A Letter to My Ex
Dear Sharon,
I’m writing this, not necessarily to send, but so I can get my thoughts in order before I talk to you. See, I’ve been keeping a secret, and its beginning to feel like lying. I’ve gone back and forth on when I should tell you, with one part of my brain saying “confess! you are sinning against her and against God by not being honest with her!” The other part is saying “Wait! You’ll only hurt her and yourself if you tell her now!”
But after many, many discussions with myself, and after much prayer, I believe I must do this, and do it now.
Here goes....
I’m transitioning.
I’m slowly (far too slowly for my liking) transforming my body into a woman’s,
I’ve tried to talk to you before about this ... incompleteness I’ve had my whole life, about how being male was like being forced to wear a heavy suit of armor that is far too tight and never being allowed to take it off. I showed you the prayer I made called “Dear God”, hoping that somehow I could reach you.
I’ve failed.
But, as one last attempt, let me start with this. You may have noticed how much happier and at peace I’ve been lately, and its because of making the first steps down the road to a transition. I am a happier, healthier, BETTER person now.
And that’s not all. I’m also receiving spiritual benefits as well. I’m more loving, more patient. I have a hunger and thirst to get closer to God like I havent had since the very early days after I was saved.
I know you dont understand this. I know you think its a sin. But I simply don’t have any choice. Just before I started this process I was sitting in the break room at work with a knife at my wrist, and only God himself stopped me from dying that day.
I cannot, I will not go back to that.
I have no idea how you’ll react when I tell you this, but I pray you take some time and think and pray over it before deciding what you’ll do.
No matter what happens, I will still love you and Sam, and I’ll do my best to answer any questions you raise.
A letter from a broken toy
To whom it may concern:
I really don’t want to use your name. For decades, I didnt even remember it. And you might not even remember mine, but I was one of your toys, all those years ago. Only God and you know how many of us there were. I do not know if I can do justice to the havoc you have created in your search for self gratification. But I must try, if only for my own peace of mind. You striped me of 2 and a half years of my life, feeding me drugs to make me compliant, warping my mind to better suit your sick fantasy.
Nor did the damage end when my time with you was up. The drugs permanently damaged my ability to remember and concentrate, and the filth in my mind cannot ever be removed. I am damaged goods, now and until I die, thanks to you. I was a child, entrusted to your care and you betrayed that trust in the most repulsive way imaginable. I believe it was your goal to twist me in such a way as so I would never come forward, but instead blame myself for what you did.
I did just that for decades.
I paid a heavy price for what you did to me. I failed at every relationship I attempted. I spent years fighting nightmares and flashbacks, I flinch sometimes even yet when someone attempts to touch me. That’s your legacy. No court could give you a strong enough sentence, nothing on this earth could equal your crimes.
As a Christian, I must forgive, but I am finding it extremely difficult not to wish to be present when you must appear before God and finally have the masks and lies stripped away from you before you receive justice. Yet I must forgive, and even ask for mercy on your behalf. I have no choice but to leave your fate to Him and find a way to move on with my life. And that’s what I plan to do, with God's help.
A former victim, now a survivor.
A Second Letter from a (Formerly) Broken Toy
To the person who abused me:
I wrote you a letter some time ago, and today I felt compelled to write another.
You see, things have changed for me. I have recovered most of the memories I suppressed and I understand better what happened to me while I was in your “care.”
I now know how you used my desire toward the feminine to control me, how you twisted my gender issues to feed your needs. You made me so ashamed of myself, so afraid of what I felt, that I would submit to your “attention” rather than risk exposure.
Worse, you threatened my loved ones, and did it in such a way that I internalized it, came to believe that I was the threat to them.
But now it is all over. I don’t belong to you anymore. I am free, and I can make the declaration to the world:
I AM NOT A FREAK, A SISSY, OR ANY OTHER NAME YOU CHOSE TO GIVE ME, I WAS NOT EVIL OR PERVERTED, AND I WAS NOT AT FAULT, NOT THEN, AND NOT NOW.
I may cry again, grieve for the loss of innocence again, have spasms of rage and pain again, but I am more than those moments.
I have friends, family, faith. I have found I have some talents and can even be seen as worthwhile, helpful, and kind. I have found that I actually add to the lives of others.
I am not just surviving, but thriving.
As the saying goes, the best revenge is a life well lived, and I am finally on my way to having that, and I can leave you in the past, where you belong.
No longer a broken toy, but a healing human being.
A Letter to My Father
Dear Dad:
I wish I could give you this letter in person. I wish we could sit down and talk. We actually have a lot in common, you and me. Both of us have struggled with a sense of worthlessness, although it may have been for different reasons. But, you left this world a long time ago, and I can only grieve for the loss, and pray that you are now at peace. I wonder what you might have been like if you had somehow overcome the suicidal impulse and had been able to choose to live. What would you have thought, to have your youngest son at the ripe old age of 40 something say he was really your daughter?
