Dear Psychological Abuser,

There are still times that I miss you.

It’s the small things,

Like your smile, your laugh and the way you said I love you. However, the thing I miss the most about you is the way you would hold my hand, the way your rough skin felt upon my own. Because for some reason in that moment, I felt as if I was your world; it was like a high, I knew you were bad, I knew you were never going to change, but I loved the way you made me feel in those small rare moments.

I miss them, and I miss you.

And that is why it hurts, it hurts the most thinking of those moments, seeing pictures of you, and knowing that I loved you with everything in me and still you gave me nothing in return.

It has been years since we last spoke, and I don’t remember why, it had something to do with me being a horrible person and you always being right. You were always right, and for years I accepted that in my life I would always be wrong.

I make jokes about you to my friends and people at work, it’s easier that way.

They laugh and they think I’m being funny, when really I’m attempting to heal everything you broke inside of me.

No one seems to understand the shit put me through, or maybe they do. Maybe I’m dramatic and pushing the truth, you always had a way of making me feel as though my opinions were meaningless. Our story is not something beautiful that has been written in books, instead, a nightmare that haunts me day and night. I don’t talk about you much because I feel as though people seem to think I need to move on, that it is time to pick up the pieces and put them back together. But if we are going to be honest, it is really hard to move on when the person who has been verbally abusing you your whole life has been your father.

I think it would be easier if you weren’t my father, if you weren’t blood and one of the reasons I'm on this earth.

But let's be honest, you were never my dad, you were a friend that popped in and out when they needed a little extra cash or a place to crash. That friend that made promises after promises, but never followed through. I was good at the waiting game, it took me 19 years to realize you were never going to show up.

I was raised by my mother and my grandparents as you gallivanted around town keeping your distance and making it known a daughter was not what you wanted. But you were always something I wanted. I tried really hard to be a daddy’s girl. However, it is really hard to be a daddy’s girl when you never had a dad in the first place.

You may never read this letter or maybe by chance you will.

But to be honest, I don’t care.

I grew up always caring what you thought.

I learned that a man like you never has true thoughts, just lies that they build up and hide behind.

You would call me names growing up.

"Piece of shit."

"Worthless."

"Ugly."

The funny thing is growing up I believed you. I let you make me feel worthless, unworthy, like a piece of shit and ugly. I grew up hating myself because you hated me. I let you be the example of how men were. I let you be the reason I couldn’t look a man in the eye until I was in college. I let you say sorry too many times, before sorry was just another word that lost all meaning.

I let you alter who I am.

I let you define me with your harsh words and threats.

I let you use me.

I let you hold me when you had a knife pointed to my back.

I let you break me as I contemplated death.

I let you love me, even though I knew it was a lie.

Sometimes lying makes things easier. It helps us ignore the problem and pretend that everything is okay. I did that for a while with you, I did a lot of pretending like I was okay. Like I wasn’t depressed. Like I wasn’t suicidal. Like I wasn’t crying myself to sleep every night.

Like how you could be the dad I always needed.

But you can’t, and you never will.

You are never going to change, and it took me a long time to accept that.

After all these years, countless medication adjustments and crying sessions that I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I’m mad I let you take away so much of my life. I let you define me and change me. I missed so much out on life because you told me I was nothing, so I assumed I was, you know, nothing.

But I’m not. I’m everything.

I’m strong and brave.

I’m a good listener .

I’m a good student and a great friend.

I know now that I deserve love and happiness. Though it took me a long time to realize that.

I am sick of being afraid to talk in large crowds, I am sick of always saying sorry to people; thinking everything is my fault. I am sick of not being able to trust people and not giving them the benefit of the doubt.

I am just sick of the person you made me be.

Every single day I take back a piece of me back that you took away each time you screamed in my face. Each time you sent my call to voicemail time after time. Each time you lied to me. Each time you would go years without talking to me simply because you could. Each time you made me cry because you would threaten to give up rights for me. Each time you slammed the door in my face. Each time you made an excuse for why you couldn’t make it.

Each time you claimed to be my father, when it was obvious you were not.

I would like to say thank you, because without your harsh words I wouldn’t be able to stand up to men like you. Because now I’m not afraid, I’m angry and I’m done watching men think they can say whatever they want to women without any consequences.

I am taking back myself, whoever that may be, each day I learn something new about myself that I never knew existed in me.

You can keep telling other people that I’m a piece of shit and a horrible daughter.

Tell them all you want until you're blue in the face.

I am no longer broken, simply under construction.

Because the words you say to me Carl, no longer break me.

They make me stronger.

Sincerely,

The little girl you left behind