An open letter to those I’ve harmed:
I believe if you look hard enough, you can find and grow something beautiful and strong in the wake of great pain and sorrow.
First of all I’m sorry. I can’t say it or mean it more than I do. I would prefer to say it to each of you individually and to your face, but it seems unlikely that will happen any time soon or maybe never at all. For most of you, I can’t even call and you probably will never see this either, as I have been blocked, unfriended, unfollowed and removed from most of your lives and I get it. But I need to get this off my chest and out of my mind so I can continue my own healing process, and maybe, just maybe it will find its way to the people it’s meant for.
As I’ve said before, there is no excuse for my words and behaviors. I’m not sure there can or will be forgiveness and I’m not asking for it, each of you will choose to forgive me or not on your own at your own time and I accept that. I am trying to find a path to forgiving myself, I know all too well how rocky this road is. While there is no justification or excuses for what I did, there are reasons and whys behind these things, and with each passing therapy session and day of sobriety it becomes more clear how I got to this awful place. I do know the person and situation that did those things, died in the parking lot dirt that night. I can say that no matter how depressed, hurting, sad or broken I may ever be again, a sober me would never allow that kind of loss of control and desperation. Alcohol will never be part of my life again, because even in moderation it opens the door to lose control again and I won’t allow it. Alcohol took away my ability to see and think about things clearly, it heightened an already over stimulated emotional core, turned off my logical brain and made the limited tools I had available for managing my emotions in healthy and productive ways unavailable to me. I have no desire for anyone else to make any changes in their lives around alcohol, it’s a personal choice that I deeply respect, but for me it’s a clear and obvious one, and it’s liberating to say that it will never take control over me again.
I guess I hope for compassion and empathy someday, maybe some understanding. Not so long ago we were lovers, friends, coworkers, employees, confidants and family. Today I am an outcast, isolated and shut off from the community and life I had grown to love and cherish, one thought I would be part of forever. I am proud to have known you all, and in various ways you have all enriched my life and I hope that someday you will be able to focus on the ways I enriched yours and move past the 4+ hours of pain and mayhem I caused.
I was (am) in great pain. Suffering tremendous loss, pain, regret, rejection and despair. I am more than happy to get into details of where I was and what was happening in a more private setting, but please know, what happened that Thursday night came from a place of desperation and deep pain, a person who had lost hope and lost touch, I gave up that night. I wish I had passed out and slept it off, I wish I hadn’t had so much to drink, I wish I could’ve said “no I’m not okay” when so many of you asked me in the days leading up to this. But I didn’t and I have to live with that. To some of you this may feel or look like an attempt to draw attention or sympathy, I can’t control how you react, I can only say I needed to get this apology out there and this seemed like the only tool available at the moment. Take it for what it is, but more than anything, this is an open and public acknowledgement that I am a deeply wounded human, who was suffering tremendous loss and in a great deal of emotional pain. My normal tools for managing this became unavailable and at some point I made a decision to kill my pain with alcohol or worse, and I’m sorry.
Being isolated from you all is incredibly painful. To not have the opportunity to take accountability one on one eats at me, it goes against my very core beliefs and i’m learning to live with it. It’s a vicious cycle of sadness, despair, abandonment, rejection, fear and loneliness like I’ve never felt before. And I think it’s important that I feel it. For the first time in my life I am facing these emotions with an open heart and a clear mind. None of the distractions or vices I would normally turn to in order to avoid feeling this way are present in my life. Instead I am sitting in my pain and grief and letting it run its course.
I know that each of you knows this isn’t who I am or how I wanted to ever show up in the world. This isn’t a second or third strike, this isn’t habitual behavior, this was the extreme end of a misguided attempt to stop feeling the pain and I am doing the work to develop tools to finally manage this pain and trauma in healthy ways.
Attempting to work through these events with only have a few small snap shot, memories of what occurred is incredibly hard. I have a few sentences in an email and a few second hand pieces of info, but no clear idea of most of the pain I caused. No matter how I wrack my brain I don’t think I will ever remember, this is not a mechanism to protect myself or shed accountability, It’s simply the terrifying fact of what occurred and what I know. I have lost nearly everything I hold dear in this world and my future has taken a painful turn. I have nothing left to lose and nothing to gain by lying about this, it’s just the sad truth and I’m sorry.
For B and K. I don’t remember much of what was said. I remember an extended scuffle in the parking lot and I remember being hell bound determined to leave this earth. If you hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t be here and I am grateful for the courage and love you showed me that night.
For K and N. I have broken memories of being on the couch and you girls talking me further back from the edge. I know you comforted Colt and took care of him, when I was in no state to do so, I know I probably said some awful things, I’m also sorry and grateful for you.
For B – you weren’t there for the mayhem, but you showed up the next morning. I don’t think you knew full details yet and you showed me kindness and empathy at a time I didn’t deserve it. I miss our talks, and I miss your friendship. Thank you for that.
For C – you were the first person to lay some truth on me. You were the first to tell me some of what I had done and the timing of your honesty opened the door for me to see how badly I needed to stop “being fine” and seek real help. The doors of self-awareness, healing and growth got nudged open by you. I’ve never been open to help, and I’m not sure I would’ve gotten it without your unflinching honesty in those moments. Thank you.
For S – you weren’t there. You are far away and you are and always will be the protective mama bear. I reached out to you early on because I was hurt, confused and lost and in recent months, you had become a close friend and someone I could talk to. Your mama bear instincts combined with your compassion and honesty simultaneously cut me to my core and made me begin to see I am not a monster, I’m a good person who did an awful thing. Thank you for being there and thank you for never betraying the trust or confidence of your daughter.
For everyone else at BMR – Thank you for bringing me into your fold, each of you enriched my life in some way and I am grateful. I’m sorry to each of you as well.For my family – You’ve been incredible in helping me so that I can focus and commit to the immediate hard work at hand. I love you all, thank you.
Lastly for A – I’m so, so sorry. All I ever wanted to be for you was a safe place where you felt love and support. A place where we could learn and grow, laugh and cry and experience life together. I read and reread your email daily. It is the most honest, sad and painful thing you’ve ever shared with me. I see and feel now how we were both deeply hurt before this occurred and we couldn’t find the right time or words to honestly communicate about it. We just both did our best to get by and work through it in our own isolated ways. You are an amazing, strong, beautiful, intelligent and driven woman. One that shared a level of understanding and love with me that I’ve never felt or known. You are the first to truly get beyond some of my walls and see the light within. You are the first that I have been willing to give up anything and everything for just to be there for you. I miss you every moment, your smile, your laugh, the way you would touch my back or chest as we passed one another in our work day. I miss the comfort of touching your leg in the middle of the night, the way it would calm my nightmares and ease my pain. I miss looking at the moon and the ponies out your window and our crazy little family of dogs and horses. But mostly I miss the way I felt when we were together. I love you with everything and I’m going to hang onto that for a very long time, maybe you will give me the chance to make this right and prove that it will never happen again, maybe you won’t and as much as it hurts I will respect that, but I will love you forever and always and I’m sorry.
For the rest of you, this will be my last social media post on this subject. My blog is almost ready to launch and I will continue to write over there, Writing has always been a safe place for me to express my feelings, and I am finally open and vulnerable enough to share it without fear of rejection or judgement, and it’s become an important part of my healing process. I’ll post the link soon. Thanks for reading. Thanks for the kind words and support. I’m in this for the long haul regardless of what does or doesn’t occur in the future. Remember to check on those in pain, let them feel safe enough to ask for and accept help, and I love you all.JMH
