A Letter To My Younger Self

CW: Themes of abuse, trauma and addiction.

Dear Chastity,

I just want you to know it’s not your fault. The childhood you were given is one no one should ever have to endure. The addiction, the chaos, the fallout of generational trauma—none of it was ever meant to be your burden to bear.

I remember that moment you’re still trying to make sense of—the one that happened just recently for you. The seatbelt around your neck, the panic closing your throat, an adult who was supposed to protect you becoming the one you needed protection from. That was when life tipped into a place you didn’t have words for yet.

And I know you think the people who stood there watching did nothing because they didn’t care. But that isn’t the whole truth. For Mom and Gramma, it was the first time they truly saw what you couldn’t yet: that Uncle Bubby, the one you trusted your whole childhood, was slowly becoming his father’s son.

And I’m sorry no one said anything afterward. I’m sorry they left you to untangle fear with a child’s hands. You won’t understand it for years, but that moment will teach you to swallow your voice just to stay safe.

I’m not going to lie to you—the years ahead will make you second-guess everything: relationships, friendships, your worth, your place in the world. You’ll think you have to stand there and take it whenever someone decides to tear you down, but you are so much stronger than they’ll ever let you believe.

And in a cruel twist, those same years will try to convince you that the man who will eventually love you the right way is the one who’s toxic—when really, you’re just unlearning the toxic behaviors you were taught to accept as normal.

You’ll spend years trying to sort out which people you’re supposed to cling to and which ones you’re supposed to walk away from. I wish I could tell you it’ll be easy. It won’t be. You’ve been raised to believe that blood demands loyalty, even when it hurts you, even when it asks you to shrink yourself.

You’ll learn this the hard way when you and the boy who truly loves you decide to step back from Mom. You’ll think it’s just rebellion, just a phase, but really it’s the first time you choose your own peace over someone else’s chaos. You’ll carry his child one day, build a life with him, and only then will you realize how wrong it was that she couldn’t bring herself to love him simply because you did.

And somehow—because childhood taught you that obligation outweighs safety—you’ll still find yourself helping the same uncle who once wrapped a seatbelt around your throat. You’ll watch his kids the way no one watched you, all while he makes it clear he can’t stand you or the man you chose.

You don’t understand it yet, but that’s what trauma does: it convinces you to be loyal to the people who break you and suspicious of the ones who try to hold you gently.

You’ll try, later on, to rebuild something with Mom. And for a while, it might look like you’re succeeding—you’ll talk, you’ll visit, you’ll pretend the cracks in the foundation aren’t there. But the truth is, the bridge never fully heals. You’ll learn to walk across it carefully, always aware of where the boards are weak.

And then she’ll be gone before you ever get the closure you spent years quietly hoping for.

That loss will sit heavy on your chest, not because you didn’t love her, but because you loved her so much, and she was never able to love you in the way you needed. You’ll grieve her, but you’ll also grieve the versions of her that never existed—the mother she wanted to be, the mother you needed, the mother you sometimes convinced yourself was still possible.

And then there’s Dad.

You’ll try with him, too—longer than you should have. You’ll bend yourself in every direction a child shouldn’t have to bend, waiting for him to meet you halfway, then a quarter of the way, then… any of the way at all. But he won’t. And eventually you’ll get tired of holding out your hands for someone who never once reached back.

Walking away won’t feel brave at first. It’ll feel like giving up. But one day, you’ll understand:

You're not giving up—you're letting go of the version of him you had to invent just to feel wanted.

And that’s the beginning of healing.

But here’s the part you don’t see yet—the part that will feel impossible to believe when you’re still small and scared: you will break the cycle.

Not all at once. Not in the dramatic, movie-scene way. Your healing won’t look like a single moment of triumph; it’ll look like dozens of quiet choices you make without realizing how powerful they are.

It will look like choosing a partner who sees you, who doesn’t raise his voice to be heard or shrink you to feel big.

It will look like building a home where slammed doors are rare, and silence doesn’t mean danger, it just means someone’s napping or reading or cooking dinner.

It will look like learning how to apologize the right way, not out of fear but out of love.

It will look like raising children who never have to wonder whether they’re wanted.

You’ll start to notice the cycle breaking in the smallest things—

in the way your kids laugh freely,

in how they climb into your lap without hesitation,

in how they never flinch at footsteps in the hallway.

And one day, you’ll watch them run across the living room, carefree and loud and alive, and it’ll hit you so hard you’ll have to sit down:

this is the childhood you never had, and you’re the one giving it to them.

That’s the moment you’ll realize you didn’t just survive—you changed the ending.

And when that realization settles in your bones, something inside you will finally loosen.

You’ll stop trying to rewrite your parents into people they never learned how to be.

You’ll stop searching for closure in places where no one has the tools to give it to you.

You’ll understand that closure isn’t something they hand you—

it’s something you build for yourself.

You’ll grieve what you lost, yes. You’ll grieve the childhood you deserved, the family that could have been, the apologies you’ll never hear.

But you’ll also make peace with the truth: their inability to love you right was never a measure of your worth.

It was a measure of their wounds, not yours.

And the final piece of closure will come quietly—

not in forgiveness forced too soon,

not in bitterness that becomes its own cage—

but in the simple, steady knowledge that you did better.

You chose differently.

You became the person you needed.

And that’s enough.

More than enough.

So listen closely, sweetheart, because this is the part I wish someone had whispered to you long before the world had the chance to harden your heart:

You will not stay small.

You will not stay silent.

You will not become the things that were done to you.

One day, you’ll look at the life you’ve built—messy, imperfect, real—and you’ll realize you didn’t just crawl out of the wreckage, you planted something new in its place. You grew roots where there once were splinters. You made a home where there once was only survival.

And you’ll finally understand that strength doesn’t always roar. Sometimes it’s as quiet as choosing peace instead of chaos, love instead of fear, boundaries instead of begging.

I can’t promise you the road is easy.

But I can promise you this:

you become someone you’re proud of.

Someone who loves deeply and is loved right back.

Someone who breaks cycles simply by refusing to repeat them.

Someone who gives her children the softness she had to teach herself.

And in the end, that becomes your closure.

Not words left unsaid by the people who couldn’t give more—

but the life you build in spite of it all.

You survived.

You grew.

You rose.

And we’re okay now.

We’re more than okay.

We’re finally free.

With all the love no one thought to give you,

Me