Unsent Letters: To those with broken hearts

This is part of a series of posts titled "Unsent Letters." I have written letters that I don't intend to send as long as I can remember as a coping mechanism. As a child, I wrote letters to God, to my parents, to my teachers. Sometimes, I don't send them because they are for my eyes only, containing my most deeply held secrets. Sometimes, I don't send them because I'm afraid they might hurt the named recipient. Other times, I don't send them because I'm lazy, or because I don't want to buy postage, or because I forget. This series is an ode to the letters I'll never send. See the full series here.


Dear friends and acquaintances,

I want your hearts to stop breaking. I want your partners and your mothers and your grandparents and your friends to stop abusing you, and to stop otherwise mistreating you. I want you to be happy.

I want you to have the courage to leave scary and unsafe situations.

I want you to have the courage to set boundaries to ensure your happiness, and also the courage to stick to those boundaries.

I also want you to not have to have that courage.

I want you to have the strength to care for your self--your physical health, your mental health, your emotional health.

I want to buy you a bottle of wine or a latte or a cup of tea, and I want to hug you and tell you it will all be okay.

I want to actually be able to believe myself when I say that it will all be okay (because it will, but I struggle with having faith in the future as well).

Some of you I know well, and of you I know very little. But I want you to know that, regardless of how well I know you, I am here. Call me. Text me. Message me.

And I want you to know that my heart breaks for you.

And I want you to know that I pray every day that it will get better for you.

With love,
Lindsie

I've been struggling a lot lately with anxiety, and it sucks. There's very little positive to be found in crying uncontrollably for an hour and not being able to explain it to your boyfriend, or in being so petrified in class that you can't even follow the lecture.

The one positive thing that came out of it: I finally "finished" a creative non-fiction piece I've been working on for a while. (I put "finished" in quotes because, as writers out there know, a piece is never completely finished.) The piece deals with issues regarding sex, abuse, relationships (familial and romantic), and rape. Writing it gave me the really awesome chance to consider the roots of my anxiety -- the relationships between my current-day experiences and the things in my past, why certain things are triggers, etc.

But the most vast realization I had? I am happier now than I have ever been before, and I am happy for all the right reasons. I am in an amazing graduate program, studying issues about which I am truly passionate. I have a few amazing forever-friends, as well as a few really great new friends. I have a supportive mother and sister, and things with my dad have improved. I also have the greatest, most supportive boyfriend who moved across the country to live with me, and who daily reminds me that he loves me -- both through his words and through his actions.

So why do I still feel anxious? Why is it that some days, I can't even hold the tears back? Why do I wake up from nightmares at 2 a.m. and need to write a letter I'll never send.

I don't have good answers. I mean, I have diagnosed OCD and general anxiety, so that gives a medical explanation, I suppose. But I can't logically explain it. Some days, I just feel like as amazing as everything is, there is no way it can go anywhere but down. Some days, I just feel like I'm not worth it.