A letter from Feb 02, 2025

Dear FutureMe, Today, February 1st, is the day in which we uncovered some old trauma from 11 years ago. We're so sad for ourselves that we can't even write in our native language! Reading just a couple of messages from our abuser (we have just decided to call things with the right names) felt like a punch in the stomach. We removed so much from our silly little brain! We want to go and hug our little self! Remember who she was? She just wanted some company, somebody who could bear her freakiness, her obsession with strange things, her metal music, not feminine enough, things that were too unlikable for her peers. She didn't feel pretty at all, society taught her that male's attention was all she had to get to hold a decent place, to have a decent reputation in her community. Do you think we can text her, too? How lovely it would be to see her ance-scarred face, when we are going to tell her we don't even like men! She was tired of not being liked, of being criticized, of being seen only for the "not likable" things. She tried to resist it, but alas, she just fell into the trap of thinking everybody had as many good intentions as hers. She fell for the first ounce of attention she received, by a much older man! Nobody explained to her that abuse come in many different forms. She couldn't recognize bad behaviours, she thought she was always the one at fault, she was trying so hard to be accepted. It's such a pity that she put so much effort into the wrong people. Would she be disappointed when we are going to tell her that we don't even remember exactly what happened? Her heart was so big, her brain was yet not fully developed. Instead of making mistakes like her peers, experiencing life for the first time, she found an adult person who took advantage of her genuinity, of her innocence. She couldn't see it, because she deeply thought older people were there to protect the young ones like her. After all, that's what she saw in the adult people around her. She wanted to be loved and accepted so bad, so much she couldn't perceive the price she was paying. And this is how we could recall partially what happened. In that memory, we were seeing things with the eyes of a teenager. Now that we're adult, we stumbled upon the details that uncover the ungoing abuse we had endured for so long, mistaking it for a "bad" relationship. She was exposed to high risks, but she didn't know, she though high risks were physical violence and drugs, while she was feeling like ****, regularly self-harming her skinny limbs. All the signals were there, but she couldn't see them with the eyes we have now. Older people told her "it's your fault, you must be lying to him about your age" (yet we're still uncapable of telling lies, how incredible!), our peers told us "he was an inconsistent boyfriend!", while we were dealing with a sociopath. He knew what he was doing the whole time, he didn't even hide his intentions. We were just very little, and so brainwashed by society that violence was only physical, that we have to behave and be the bigger person, that we must have been just an ugly, replaceable girl. Yet, she just couldn't perceive the gravity of what was happening, meantime, somebody else, a full adult, was testing her mental health on purpose. We just come to understand that we are now the adult that could have saved ourselves. That's why I'd love so bad to go and talk to our past self, although it is not possible! She grew up, her teenage years passed by so fast, that we can't really recall them at all. She stayed true to her values: apparently, the most important one for her at some point was to be a honest, morally superior person. However, even though she was really proud of her accomplishments, even though she thought she was finally expressing herself freely, she forgot about herself again. And even if she was feeling herself for the first time and she was building her happiness for the first time, that's where we still hold a grudge against her. She tought her abuser being far away, not being in a relationship anymore, her being the bigger person, solved all the problems. She kept keeping in touch with him. She didn't mean it in a romantic way, we are sure about that. But trying to prove everybody she was indestructible, she was allowing too much space to this person again. Now we're disappointed on her! But if you from the future happen to be annoyed by this again, I have a theory: she did it because she though everybody could be as good as her. She thought that lost soul was reedimable, she just wanted somebody to talk to again. She was finally experiencing her life from her point of view, therefore she was suffering from the distance from her friends, while trying to affirm her points and stay true to herself. She genuinely thought that giving too much space was being open to have a relationship with the person. She genuinely believed in the good of the people, at that point she didn't have material proof something was wrong. We are right, it was wrong, we are not proud of that. But we learned from that mistake! We started to see ourselves as a person, we are not accepting as much **** as before. We made great improvements! Remember when we had that next horrible "boyfriend"? Young us wanted to break up, she sensed that what happened was wrong! But she didn't want to break hearts, because she thought that even that