Dear Traitor

Section Sixteen

My first question was made clear from the very beginning of this book. Why? Why must you be against me? Why am I such a pain to love? What's makes me unlovable? Why do you lie to me? Why did you betray me?

Why do I even bother asking? All you will do is accuse me of making you look like a bad person when you already do that all on your own. All you will do is deny everything. You might as well deny I was ever your daughter at this point.

Once, I asked why you yelled at me, because you said I could ask anything. I don't remember your answer unfortunately, but I do remember you denying ever yelling at me. You said you "raised your voice" at me. Isn't that quite literally the same thing? That's like saying "I don't run, I just move at a fast pace". Yet, your family testified in court that you never raised your voice. So which is it?

Because of you, I will never be the same. However, I won't stay silent. If it takes writing a book to end a war, then I will do it, and I will do it gladly. You wounded me. You hurt me. You broke me. I became frozen like an ice cube. I was closed off to people. Not only did I fear you, but I feared other people too. You drained me of all emotion, leaving me numb. I could no longer feel anything except emptiness. I was removing pieces of myself to fit into your puzzle. Even death had, at one time, seemed to be a more comfortable option than stepping foot into your presence. You gaslighted me, fed me lies, and even went as far as to mention the possibility that your uncontrollable rage could lead to you ending my life. Yet somehow, you write in your journal that I hurt you when all I ever did was try to survive and keep my sanity. However, no one would have known this. I watched you put the mask on in public. You would smile and shake people's hands. You would joke around like the calmest man alive. You were a completely different person. You do it so easily. You used to get onto me for being "two-faced", but you are the one to be talking. Then, you would go home and give me a spanking. Spankings can be good for toddlers if executed correctly, but it should not be performed on teens. It always made me feel super uncomfortable. It felt wrong and strangely weird. I got them constantly because "no other punishment would fix me". No one could fix me because I was steadily breaking myself to live up to your unrealistic standards. At that point, it was abuse.

You were always too busy trying to correct every little mistake I made that you were blinded to your own folly. You would even pull things from my past to further prove I needed fixing. The only reason you dig into other people's past is to cover up the dirt in your own life.

"Well, the Bible commands parents to spank their kids."

The Bible does talk about parental discipline, but it can come in many different forms, not just spankings.

"The Bible says to obey your parents."

The Bible also says for fathers to not provoke their children to anger. Stop trying to fit God into an equation where he does not belong. Stop cherry picking things from the Bible. Your "spankings" were your way of taking your anger out on me. Also, you hit HARD. I remember a kid at my old school saying his dad used a paddle instead of his hand. The reason was the dad did not want his son flinching when he even slightly moved his hand. Now that I think about it, I used to watch your every move. Your body language determined your mood. I also memorized your footsteps. If your steps were quick and heavy, I was in trouble. If your stride was slower and your steps more relaxed, then you were neutral.

I will say, you were smart when it came to performing physical abuse. Spanking can easily be disguised as parental discipline rather than abuse. For that, you make me sick. Yet, God still protected me. I thankfully survived because of His Mighty Hand.

"I was spanked at your age."

"When I was your age, I did not have a say in anything."

"Back in my day-"

Going back to my theory, just because you were treated terribly when you were younger, does not mean you had any right to put me through what you did to me. You can't be resentful towards me because you didn't have a good childhood. I'm sorry for whatever you went through, but times are different now. Trauma should not be passed on. It should be stopped.

The villain has something bad happen to them and makes other people pay for it.

The hero has something bad happen to them and protects others from going through what they went through.

Yet, the worst part about all of this is you believe you are in the right. You also believe you run the world and that you control the outcome of this. However, a fool is right in his own eyes. In reality, you are Manipulator. You are Narcissist. You are Abuser. You are Toxic. You are Gaslighter. You are Brutus.

Those are the people I should be writing letters to.