Dear John

My story, as told to an ex.

Last Updated: May 07, 2025

This piece is based on a real letter I wrote to an ex in the wake of our breakup and my family estrangement.

I've lightly edited it for readability and added minimal context, while redacting identifying details like names and locations.

WARNING: The events described are entirely true and include sensitive emotional content, references to suicidal ideation, self-harm, trauma, and emotional neglect. Please read with care.

Dear John

In order to explain myself and my four-month absence, I feel it's necessary to share some difficult and uncomfortable truths about my past with you.

I was a neglected child. We've never talked about exactly how much so, or exactly how emotionally stunted I was as a result - nor the wounds it has left me with.

My father was openly cheating on my mother - his second wife - for the first three years of my life. What I was told were his business trips were actually him living with his girlfriend in [Boston]. My parents' marriage ultimately ended as a result of his ongoing infidelities.

My mother was completely overwhelmed and emotionally dead when I was a kid. She was totally self-absorbed in her sunbathing, exercise bike routine, scissor kicks, and homemaking - trying to compete with my father's mistress or prevent further infidelities. She was miserable and depressed privately. But publicly, she was desperately trying to maintain the facade of a perfect family.

I honestly don't have many memories of one-on-one time with my mother when I was a kid. I was usually with my best friend and next-door neighbor - Ann - or by myself. When I was with Mom I was "underfoot." I had come to associate her with routine, rules, and long periods of waiting without any activity for my father to return from his "business trips," and regular life to resume. I would ask her constantly when he'd return - perhaps even with a toy or a souvenir from whatever exotic place he'd been - which no doubt heightened her anxiety every time I asked.

Neglect aside, you can imagine what kind of values I internalized being raised by a woman with such unhealthy ideas about relationships. So unhealthy, in fact, that my mother had intentionally gone off birth control to get pregnant without my father's knowledge. My very existence was the source of my parents' problems - the reason they were "stuck" in their miserable relationship. I was an ongoing source of resentment for my father. Whether my mother did this to keep him around, to avoid the disgrace of a divorce, to perpetuate the outward appearance of a well-functioning family, or at her own mother's urging, is unclear. It's probably a mix of them all - and a lot of trauma.

My father, on the occasions he was at home, told me I was stupid and dumb. He would give me the occasional souvenir from his trips... and then break it in a rage when I was too dumb to add big numbers together or understand an analog clock. When my father was proud of me, it was for saying something smart in front of his friends - like a circus monkey. My mother has always made fun of me for a retort I developed and only use with her: "I'm not stupid, ya know."

My dad hit me, and my mother threatened it when he wasn't home. If I protested, he hit me harder. Once, I hit back - and he let me know exactly how that would be tolerated. He was a drunk. It was a running family joke that I called him out for drinking and driving after an elementary school presentation on it - when he just happened to have a Coke in his hand at the time - ridiculing me and shutting me up. Denying and avoiding any suggestion we weren't a perfect family. I heard he has been through some sort of nautical-themed sobriety program recently.

He cheated on my mom with her best friend, our next-door neighbor (my best friend Ann's mom) - and later told me about how Ann's mom rubbed her bathing-suit-clad crotch in my father's face while he was sitting on our living room sofa and everyone else was outside - which I've held a secret until now. He told me my mom's knees were "shut as tight as a bear trap" during their marriage.

To this day - 30 years later - he's being pursued by the government for back child support. Last year, he tried fraudulently impersonating my mother to have the remaining child support "forgiven." My mother has sued him at least three times to my knowledge (from public records).

He and my half-brother - whom I've only seen maybe five times in my life - burst into an uproar, right in front of me, after a joke about how my dad should have gotten his vasectomy earlier. When I told them I knew what that meant (I had learned it from a soap opera at Grandma's) they went pale.

Since I can remember, and continuing well past when he abandoned me, I had an image of my father as a brilliant [professional] guy who loved me deeply but whose life had now cast his boat against the rocky shores of misfortune. That he was out there - somewhere - barely surviving, but thinking of me. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The only thing he was running from was the child support.

When I was 23 my father seemed relieved he was finally able to share his "completely valid perspective" with me about my mother, their relationship, and their unsatisfying sex life - now that I could finally understand his sexual urges. That, perhaps, understanding this might make our whole troublesome past disappear in a poof with a revelation bestowed upon me by a phallic-shaped magic wand. That I could see him for what he really was; a dashing, smooth-talking man, who women threw themselves at - stuck with "a bitch who wouldn't put out." Who wouldn't admire that? Who couldn't understand that? His actions had been rationally informed. No accountability needed. I never once got an apology or any meaningful sign of remorse from him.

He directly acknowledged he never wanted me, and he was living within a 15-minute drive of my half-brother. That was the last time I saw him. Only the second time since I was 11.

