Trauma Healing Letters: Letters I Never Sent

To My Younger Self

By Amanda Kill ©

I need you to know that it was not your fault. None of it. Nothing that happened to you was because of you.

You did not understand. You trusted. You loved. You thought you were safe in his hands.

You were taught about stranger danger, but you did not understand because he was not a stranger.

Nobody explained that sometimes the people who hurt you are the people you think you love. The people you trust. The people who are supposed to keep you safe.

Even though your body felt horrible, even though something deep down felt wrong, he convinced you it was love. He convinced you it was normal. That it was not wrong.

So after time, you believed his words. You thought he would save you from a world that hurt. You thought he would rescue you and give you everything you deserved. In letters never sent, you held onto those dreams tightly.

And because you were just a child, only 13 years old, you believed him. In everything that he said.

You thought the bad was going to be left behind. That you were going to have a brand new life. You even believed he would take you away and that one day you would have that fairytale marriage.

All while teaching you to carry confusion you were never supposed to carry.

But younger me, none of this was ever your fault.

You need to know that you did not understand. You believed in this person, in this man. You had pain you wanted to escape from. You did not know the damage this would create, the trauma that would need healing.

But trust me now when I say, I have got you. And now you will always be safe.

I will protect you no matter what it takes. I will spend the rest of our life showing you love instead of fear.

You are safe now. You can finally breathe. I've got this for both of us. You wait and see.

To My Inner Child
By Amanda Kill ©

I’m sorry you went through what you did,
You need to know that, in the end, we win.

It was hard, but still you made it through,
And I want you to know I’m so proud of you.

You are not the names they used to call.
You didn’t deserve that fear at all.

You didn’t deserve those hands, that pain,
To be touched, or hit, or dragged again.

You were always more than enough,
So strong, so brave, so beautifully tough.

You deserved more, that much is true,
A world that was kind, a place safe for you.

You deserved to be heard, to be believed,
For someone, anyone, to truly see.

To open their arms, to stand by your side,
To hold you close, to let you cry.

I see you now, so clear, so bright,
A little girl still clinging tight

To hope, to dreams, to shards of light,
Even when nothing around felt right.

I see the tears you hid away,
The words you never got to say.

I see the fear behind your smile,
The little girl who carried far too much
for far too long.

You are not forgotten, not pushed away.
I carry you with me every day.

I fight for you now, I speak your name,
No more silence.
No more shame.

You are safe now, within my heart,
And nothing will ever tear us apart.

I’ll love you fiercely, like no one did,
And give you the childhood they forbid.

So close your eyes and rest, sweet girl,
You’ve already lived through the darkest world.

Now comes the peace, the healing, the grace,
You’ve come so far.
This is our safe place.

And if you ever feel afraid,
Or memories return and shadows invade,

Take my hand and look at me,

We survived.

We are finally free.

Amanda Kill ©

Do You Ever Think Of Me?
By Amanda Kill ©

Do you still sleep soundly at night?

Do you remember what you did?

Do you carry any of this with you?

Do you ever think of me?

Do you feel guilt?

Do you feel shame?

Or did you simply walk away

while I carried the pain?

Do you remember my face?

My voice?

My fear?

Or am I just another memory

you packed away somewhere

and forgot over the years?

Because I remember.

I remember far more than I want to.

I remember things I wish I could forget.

I remember in dreams.

I remember in flashbacks.

I remember in the panic that arrives without warning.

I remember in the way my heart still races

when there is nothing left to fear.

I remember in the moments my body forgets that I'm safe.

I remember in the nights I wake up crying.

I remember in the pieces of myself

I'm still trying to put back together.

Do you ever think about what happened after?

The years that followed?

The damage that stayed?

The child who grew up believing she was the problem?

The woman who spent decades trying to understand

why she hurt so much?

Do you ever wonder who I became?

Do you ever wonder if I survived?

Do you ever think about the life that came after?

Or did your life simply continue

while mine changed forever?

Maybe you do remember.

Maybe you don't.

Maybe you feel guilt.

Maybe you feel shame.

