it was too late by the time I got there. You benched me for every single game of the season to the point other teams were asking me why I wasn't playing - do you know how humiliating that was? And then the next year, even after I left, you continued to make my life hell. Every time we played against you, you'd scream at me, you'd scream at the refs to have me suspended, you'd send your players out to hurt me. My old teammates ran me from behind after following your orders. You know what, I'd have believed I was the problem if you didn't latch onto a new girl the season after I'd left. If there wasn't a whole investigation against you, if you hadn't been suspended from coaching. It wasn't just me, was it? It was every person who was vulnerable. It was every person who was too scared to stand up for themselves. I'm not sure how you got away with some of the things you did - I've heard you did some pretty disgusting things to some of the boys team players too, but none of them will stand up to you. But you're vile. I'm thankful for the opportunity you gave me, but I made my own positives out of it - that was down to me and not you.

Liam

I really love this idea @Anch0r33 how are you doing after sharing those letters pal?

I've never really thought about writing letters to folk and not sending them but I gave it a shot after seeing this post, I didn't post it but it helped me to get my thoughts written out.

Thank you for making a space for us to share our letters

Anch0r33

Thanks @Liam it does feel like a huge weight has been lifted.

I'm super glad you felt able to do that and hope it helps you! You absolutely don't need to post them, like I always say, as long as at least one person benefits from it then it's worth it!

Glad you like the space, hopefully it can continue to help others

Skye

I love this @Anch0r33 I used to write letters about everything I couldn't say to people's face and then burn them so no one else could read them. It really helped to let it out. People have changed now so ig I'll give another shot at writing letters.

Here's my first-

To Mom

The first letter is dedicated to you mommy because, well you were my first love and the first person I learned hate from. You never noticed how every word and action of yours affected me. You played a big part in making me who I am, an awfully sad and tired girl. You beat me as a child, poisoned my mind thinking you were molding me to a better person, but you were wrong. I flinched from your touch, I was scared, I just needed a mother- a mother who's lap I can curl up to, who will wipe off my tears- but I didn't got one.
Remember when you fractured you leg, in the icy cold December, it was just me and daddy who used to stay with you at the hospital all day. You remember ma? It was just us, always there for you then why? What did we do to deserve your hatred. I was a kid ma, I still am. I know it's hard for you ma, dad is not a easy person to deal with but what did I do?

"You won't be able to do anything in your life" "you are just trouble, why can't you leave me alone" "I wish you were gone already" remember you said these to me. I remember ma, I remember everything. Each time you hurt me physically, verbally, emotionally I remember it all. I wish I could forget it all, forgive you but I can't, it's just embedded in my mind. You cried for your lover what did he even do for you ma? Anything except giving you a little attention? I did everything I could to make you happy, I tried ma, but it just wasn't enough for you. I never smiled or wasted any tears for me. Am I not worth anything?

I kept your lies, your secrets, even though I knew it will destroy I family. I did it all for you. All you ever cared about was money and your men, not me or dad or sis. Why do I always here venom on your voice when you talk about us, hatred in your eyes. I did everything I could just for a brief glimpse of love in those hazel eyes for yours. But I failed ma. I'm sorry I failed. I wasn't the daughter you wanted me to me. I cried, I screamed just for you.

Remember I how I used to sprint from the room once the lights were off. I was so afraid of the dark. But now the darkness feels like home. I see the shadows they are my friends. I'm sure the shadows see me too. I'm sorry I can't save you ma, I don't have enough light to even save myself. I'm sorry I wasn't enough. I wanted to place the world at your feets, heaven in your hands but I'm sorry I just have the hell to give you. I'm scared ma, scared of myself, my demons, scared of everything. Your daughter is scared. Who just want a mother to protect her against the demons. A mother she never had, or will have.

Sorry I couldn't save you when I should have, sorry for not stopping dad when you tried strangling you, sorry I couldn't stop you when you tried to overdose yourself. I'm sorry ma. Sorry for being the useless self that I am. It hurts ma, just to think I would have let you die if it weren't for sis. I'm still guilty but I can't change the past, and for better or worse neither can you. You can't change what you did to me. I'm sorry for not being strong enough ma. You broke me, tore me to pieces but sometimes you tried to fix me to and after everything we all have been through I still love you the same.

Your worthless daughter,
Blue 💙

AislingDM

I really do love this and I am so glad that everyone seems to be getting some catharsis from writing these out. Thank you @Anch0r33 and to everyone who has shared a letter. It's really reinforcing to me that we all deserve to be happy and treated kindly by those around us I'm sure it has not been easy for everyone to share in this way so seriously be proud of yourselves.

Anch0r33

I can honestly say to anyone who hasn't tried this out - either in your own space or on here - that it's really a freeing thing to do. I've been feeling mentally better than I have for as long as I can remember. I'm even looking forward to things I wasn't looking forward to. So glad I did this tbh and really do recommend it.

Other ways it can be helpful -

• write a letter and burn it
• write a letter and lock it away
• write a letter and send it to the person
• turn your feelings into a poem or an art piece
• write a letter and rip it up
• write a letter to yourself