Goodbye To What's Living Rent-Free In My Mind
One of the things that I wanted to do as part of my new year’s resolution is to be kinder to myself, and that includes doing something difficult: Letting go of the things and people who live rent-free in my brain and no longer letting the trauma or mental anguish they caused me to fester.
Is it a good idea to post all of this online for who knows how many people to read? To run the risk of sounding an overly-sensitive whiner complaining about every little thing that’s happened to me over the years? I don’t know. I do know that, as a writer, my words are my most powerful resource in aiding my own mental health recovery. I’m scared to share all of this, but even sitting down to write this has lifted a weight from my shoulders that has rested there for decades.
I know that a fair amount of these things I won’t actually be letting go of because they’ve formed me for better or worse, but I’m ready to let go of all of the emotions they’ve held over me for years and up to decades.
I’ll only be using the first name for the people because they still deserve their privacy even if some of these people are the scum of the earth.
So, here’s my goodbye to those things and those awful people.
TW: childhood trauma, child predators, sexual abuse, fat-shaming/fatphobia, poor family relationships
Goodbye Dylan. You bullied me for seven years from middle school to the end of high school, oinking at me the full first we met because I couldn’t get past a student their chair pulled out nearly to the other desk. I won’t let you make me feel ashamed of myself anymore.
Goodbye to the incessant and pathological need to perfect from the very first moment of doing something spurred by my mother yelling, “You’re doing it wrong,” to me while trying to teach me a song at the age of four. I won’t let this make me scared to try new things for fear of doing it wrong.
Goodbye Brian. You were my first “boyfriend” (online, because I grew up in the age of random internet chatrooms) at twelve while you were sixteen. We might have both been children, but you were old enough to know that you were being a fucking creep and a predator to my young age. You introduced me to toxic relationships and made me think that was all I deserved, and it continued until I met my husband. I deserve and do have much better.
Goodbye to not feeling like I’m worthy of my brother’s support or affection with two decades never standing up for me when I was bullied around him or coming to things to support me unless forced, including not visiting me after surgery.
Goodbye Darren. You were my second “boyfriend” from thirteen to fifteen while you were in your early twenties. You took advantage of my fear of being alone and undesirable and introduced me to too many mature things. I won’t let your toxicity fuel some of my thought processes any longer.
Goodbye to not feeling like I’m worth anything more than being a wife and what I can do for my husband because of my upbringing. I’m worth far more than that and am doing far more than that.
Goodbye to the boy who made me ashamed of my body and scared that even friends will leave because they don’t want to have a fatty as a friend by telling me he loved me and wanted to meet up for a date and ghosted me after he saw I was fat.
Goodbye to not feeling like I can be beautiful because when I jokingly said to my father, “Thank god for puberty and braces,” he replied, “You said it, not me.”
Goodbye Catherine. You were my best friend for years, but the moment I was no longer a convenient friend, you let me know just how useless I was to your life. I won’t let you make me feel like I can only be around when people are bored anymore.
Goodbye to being scared to express my affection toward friends—and even family. They deserve to know how I feel about them, and I deserve to express it.
Goodbye Jason. You dated me while I was seventeen, and you were in your mid-thirties. You were the sweetest of my exes, but you were still a predator.
Goodbye to not showing my emotions from growing up being made fun of for showing them or being punished for expressing them too loudly. I won’t be embarrassed by them anymore.
Goodbye Ryan and Matt. You both dropped me the second I wouldn’t sleep with you and made me feel like I wasn’t worth dating for anything more than what pleasures I could bring. I am more than my body, and I’m sorry you missed out on that.
Goodbye to feeling unwanted because my kindergarten teacher sent me to timeout in another room and forgot about me, and when I asked to go back at the end of the day, the other teacher said, “If she wanted you, she would come for you.” Bonus solidification by my mother yelling, “I don’t have time for you,” when I asked her to teach me how to ride my bike in the same year. I know that I’m wanted, and I won’t let this feeling keep me from making meaningful connections any longer.
Goodbye Aaron. You were the worst of my boyfriends. You verbally and emotionally abused me for the year we dated, and, what I’m now understanding as an adult, sexually coerced me by preying on my fears of being unwanted and saying you’d have nothing to come back to if I didn’t—only to leave me anyway for someone who looked like Helga from “Hey Arnold!” You even went as far as to ask me, “Can we forget this whole thing ever happened? I don’t know what love is,” when I told you I had a miscarriage. You can go fuck yourself. I don’t want to think about you again.
Goodbye to my mother making me feel like a whore any time I showed the least amount of skin or sexuality. I will not be ashamed of my body or my sexuality because those are not things to be ashamed of.
And finally, goodbye Hannah. That isn’t your real name, but I could hardly use it because you were a child too. I wanted to save you for last to say goodbye to because, as an adult, I recognize that you were probably also being treated this way by someone in your life and didn’t know how to deal with the feelings and actions being inflicted on you. You molested me when I was seven, and after learning more about OCD, I suspect you were the reason I developed it in the first place. I truly, and most sincerely, hope that you’ve been able to get the help you need and so rightly deserve. I am.
Goodbye to all of you and the power you held over me.
Thank you for sharing your powerful words.
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