Maybe you feel nothing at all.

The truth is,

I don't know.

And I probably never will.

Because men like you

rarely stay behind long enough

to witness the damage they leave.

You left.

But I stayed.

I stayed with the nightmares.

I stayed with the fear.

I stayed with the shame.

I stayed with the silence.

I stayed with the grief.

I carried what happened.

For years.

For decades.

I carried the weight

of something that was never mine to carry.

And none of it ever belonged to me.

The fear.

The shame.

The silence.

The grief.

It belonged to you.

Amanda Kill ©

A Letter to My Twelve-Year-Old Self
By Amanda Kill ©

Dear Little Me,

I wish I could sit beside you for a while.

Not to change anything.

Not because I think I could stop what is coming.

But because you deserve to know that somebody sees you.

I see the little girl trying so hard to be loved.

The little girl who smiles when people notice her.

The little girl who thinks attention and love are the same thing.

Nobody taught you the difference.

And that was never your fault.

I wish I could tell you that the ache inside your chest is not because there is something wrong with you.

It is because you are carrying things no child should ever have to carry.

You spend so much time wondering why you are not enough.

Why people leave.

Why people hurt you.

Why people choose everyone else first.

You do not know it yet,
but none of those questions belong to you.

They belong to the people who failed you.

I wish I could tell you that one day you will sit awake at night trying to put all the memories together.

The dates.
The ages.
The faces.

Trying to understand how so much could happen to one little girl.

Trying to understand how nobody saw.

Or maybe they saw and looked away.

I know there are things you blame yourself for.

Things you are carrying that were never yours.

The secrets.
The shame.
The confusion.

I know because I still carry some of them too.

But if I could give you anything,
it would be this:

The truth.

Not the lies they gave you.

Not the stories they told to protect themselves.

The truth.

You were a child.

You were never responsible for what adults chose to do.

Not when they touched you.

Not when they hurt you.

Not when they took pieces of you that they had no right to take.

You were a child.

And you deserved protecting.

You deserved believing.

You deserved someone to stand between you and the people who caused you harm.

I am sorry nobody did.

I am sorry you learned fear before safety.

I am sorry you learned survival before childhood.

I am sorry that so much of your life became about making it through one more day.

Most of all,

I am sorry that you spent so many years believing the hurt belonged to you.

Because it never did.

The hurt belongs to those who caused it.

The shame belongs to those who earned it.

Not you.

Never you.

Love,

The woman who still carries you everywhere she goes.

Why?
By Amanda Kill ©

Dear Grandpa,

I know you'll never read this.

You're gone.

Maybe that's part of what hurts.

Because all these years later,
I still have questions.

Questions that never got answers.

Questions that still sit heavy inside my chest.

Why?

Why did you stand there
looking at our underwear
while we slept?

Why did you comment on our bodies
as though we couldn't hear you?

Why did you make things feel strange
before I was old enough
to understand why they felt wrong?

Why did you give us alcohol?

Why did you keep filling the cans?

Why did you watch us get drunk
when we were only children?

Why did you buy our silence
with gifts?

The fishing trips.

The treats.

The things that made everyone else think
you were a good grandfather.

Did it make you feel better?

Did it help you pretend
you weren't doing anything wrong?

Or did you know exactly what you were doing?

That's the question I come back to.

Did you know?

When you tucked us into bed.

When you smiled.

When you acted like everything was normal.

Did you know you were stealing something from us?

Did you know that decades later
I would still be carrying it?

Did you know I would spend years
trying to untangle confusion from truth?

Trying to understand
how someone could love a child
and hurt them at the same time?

Or maybe that's the truth.

Maybe it was never love at all.

Maybe it was selfishness.

Maybe it was power.

Maybe it was knowing children trust the people
they're taught are safe.

I don't know.

And that is the hardest part.

Not the memories.

Not even the anger.

The not knowing.

The never getting the answers.

The fact that you took your reasons
to the grave.

And left me carrying the questions.

No love.

No forgiveness.

Just questions.

And the little girl

who finally understands

that none of this

was her fault.

Amanda Kill ©