I received a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder over 2 years ago, by the time I received my diagnosis I’d been living with the fallout of things that happened to me for over 30 years. I’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, and was struggling with chronic health issues. My life was in chaos but the chaos was familiar to me and I had learned to thrive within it. Just like Bane was born in to the darkness I’d been born into chaos. I struggled with eating disorders, depression, self–harm, and was being bullied at school and at home. I never received any reprieve from the chaos so I adapted to it and learned to exist within it.

Part of healing from trauma is learning to come to terms with those things which happened to you. I have always been a vivacious reader and consumer of words. Words have power. You put them together and create sentences that can harm or heal. You string those sentences together to create prose which can give a sad, depressed teenager the feeling that they’re not alone in this world.

I’ve found that writing letters to my abusers has been cathartic and healing for me, these are letters which I will never send for a host of reasons. Not the least of which is because the healing is mine. In healing from the things which happened to me, I’m taking back the power that I had to lose all those years ago.

Letter writing has been a proven therapy technique for years, decades even. But when I sat down and started writing my own I searched for examples so I’d have a jumping off point to know if I was doing it “the right way” and didn’t find the resources I needed so I decided to create my own. Some of these letters have been shared with my therapist as part of my healing and some she hasn’t even seen they’ve only been written for me. But, I want to help those who come after me in their own healing journey if I can in even a small way so I’ve decided to publish them here. These letters may never reach their intended targets but if they can help you to write your own letters of healing then they’ve served a greater purpose than I could have ever envisioned.

I encourage you to read my words and use them to create your own letters of healing because when we are able to heal from that which happened to us then we can find a path forward.