smallest person deserved love! Yes, we are still ashamed when other people remind us of that "relationship", but we were not on the wrong side. Shame should change side. And remember that sweet boy, to whom we gave our heart? He made us believe in true love, in sweetness, in mutual care without second intents. We loved him dearly, somehow we're still happy about that experience. However, when we understood, as we finally had a fully developped brain, that he still had some unsolved covert mysogyny, we called him out. We seemed crazy, our past self would have never done that! Let me know in the future if we changed our manners towards him, I am struggling a bit right now with it. But hey, we stood up for ourselves! Our friends understood our rage! Just please, let us not be consumed by that rage. Now, after facing the written proofs of our abuse, we remembered that the two things stood on a very different level. Future me, don't be too kind to our sweet ex, but don't be too rough either. We've the right to defend ourselves, but also remember that the man suffered a lot, and we can make him understand his mistakes calmly. Remember also we're not here to psychoanalyse him, we just want to be firm on our point, withouth turning back. Do you think somehow we'll be able to talk to our past self? She lived in a little world, but I'd love to tell her that now we're comfortable coming back to the town she hated so much (they made her hate it, actually). She was physically uncapable of seeing beyond the present, she had dreams, and somehow she realized them. She went abroad, learnt many languages, fell in love with bands and new music. She saw her favourite band twice! She made cute drawings of them. She even stood in the front row, while alone in a foreign country! She has money now and loves food! She is pretty! She looks like a badass, has many piercings, buys the clothes she likes. Even wigs! She loves pink, too! I'd love to tell her that now many man like her, but also that we don't care anymore. Don't be too rough in explaining her that we have realized we don't like men. That we think most of them don't really see us as a person, but as a ****** object to lust over. Tell her, it's something we don't really perceive, and that's okay, no need to have hard feelings. Remember our recent-past self? Who enjoyed her time with that beautiful young man from a foreign country? Past us should learn from her. I guess she would be a bit scared of her, but also intrigued. I am a bit scared of her too but for different reason, I hope you're not too harsh on her either. She didn't have big expectations, she thought she found a good person on the human level, but we're also glad for our friend who bewared us of him. She was very sorry, and disgusted for what he said and did to other girls, but we should recognize her achievement of enjoying intimacy and bodily autonomy, which is a good thing for us! Let's tell them that we found the good in the heart of her friends, so different, yet always by our side, even when we are wrong. Let's tell her that she became mom of many kittens, that she kissed girls, that she is actually nice and her friends love her! She went alone to the other side of the world! She has friends from many different countries, it was her dream! I give you the permission to tease her, that after all, the entire world is like our little town, but we're very clean compared to them and we also have the best food. Despite all we went through, we don't seek revenge. Please I hope you remind me more often people don't hate me. I hope you are compassionate to yourself, as much as you are to others. Call people out for their mistakes, just don't hurt them for free (we already know we don't need that feeling of control, we don't like it even today). Take your time to make decisions, remember to be kind to yourself no matter what. Remind me that a lot of pain we endured was also because of girls we trusted even more deeply than those men from the past (because we loved them with our fully developed brain and heart). Please don't let this prevent you from loving other friends. Don't let you believe you are an uncapable worker, or a useless friend. Hope you see a more complete picture of all the effort we put in things (we love intense feelings and commitment!), but also remember sometimes that we are human and we can't always go 100%, and that's completely fine. Please keep loving the people who love you, I tried to make a selection on these past years. It's not many of them, but we swore in our hearth they deserve our loyalty. Now I have some questions for you. You know we're very drawn to China right now: have we started learning Chinese? Have we made other state exams? Have we applied to some jobs? Have we understood something about our next steps? No stress of course. Take your time. Have you started driving school? I know it's my biggest fear, but I trust you approached the issue a little bit. Also, Squid Game 3 will have come out when you'll receive this! We love 456, 120 and 380 so much, but we'd also love for the Frontman to survive!! We want the father and the daughter to reunite! We hope Gi-Hun dismantles the games for real!! By the way, will we have finally managed to make some drawings of them? Hope to hear from you soon. Also let me know if you'll be able to see the next litter of kittens!! See you soon, Your baffled Feb-2025 self