My ideal of my father had shattered. My entire mental schema of my place in this world was fundamentally altered. The good memories I had of him - the conference trinkets he'd bring back that surely didn't cost him anything or even require he go out of his way to procure - suddenly felt like his attempts to keep his "bitch wife" off his back.

I'm an only child (obviously - one mistake is enough). I learned quickly not to be (more of) a problem. That my feelings, my needs, didn't matter. Friends came first, sunbathing came first, expeditions to mistresses came first, even guests came first.

For me to be loved I had to either not be a problem - at least - or, ideally, make my parents look good in front of others - especially at dinner parties - where we had a secret phrase ("FHB" - Family Hold Back) which was my mother's way of telling me to stop eating - so that we had enough food for the guests - without running out, and without embarrassing the family. I was to be cute, but not seen or heard unless it was for a performance that made my parents look good.

Whenever my mother is feeling particularly emotional and reflective, she keeps bringing up the same story, with tears in her eyes, as if she's making a plea for forgiveness, but can't quite get it all out - about how one day I'd almost hung myself on a curtain drawstring that had blown its way into my crib. As the story goes, my parents came running in from the outside just in time to save me. It never made sense to me why she kept bringing this up. Eventually I started to raise an eyebrow and dismiss it as one of those things she's just irrationally hung up on.

But then I started to wonder: how could a little baby being strangled possibly warn their parents, who were outside, in any meaningful way? The more I thought about it, the more uneasy I became. How long was I left unattended? Was it just neglect - or had their marriage and my existence become so burdensome that, for a moment, my parents hesitated to save me?

Teens

My mother has always been avoidant. She learned it as a child herself. As a kid, her mother and sister would mock her - calling her a "Betty Sue" any time she expressed her emotions. So she learned to keep them to herself. She internalized the belief that invalidation is normal. That she's the broken one for being too sensitive. That if she were to express herself, no one would even care. She'd just be ridiculed.

When she was 20, her father died, and her own mother was likely overwhelmed - suddenly without the income of her now-deceased husband - no doubt prompting financial concerns that weighed on my mother at her age. She always recounts stories of crying as a waitress. I am certain her own mother had all but forced her to get that job.

By the time I was 15, my mother had made it clear to me how much of a financial burden I had been since my father left (after which we had to move into her mother's - my grandmother's). Later, she gave me the medical bills for my broken arm as a kid.

She invaded every bit of my privacy as a teen, refusing to honor any personal boundaries. Later, she socially engineered her way into my apartments when I wasn't home - to "drop off a package," or "make sure everything's okay."

I was well aware of our differing values and my fundamental incompatibility with her worldview by the time I was 17 - a year after starting to date my first girlfriend, Beth, and finally, mostly, having thrown off the shackles of my hyper-conservative upbringing.

The only way my mom and I communicated was when Beth was over and my mother would yell down the stairs: "No sex in my house!" Our birds and bees talk was "You know not to be having sex, right?" Who knows; maybe some girl would fool me into getting pregnant.

I didn't get a job by choice. My getting a [professional] job was a bit of a "fuck you" to her - after she suggested McDonald's, or else I start paying rent. Before that, she had forced me to stuff newspaper inserts and trudge through a foot of [hometown] snow, delivering free newspapers to literally every house in my neighborhood - something she couldn't even endure herself on the one time she tried to help by driving the route alongside me as I walked, letting me get into the warm car when I was desperate, while she watched from said toasty warm car, sipping a coffee.

It was also the start of my acute awareness that I had to strategize to GTFO around 18. Not because she was threatening to force me out at that age, per se (rent aside), but because I was already very aware by then that it was her (strict) way or the highway (literally) - which was a fundamentally unsafe situation for me.

Nearing 18, my mother made it clear, as she had in the past, that it was then either college, or rent. Her income made it impossible for me to get student aid, but she neither offered any financial support nor was she willing to cosign for loans. This left me to work a full-time job to pay for state school as I went, which ultimately meant I never finished school, working for my own survival instead. At 20, I was close to not being able to accomplish even that, weighing 130 lbs and living on my own in [a different state]. She would repeatedly bring up a joke she told her friends about how I had "taken a machete to the apron strings" like it was a choice, or something to laugh about.

We never had any meaningful discussions that I can remember - at least none that weren't about religion or general hurt feelings (all of which could be cured by enough faith in "God's Plan").

She would never tell me why Dad left, despite my repeated questioning in therapy. She would instead tell me that I didn't know how to express myself properly or that I lacked the vocabulary - perhaps like she had. That I didn't need to know about adult things, but that it was still okay to be sad and express it. Except I didn't even know what to be sad about.

She never said that my father not being at birthdays or holidays was weird, or something to be upset about, or that my father didn't have a good survival-based reason for not being there.

Expressing myself to my mother had always been fundamentally unsafe and never resulted in acknowledgment, validation, or clarity. There was only denial, deflection, and compounded avoidance. It reinforced what I already knew; my feelings didn't really matter.

