[ WP ] Write the letter that you always wanted to , but never did .

First of all, I want to make something perfectly clear. If you read nothing else in this letter, if you crumple it up and throw it away, read this line: it is my wish to never see you again, never speak to you again, and never communicate with you again, and that is MY choice, I have not and will never be persuaded otherwise by anyone, especially my mother. 
 
 In the last letter you sent me, you wrote: `` there are three versions of every story, my side, her side, and somewhere in the middle is the truth''. Here's the thing: somewhere in the middle, the truth? That's my version. And it lines up with my mom's version. Your version is wrong. You are wrong. You are an alcoholic and you abused all manner of drugs, why on earth would your version be close to correct? You are wrong. 
 
 You are my father. You were supposed to keep me safe. You were supposed to be there to comfort me when the world was rough. You were supposed to teach me things. The only thing I ever learned from you was fear. The last time I tried to have this conversation with you was a decade ago, when I was 15. You dismissed me with a wave of your hand, claiming that I was `` shitting in diapers when ( my ) mother was making up these stories about ( you ) ``. That's a lie. It's a LIE. I remember things you ca n't because my brain is untouched by alcohol, Marijuana, Crack and cocaine. And you're a fucking liar. Even if your brain was normal you would lie about what you did. 
 
 Let's pretend that I do n't remember the time you stumbled into my room drunk, at 4 am, and stepped on and broke one of my toys. Let's pretend you did n't turn the lights on and scream at me and make your 4 year old get out of bed and hurriedly pick up all her toys, before you could get a garbage bag and throw them away. 
 
 Let's pretend I do n't remember hearing you scream at and hit my mother. Let's pretend I did n't sit at the top of the stairs and cry quietly, waiting for you to go to bed and praying that this time was n't the time you would kill her. 
 
 Let's pretend, even though a police report states otherwise, that you did n't hunt us down like animals after we finally got away, that you did n't show up at 10 O clock on a school night and tell us that we were going to spend time with you while our mom stayed in the trailer. Let's pretend you had n't cut the lines to the propane tank before you busted in because you were planning on burning her alive inside when we were out. Let's pretend you did n't get mad at me when I refused to leave with you. Let's pretend that you did n't slap your 8 year old daughter so hard that she fell off of the chair she was sitting on and got a bloody lip. That was me. You did that to me. But let's pretend that I do n't know what I'm talking about because I was too busy shitting in my diapers. ( 8 year Olds use the bathroom but let's pretend. ) 
 
 If we stop pretending, we can talk about what happened on Christmas eve 2008. I was 19. 19 years old. Jake and Ryan were 17 and 14 and they decided they wanted to see you. I do n't know where Alyssa was. I had decided I was n't going to see you again if I could help it. I went with my mom's boyfriend to drop off Jake and Ryan to you. I was sitting in the front seat, reclined all the way back, so you would n't see me. 
 
 You drove up and got mad because you saw our mothers boyfriend. You did n't just neglect to hit the brakes, you hit the gas pedal on your car and you smashed into our car. The car that had 2 of your children in it that you knew of, but actually I was there too so it was 3 of us. That happened. Jacob and Ryan were there. They remember it. You ca n't take that away from me. There's no `` version'' of how that went, that's just what happened. 
 
 Let me tell you want happened after that, which you do n't know about. I had been dealing with depression and post Traumatic Stress Disorder for about a year. The PTSD, my therapist tells me, is from surviving a childhood with you, the things you did to my mother and myself and to a lesser extent Jake Alyssa and Ryan. So you slamming your car into the car I was in, and the look of absolute rage and hatred that I saw on your face before you drove away, it threw me all the way back into the trauma. PTSD is what soldiers get. It was like I was put back into the war zone. 
 
 I went home and I could n't sleep. I was convinced you were going to find me, hunt me down like you hunted us down all those years ago, and kill me. That's what I felt. That was my reality. I did n't sleep for 8 days, and then finally, I realized I could n't live like that. I could n't do it. I could n't spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, unable to sleep because of the nightmares you caused me. 
 
 So I decided I was going to kill myself. 
 
 Better yet, I would do the world a favor and take you out with me. I got in my car and I started driving to your house. I planned to drive through your bedroom because you had to be sleeping at that point. I drove 45 minutes to your house and then when I was 10 minutes away my car slid on some ice and I almost crashed into a guard rail. I stopped and turned the car off and cried. I turned around and checked into a psychiatric facility and was there for 7 days. 
 
 That is something that happened to me as a direct result of something you did when I was 19, and yet that is just the God damned tip of the fucking iceberg. 
 
 So no, I will not lose my resentment. No, I will not forgive you. No I will not find out what your version of my childhood was. No I will not talk to you, no I will not speak to you, no I will not write to you. It's part of the reason I'm writing this letter on Reddit and not actually sending it to you, because I hate you so much and I fear you so much that the thought of communicating with you paralyzes me. 
 
 For my siblings' sake, because they did not see the things I saw and because you never hit them like you hit me and because they actually care about you, I will not wish you were dead even though a large part of me aches for that. I will not wish you ill. I do wish that at some point you will realize that you're wrong. I want you to remember what you did to me. I want you to know that pulling a 7 year old out of a car and hitting her legs and ass with a stick until she bled because you were hungover and she was giggling is not okay. I want you to know that I was actually covering for Jake, because he was the one who was laughing, and that he came to visit me when I was in the psych ward and told me that he remembered that, even though he was only 5. I wish you were there when my 17 year old brother was crying and apologizing for not getting beat with that stick when he was 5 because maybe I would n't be so messed up and maybe I would n't have tried to kill myself at age 19 if that one thing had happened to him instead of me. I want YOU to be the one to carry that fucking weight around. I'm sick of carrying it. 
 
 Most of all I want to WANT an apology. I do n't actually want one, because I do n't want to hear from you ever again. But I wish that I was n't so far gone that an apology would bring me some sort of closure. And I wish you had the nerve to own up to your mistakes and apologize on your own, like an adult. 
 
 I hope, one day, you realize I was right. And I hope you hate yourself for it. I'm only sorry I wo n't be around to see it myself. 
 
 Goodbye.
