Letter of Forgiveness

Dear Jenna,

There is an atish in my heart that it is time to heal.  It is time to allow your spirit to shine through again.  I know you are hurting because of a mistake you made almost 10 years ago.  I forgive you for it.  You were young, and in pain.  All you wanted was human contact to remind you that you were still lovable.  Leaving the man you loved was a big decision to make.  I am proud of you for having the strength to walk away from something not right for you.  I know you have this intense guilt about what you did when you were 19.  Compared to many, you did nothing.  But I know you feel lit.  You made mistakes, you learned from your mistakes.  I forgive you for the mistakes we made.  Mistakes happen.  Poor decisions happen.  They do not define you.  You are not your mistakes any more than you are your thoughts.  Just think about how you have changed from that summer.  You are in control again.  You quickly grew out of a stage of life (a completely normal stage of life I might add) and became a better person.  I forgive you for your actions.  I know how much you were hurting at the time.  I forgive you.  Let your spirit shine through.

I know you struggle with how you dealt with the results of that summer.  But, eight years later and I am not sure I could do any better than you did at the time.  Doctors are supposed to take care of you.  Your doctor failed you.  He failed at his job that day.  It hurt you.  You were rightfully terrified.  He set you up for failure by giving you no information to go on, nothing to help you cope.  He gave you no warning and left you alone to react.  You were so young.  Of course you were terrified.  Cancer means death.  Most doctors would realize the word cancer, to any age patient, is traumatizing.  He failed you.  I forgive you for your response.  The medical system didn’t make it easier on you with wait times and rules.  You waited for tests, waited for results, waited for appointments.  Somehow, no one told you what you needed to know but were afraid to ask.  Sure you could have asked, but you were 21 years old and terrified.  Who wants to ask if they are dying?  The system failed you.  I forgive you.

Because life was terrifying, you found comfort where you could.  Maybe you walked away when you should have stayed.  Maybe you stayed when you should have ran.  You did what you thought was best at the time.  You did what you had to do.  You did your best with what you had.  You learned and you grew from your experiences.  I forgive you and am proud of you for making it so far on your own.  I am proud of you for the choices you made.  They haven’t always been the best choices, but in the end, you always did what was best for you.  That takes strength I am happy to see you in.  You have struggled because of your mistakes and because of choices of others.  Somehow you always end up on top, with your beautiful smile shining through.  Let go of the pain of your past.  It cannot define you anymore.

Jenna, you are a beautiful person, inside and out.  I forgive you for your past.  I am proud of you.  I see such hope for your future.  Please, accept my apology and my forgiveness for the transgressions against your soul.  Let go of the pain you carry.  You are perfect and whole.  You are loved for all you are and for the road you have traveled.  You are forgiven.

I love you with everything I am.

Jenna

fml

Learn to trust they say.  Learn to let go.  It’s not entirely your fault and you cannot blame yourself for it as if it was.  Learn to visualize the future they say. 

It doesn’t matter how many times I tell myself that it was not my fault, and that I need to let it go, here it is.  still here.  Still causing pain in my life.  The frustrating part is that I know it’s not my fault, I know I need to let it go, I know it is causing me pain.  I feel like I have let it go.  But I know that the most stubborn part of my brain does not believe me.  it is still holding on.  It thinks torturing me is fun.

I think we found my main issues.  I have known them all my life (or for many years anyways). 

Fear of abandonment

Inability to trust

Complete lack of self esteem

Intimacy issues.

I don’t want to point fingers or cause any pain.  I am writing for my own relief.  I am sorry if it hurts you. I am hurting so deeply I might not see it.

I have always been a trusting person, so it might seem weird that I have an inability to trust.  Except, I have also been abandoned so many times by the people I trust so deeply that while I keep trusting people, I also find ways to push them away.  My only long term friendships I don’t feel like I can run to when I have a problem, but I know many people run to me.  I remember so many friendships where I thought it was a solid friendship, and they all ended, some of them in the midst of my crises.  I know I have a lot of crises, but when will someone stick by my side?  I still don’t have many friends, and the ones I do, I wonder when they will leave me too?  And because my self-esteem has been hit so hard over the years, I can convince myself very easily that I do not deserve good people in my life.  How was it possible I have been so hurt that I believe that?  It’s not a sometimes belief; it’s one I have to constantly try to tell myself if false.  All of these come down to that the obvious: of course I can’t have an intimate relationship when I am trying desperately to protect myself in some way.  Sex is supposedly an emotional and physical connection; it is supposed to be a full experience that completes a relationship (or something like that).  That involves a lot of trust which I terrified to give.

So, how do I deal with this?  I push.  I push people away.  This is the real flight or fight response to my previous counselor and his damn saber tooth tiger.  I push people away and if they continue to try to be around me, I flee.  I can see this so clearly with poor Eric right now.  I pushed when I was having a bad day/week and he responded with kindness (what is that to my angry bitchiness? I have no idea how to deal with this kindness), so I push harder.  I am on the verge of flight.   I am finding reasons to flee.  I am making up reasons to flee.  I see my previous relationship so clearly.  I pushed and pushed and finally ran.  Have I always done that?  I see it in a way with Will, but maybe I just ran then.  I didn’t run from Travis or Dennis and I should have.  I ran from Nick.  I ran from Marc.  I see a trend.

I cried yesterday in counselling as I told her.  Tonight I kept pushing until I caused a fight.  Now I am begging for help.  I don’t want to be like this.  Maybe I need to start yet another counsellor next week as my newest one is gone for 3 weeks.  I can’t live with myself like this for another three weeks.  Of course, she stated the obvious, that I needed to learn to love myself, to trust, and to forgive myself.  I know all of these things.  I have no idea how to deal with any of them and right now, my stress level is too high to do want to care. Except I do care.  I desperately want to be a better person, not the nasty little bitch I have been for the last while.

I am so tired.  Sleep doesn’t seem to be helping, and I am going to bed earlier every day (well not today, today I am going to cry myself to sleep after I write this).  I am frustrated with my practicum, but have had a co-worker promise she is going to try to make it better for me.  I got an “unsatisfactory” on the midterm evaluation and feel it was an unfair judgment.  She said it’s because I don’t take the lead enough, but she doesn’t share what I could be involved with with her, and by the time she does, no one is around for me to follow… also, I know nothing about early childhood anything, so I don’t have much to say to our clients.  I feel useless and am wondering why I am actually in the program.  And it seems like everyone but me knows where they want to go within the field and I have no idea.  I’m sure it’s just the month I’m having, but maybe it was a bad choice.  I really enjoy the learning, but maybe I just miss learning.  I think I am just frustrated with everything.  Is it that I don’t see the sunshine when it is out? Is it just that I am tired? Is it all because I messed up my birth control? I don’t know, but I want it fixed.  I hate feeling like this, and I hate making others feel like this.