You’re sitting near the bed’s edge, with your fingers sweating as you press the pen onto the paper. The words pour out like blood dripping from an old wound. They are thick slowly, inexplicably.
“To the woman, I’ll become,” you write, “run before you recognize yourself in the mirror. “
You believe that you’re writing to yourself in the future. A warning. A resounding plea. A last attempt to stop that cycle before it hurts you. But here’s the gruesome side: The letter is too late.
Why is the woman you’re telling? She’s not going to be in the future.
She’s been in the past.
You and you are the future that she had been terrified of.
The Illusion of Time and Trauma
We want to think that time is in a straight line: past and present, as well as the future. However, trauma isn’t governed by the physical laws. It repeats. It repeats. It remains in the recesses of your brain like a ghost, waiting for the right time to whisper into your ears.
You said you’d never become the woman she was. Your mother. The woman whose voice remains in your throat, whose hands are still moving when you grab the glass of wine following the fight, the tears that still flow when you weep.
But here’s the thing you shouldn’t have to confront:
You weren’t able to escape the cycle. You were a part of it.
The person you love doesn’t ever hit you not even, at least not yet. However, he yells in the same way that your father used to shout. He apologizes in the same manner. These bruises can be emotional, but they’ll get darker with time.
You think: “I’m stronger than she was. “
It doesn’t matter if your script was written before when you were born.
The Letter That Was Never Meant for Tomorrow
“Dear Future Me,
If you’re reading this article, it’s a sign that you’ve begun to lose track of time. You’ve forgotten those promises that you’ve made. Forget the anger at the sight of her shaking her head in response to her rising voice. Don’t think about the time you swore that you would never let a man look at you as she looked at him.
However, I can see it happening already. The method you justify your anger. The way you shrink to make yourself seem smaller. The technique is to tell yourself, “It’s not so bad,” but admitting it will mean you are acknowledging that you did not succeed.
Run. When you awake one day yo,u see her face looking back at you from the mirror. “
You must seal the letter. Keep it in the drawer. You can promise yourself that you’ll go through it in 10 years.
However, the woman who requires it doesn’t come in 10 years.
She’s the one who’s writing it at the moment.
The Horror of Becoming What You Feared
There’s a certain sort of terror when you realize you’ve turned into the thing you did not like. It’s not happening in a single moment. It’s slow. Insidious.
The first is how you laugh at the insults he makes. “He’s just stressed. “
Then, it’s when you don’t talk about things that cause you to be upset-” “It’s not worth the fight. “
It’s when you look at him when he’s moving too fast. “I’m just clumsy. “
One day, you find yourself repeating exactly what she used to use:
“He doesn’t mean it. “
“It’s my fault. “
“He loves me. “
It’s when you’ll be able to tell.
It’s not like you broke the cycle.
The cycle is you. have been part of the process.
The Letter Was Always for You
The tragedy isn’t because you did not succeed.
The sad thing is that you did not get the chance.
Abuse doesn’t care about the strength of your determination. It does not care about your intelligence and strength or even your vigilance. It gets through your bone structure, into your senses, and even the nervous system. You can recognize the pattern in your body and mind but yet walk straight into it.
Because pain and love were interspersed to create you long before you had a clue about what love was.
When the letter was written, you thought you were writing to the lady you’d be.
However, you were speaking about the person who you were to.
The person who believed that she could beat the odds.
Is There a Way Out?
Maybe.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re more powerful than women before you.
Do not tell your self “I would never,” as if willpower by itself can reverse the effects of years of harm.
The only way to get out is to be able to see the pattern actually be able to see it, and then do what they’ve never been able to do:
Stop justifications. Stop excusing. Don’t wait for it to improve.
Run.
It’s not from him.
From you. From the version of you who has already been taught how to live in a cage.
The most terrifying thing is the fact that you’re becoming your mother.
It’s the part of you that is begging to.
At the very least, you’d be able to understand her.
The Letter You Should Have Written
If you were able to go back in time, you wouldn’t make a note to your future self.
You’d write to her when you were fifteen at the time and then stand in the doorway, observing her mother crying.
You’d inform her:
“One day, you’ll think you’re nothing like her. That’s how you’ll know it’s already happening. “
And maybe just maybe she’d listen.
But you can’t go back.
All you have to do is to burn the letter.
And run.