For so long I just didn’t know how or why you could hurt me the way that you have. I wanted you to be sorry for hurting me and validate that you did it. But the more I dive into what it is to be human the more I realize that you probably didn’t know what to do about it. I barley do. I hurt my daughter sometimes because I am still hurt. I am still healing and learning. So when I know better I do better. My perspective on things is constantly changing and it helps. It helps me understand not you and why you did what you did but that hurt people hurt people. And the darkness and hurt inside you has prevented you from showing me light and love in the way that I needed. To me that meant you were dark. And bad. And mean. And angry. So angry. I have anger in me too. It hurts the people I love. It hurts me. It holds me back. And until recently I tried to bury it. It meant I was like you and that was bad. My anger and darkness must have come from you and I refused to accept it as apart of me. But I’m learning that anger is in all of us. It comes and goes and builds and releases and it’s necessary. No one ever told me it was ok to be angry. I had it deep inside of me so no one would see that I was angry because that meant admitting I wasn’t ok. And that meant admitting I was weak. I needed to be strong. I needed to appear to have it all together so no one would know how vulnerable I really was. How broken I really was. How broken you had made me. Feelings were meant to be hidden, that’s what you taught me. Emotions that were let out in the open were immediately reprimanded. Children should be seen and not heard. Stop crying. Shove it inside. Keep it there under lock and key. Don’t show it or else. That pattern over and over again can really leave a child conditioned. Conditioned to believe that having emotions was wrong and that meant there was something wrong with me. So now I am 29 years old and I believe to my core there is something wrong with me. But logically I know that I am enough and I am worthy of love. It’s the little Allysha inside of me that doesn’t believe those things. She’s the one who needs reassurance everyday that she’s not worthless. So everyday I wake up and have to remind her. It takes a team effort. From my daughter, my partner, the ones I allow to be close to me. That’s very few, because the have to show me without waiver that aren’t here to hurt me. And then I have to believe them. All of this because that little girl in me is still wounded. Still scared. Still lost. Still in disbelief she’s loved and cared for. I’m working on her. I’m trying to convince her she’s in good hands and she won’t be hurt anymore. She has the choice to allow the ones she’s loved to continue to hurt her, or to put up boundaries to protect herself. Not wall, but boundaries. Walls are what’s she’s built in the past for safety. But those just isolated her and kept her alone and scared. These boundaries she’s learning about are fences with gates that allow the people in who respect and love her enough to honor what she needs to feel loved and safe. She’s very choosing on who’s he opens the gate for. I know she’s hoping to open that gate for you but she’s terrified. Terrified that you will be that same man who made her build those walls in the first place.