I know that you will never read this. To be honest, I really hope you won’t. What reassures me is that you couldn’t even if you wanted to, because you can’t understand English.
I’m writing this to you, but I’m not writing this for you. I’m doing this for me. It is a way to tell myself “It’s over. He will never have power over you anymore. You can live now.”
This is the truth. From the moment I finish this letter till my death, I hope you won’t exist for me anymore. You will be a blurry memory that I ignore every day of my life. You won’t prevent the sun from shining for me. You won’t make me sad.
And you will never hit me again. Ever.
I remember when my mother introduced us to each other. I couldn’t stand you at first. I was almost four and you were stealing my mother from me, she had raised me on her own since I was born, you were an unwelcomed stranger. I felt like she didn’t love me, that all her love was for you. I immediately hated you.
But then, you were suddenly here all the time and one day, I realized you were living with us – at this moment, I couldn’t know that you had only been in a relationship for six months when you had arrived in front of our door with your luggages.
You seemed to care for me so I told myself you couldn’t be that bad, that you were actually cool – how wrong I was !
My mother told me I could call you “Daddy” and you became my friend – in France, we call our fathers “Papa” but I called you “Daddy”, the English word, because my mother had told me it was a nickname for your first name, Didier.
One day, I woke up and called you “Papa” instead of “Daddy” when you put my breakfast on our table, without even being aware of what it meant : that you were a part of my family.
I don’t really remember how my life was before we, my mother and I, met you. You’re a part of my childhood, you’re in most of my memories. I often wished you weren’t.
Unfortunately, those memories are not good ones. The good ones, they are the ones I have made with my mother and, later, with my brother, who was born when I was seven and who is also your son. He had nothing to do with you, but I can see him changing and becoming more and more like you. I hope he will never be an abuser. This is one of the things I am currently the most afraid of. I would give my life to prevent it.
The memories I have of you are often the same scenario : I don’t do something you wanted me to do or I eat too much or I forget something and, to punish me, you hit me. Again and again. Until I have bruises everywhere. I remember all those times y mother told you to stop, tried to stop you but you pushed her away and she fell.
Do you remember the day you hit me so much with your belt that the skin on my thigh tore itself open ? I was six. My mother wasn’t there and I told her it was the result of a battle at school when she asked me how I had injured myself this much. I bet you don’t remember. I bet you only remember when you hurt me on my back with a broom until its stick broke. I was twelve.
Because of you, I can’t help but flinching when someone raises their hand or an object in front of me.
Do you know how awful it is, to dream that the person you consider as your father is trying to kill you ? From when I was five to when I turned seventeen – even if my mother had broken up with you five months before my seventeenth birthday – I had nightmares every night. Of you hurting me or my mother. Of me hurting my mother because of you. Of me killing myself.
Because of you I became depressed, I still am and I’m still afraid when I go to sleep.
Do you know how awful it is, to see your father inappropriately staring at you and then, touching you ? Thanks God, you never went further than this, but it was enough to make me dream of you raping me. Because of you, I had to hide the cuts on my arms when I was at home and when I was at school. I thought I was disgusting, I was a whore trying to steal her mother’s man. I wanted to die. I was insecure and I didn’t want people to touch me. Imagine being twelve or thirteen and thinking you are a disgrace, because of the numerous changes in your body – I had curves than no one had and people were bullying me every day because I was, according to them, “too fat” – and because those changes create desire in your father’s eyes. I now have anxiety, still have problems when I have to touch people, sometimes even when it’s my boyfriend and, by the way, sometimes think that no one can love me. No one knows what you have done, I won’t show it to my mother and I won’t charge you because my brother has decided to live with you and I know you really love him and will never hurt him. I can only hope you will never assault a girl. If you do, I will be guilty all my life. I choose to take the risk.
Do you know how awful it is, to see your “father” hurting your mother ? I remember of being twelve and seeing you physically abusing her for the first time. Her swollen eye. The blood on her face. While you were at work, a few days after, I told her “Mom, you have to leave him” and she replied “He said he was sorry. He loves me. He won’t do it again.”
You did. You did it again. You did it again when she were trying to stop you from hitting me. You did it again when she told you she was leaving you after she and I came back from holidays with my grandmother, and I wasn’t there. I was having fun in Paris with my boyfriend. I don’t know if I will ever forgive myself for this. I should have been there to protect her.
Because of you, I have nightmares every time I leave her to go at my boyfriend’s house. Because of you, I thought every relationship was abusive and that I had to avoid love and men forever. Do you know how awful it is, to be that scared for her life ? How horrible it was to see her wounds and broken bones ? To learn you will never go to jail because some policemen told her no one would take her seriously ?
You don’t. You never will. You’re lucky I don’t want to ruin my life by killing you. I often want to.
Do you want to know what saved me ? School and writing. I have always loved books and learning, so going to school to acquire more knowledge gave me a purpose. I discovered Wattpad when I was twelve, posted poetry and fan-fictions which became popular, met wonderful people that helped me stop self-harming.
It wasn’t the case for everyone. Because of people like you, some children and teenagers drop school, have unhealthy habits or commit suicide. According to the website dosomething.org, five children die every day because of child abuse and 68% of the child abuse victims are by a member of their family.
I have nothing to say about you anymore, you piece of trash.
Now, I’ll address this to children and teenagers (and even young adults) who suffered from abuse : you’re not alone and you are more than victims. I can’t promise it, but I hope with all my heart that you will survive this and that your life will get better. Never forget how strong you are.