I hope you would be as okay about it as Mom has been. I hope you could accept me as I am, and support my decision to let the real me out. Of course, its possible it would freak you out, but Mom would straighten you out in a hurry, I’m sure.
As I make my way forward, I find a need to look back, and get some closure, and so I find I have a lot I could talk to you about, but it can be summarized in two ideas..
I forgive you for leaving us, Dad.
But I miss you, now more than ever.
Your daughter,
Dorothy.
Hey, little girl
Hey, little girl.
Right now, you’re 9 years old, and you’ve had to survive some pretty awful stuff already, so I think you need a present.
And here it is.
You are amazing. You’re so strong to have survived what you’ve gone through, you’re smarter than you give yourself credit, and you’re beautiful, even while disguised as a boy.
Yes, I said beautiful. I know what you’ve been told, especially by HIM, but you really are beautiful, and worthy of being loved.
And you are loved, and will be loved, more than you can even imagine at this moment, even when you finally come out and tell everybody about being a girl.
And how do I know this?
Because I’m you, forty years down the road.
And that’s how I know these things, dear.
Now hold on to my present, and I’ll see you in the mirror in forty years.
Love,
Dorothy (the big you).
To Me at Sixteen
Hey, kid.
Its you, about three decades down the line. Okay, once you wrap your head around that, listen up, because I dont have all day here, and there are some stuff you really should know.
First, I know the last decade or so has not been a lot of fun. A lot of pain in our past, even by your age, and yeah, that kinda sucks.
But that’s the past, and right now I want you to look ahead a bit, and see what’s coming.
First, the bullying will stop. By the time you get to grade eleven, it will slow to a trickle, and by the time you graduate, it will be long gone, so you’ve got that to look forward to. As hard as it might seem to believe right now, you’re actually going to be liked one day.
Second, your step-dad. Not a nice guy, but just hang on a couple more years, and then you’ll put him in the rear-view mirror forever. So that’s something to hold on to, when he’s really being a jerk.
Third, you’re going to make some mistakes, some of which will be doozies that will seem like the end of the world, but they won’t be. Some of those very mistakes will help put you in just the right place to receive blessings that you would otherwise never even know could happen to you, trust me on this. So give yourself a break about the mistakes, okay? Failing at something doesn’t make you a failure, just someone who has to try again, and in the meantime maybe learn something someone who got it right the first time wouldn’t.
Fourth, your family. They are going to be with you through all the stuff to come, and will love you when you don’t feel very loveable, so maybe take a moment and make sure you say “thank you” once in a while, okay?
Lastly, the gender stuff. Right now, you’re really confused, and upset by this drive to the fem side of the street, and you’re alternating between indulgence and guilt. I’m sorry to tell you that this is going to be part of your life for a long time to come, but that’s actually less bad than you might think. Some day, you’ll be me, and I found a solution that didn’t even exist at your age, one that has left me more at peace with myself than I ever was before.
So try not to beat yourself up about it, if you can.
So if you get one thing out of this letter, let it be this:
It gets better.
You’re going to have an amazing life getting to my age, and then hopefully many more years after to enjoy some of the perks of being me.
It looks like I got to wrap this up, so take care, kid, and remember to be kind to yourself once in awhile.
You’ll thank me for it.
Love,
You, plus thirty years.
A letter to my step father
Dear Ken,
I had the urge to write to you, to finally end the hold you have on my soul. You caused me a lot of pain, back in the day, and its long past time for me to deal with it. In some ways, you had the odds stacked against you from the day you came into our lives. You were being asked to replace my fallen father, and instead of a couple of normal kids, you were saddled with one mentally wounded boy, and me - a broken human being stuck between genders.
But unfortunately, you didn’t rise to the challenge you were given. You slipped into alcohol abuse, and soon allowed drinking to destroy all of our lives. And then there was the physical and mental abuse you inflicted on us. You caused a lot of damage to me, and some of those scars remain with me to this day. I only hope by the cold light of day you realize how wrong your treatment of us was.
But that’s enough condemnation. Today isnt about opening old wounds, but to heal them, once and for all. And the only way I know how to do that is to forgive you, and ask for your forgiveness. I have allowed resentment to fester too long, and I am quite sure I was far from a perfect child for you in any case.
So I ask for your forgiveness, and I give you mine in exchange. I’m going to do my best to leave what happened in the past, where it belongs, and not let it define me any longer.
So this is me, letting you go now. Good luck in wherever your life takes you from here.