This is my personal blog and does not necessarily reflect the collective views of Hard Limits Press

Sunday, September 20, 2015

if I've done you wrong

This is something I've been wanting to say for a long time, but like many things I let it percolate for awhile first. I still don't know if it will come out as coherently as I might like, but here's my attempt:

If I have ever caused you harm, trust me, I remember it. The nature of my psychiatric illnesses means I will never forget it. I don't bring this up as a means to acquire sympathy for myself, but only so those I have truly injured know that I do not carry the memory lightly. I have examined it, dissected it, agonized over it, tried to understand why I behaved as I did.

For many years I reflected the abuse that had been dealt me, hurting others with it just as I had been so grievously injured. Now that I am free of that influence, I look back in horror as if some awful person were wearing my skin, that face stapled haphazardly on over my real one.  But I know that my actions, regardless of lessons learned in a crucible of trauma, made others feel lesser. I took from them. I made their hearts hard instead of open and soft. I let rage guide me.

Without that anger I am left with the desire to add something to the people I meet, instead of subtracting. I have made a conscious decision and effort to come from a place of kindness and assertiveness instead of aggression and thoughtlessness. So I hope that now when I extend the following invitation, the people carrying around scars I inflicted know that it's heartfelt: if there is anything left undone and unsaid between us, please send me an email and let's talk. I hope the intervening years have been kind to both of us. Know that I likely loved you, and had no idea how to show it. Know that most of you, I still miss terribly, and that I think of you often and wish good things for you.

Thanks for listening.

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