The realization hits.

02.18.2026

TW: Sexual assault

Dear always,

Time travel would be cool. I’d flash back and have a chat with younger me. A serious one. I realized something…

A lot of my really special posts I got rid of after everything that happened with him. The things I still barely talk about because for some reason it’s always the girls fault – what did she do to make that happen? Why didn’t she just tell him no? Why’d she stay? She must have asked for it right? Or no way it happened because there weren’t bruises or any physical signs…

It happened quietly. Without a physical trace left behind… Or what was left was played off as a joke. I still get a pit in my stomach at the thought and any time I see the memories flash across my screen I just want to hug her. Tell her not to go, that wasn’t nerves it was a gut feeling. It was the start of months of silent hell that you couldn’t undo. Something was taken that you’d never get back.

I wish I could fix me.

I wonder why it’s always left for the girl to carry the weight why she must’ve done something wrong or said something. Why she let it happen? Never why didn’t he stop, or why would someone do that?

It’s the same with any victim. I’m just speaking in general here.

It’s easy to say how you would react or what you might do until you experience it first hand. It’s not always text book. Not always screaming and violent. Sometimes it’s the silence of waiting for the right moment to strike, a snake in the grass that you mistook for a hose. One wrong step and you’re bit.

I didn’t understand not until he took something told him in confidence and used it against me. A trigger. Something that had been used before and then my mind began to unravel the fantasy that was cooked up. That was the crack in the glass. The ripple effect. His hands on my throat, saying I just had to push through. I was crying but he didn’t care.

See if I could time travel? I’d go back to the night before the date. I’d sit on my bed with my younger self. She was nineteen and while yes she had a lot of mental health problems and she was unstable and unhappy. I would still tell her that just because someone made you feel seen didn’t mean they were good for you. He didn’t make you feel that seen anyway, he was just familiar. I would remind her how happy she is when she hangs out with her friends, how much she loves antiques and how special her pets are. Especially Jonah. I would remind her that her book and blog were priority and that her worth didn’t come from a man. Especially not THAT ONE! And the biggest thing of all I would remind her that her – our body was perfect, our illness didn’t define us, and we didn’t have to settle for less than we deserved just because we didn’t feel important. I wish I could say the place we were in was only temporary. But it wasn’t. But I’d tell her we make peace with it, and we do find home soon but that never comes from a person outside of us. It comes from within. It’s messy but I love you anyway. And I’d hug her. Wipe her tears because I know she’d cry.

She would probably ask how I knew all this. I wouldn’t want to tell her the truth. Of the pain she experienced, the year long spiral that sent her further into a pit of despair, with her only hope for survival something that everyone called her crazy for. Her heart would break, much like it was due to in a few days. But time travel doesn’t exist. So I write this letter. I’m numb, feeling nothing and everything all at once. A date I went on three years ago led to years of heartache and hell. Confusion and chaos. Handprints on my soul and skin that I still feel. Never really feeling clean.

I hope that in three years I’ll look back at this letter and laugh. Say I can’t even remember why this all feels this way. But I don’t know.