Early Adulthood

After I came out to my mother at 22, she never mentioned it again - not even when I brought my boyfriend over for Thanksgiving dinner.

My year-long relationship with said boyfriend - who gave me scabies (though we never discussed it after going to the doctor) - ended when he left for Florida, unannounced. Afterward, I had been (what I now know to be) raped by a gorgeous rebound guy who shortly thereafter asked me to buy him a Mustang. (I owned my first business by then and had some success normally unthinkable for 23-year-olds.)

My aunt - who was the most tolerant of my orientation - told me that I had been whoring myself out. That guys were "just like that." And that that's what I was "signing up for." She slut-shamed me, stereotyped me, belittled me, and invalidated me. Of course, I couldn't name those things at the time. I just knew I felt an overwhelming sense of shame. Even my most open-minded, intelligent, psychologist aunt thought something was wrong with me. That I deserved any bad experiences that might come my way. That my "proclivities" were disgusting, or pathological. She never asked me about my identity after that, and I never wanted to speak of it with her again, either.

I dated Carie shortly after (and for several years) - which was comfortable because she was queer too, while still being a girl. That was 20 years ago. John, you are the first man I've dated since I was raped. You made my cognitive dissonance crystal clear when I was forced to resolve you with "all guys are that way."

My emotional neglect, my forced financial independence, and the shame and obedience drilled into me weren't isolated issues. They were interconnected threads of control, woven together by conditional love - love that said, "You are worthy if and only if you are compliant, unproblematic, and unburdensome. Only if you make me look like a good mother in front of my friends." My sense of self-worth became deeply tangled in these conditions, and my struggle to assert autonomy in my relationship with my mom wasn't merely an interpersonal dilemma or an unskillful navigation of a sharing of minds - it was a rebellion against decades of emotional coercion and conditional acceptance that shaped my very sense of self.

Recognizing this has been critical for me. It's why validation and genuine emotional understanding are so critically important in my life - especially now.

My smarts and logical thinking aren't like yours. Mine are learned defenses against being told - or feeling - that I'm stupid and therefore unworthy of love, and perhaps I'll even be physically hurt or unable to feed, clothe, or shelter myself. They are also side-effects of spending too much time alone.

In our relationship, this wound was activated every time we got into the "teacher-student" dynamic you mentioned - which was often, because you're so knowledgeable. In those times, I felt as though I wasn't smart enough to be lovable. That I'm not intellectually stimulating enough for you. That I'm being talked down to because I'm stupid. Every word of your endearing, lovable, patient explanations might as well have been a dagger in my heart. It might as well have been my father whipping me with his belt or leaving me on the side of the road. But I tried my best to swallow this pain, silently, and in other ways, because I knew how much effort you, too, were putting into our communication, and that you didn't have any knowledge of this sensitivity. I hid it from you. I hid my deep pain in those moments to try, for you.

Even as I write this, I hear - immediately, and intrusively - in my head, my mother's dismissive voice, chuckling, saying, "Oh son, you were never really left on the side of the road. Maybe for a few minutes - but that's just what they did back then." Except, now, with clarity, I scream back in my head, "No you stupid bitch, he left me in another god damn state when I was 11!" (writing this email has already spurred two angry journal entries, as Mother's Day approaches, entitled "To My Dear Mother, on Your Special Day," which were cathartic releases.)

Instead of your natural intellectual smarts, I learned emotional intelligence. If I could get adults to react positively to me when I was a kid, then I could make my parents look good in front of their friends - and receive some positive attention from my parents (one of the few times they seemed legitimately proud of me). Knowing how to identify and trigger things people found entertaining or interesting was highly rewarded. Not drawing attention to myself, not being a "problem," was a survival skill - to avoid physical pain. Learning to recognize when someone might be starting to think I was getting annoying at such a young age also made me hyper-sensitive to the slightest perception of rejection or criticism - especially from people important to me or their friends.

Usually, this skill is what lets me empathize and connect - deeply - with people I love, and marginalized or victimized groups. Sometimes people call others with similar sensitivities HSPs (Highly Sensitive People). It makes me avoid doing anything that might solicit a negative response from others (especially lovers) - even a minor one - even at my own expense - even when it's important.

My childhood neglect also means I don't need a lot of validation to feel "normal." In fact, asking for validation can even feel like an inherent failure for me. Like I'm being a problem - exactly the thing that poses an existential risk. It's not a logical feeling - it's just a deep wound that only heals slowly over time, and probably never completely.

It's why I never feel comfortable letting other people pay for me, and prefer to pay for them - because, to me, I live in a perpetual state of being inherently unworthy - of inherently being "in debt" to anyone I am "positively inclined towards." Letting them pay for me means I'm even more in debt; I'm trouble - a financial burden. But, if I pay for them, then maybe they'll overlook some of my inherent deficiencies which make me a burden.

Our Relationship

Getting to our relationship...

[REDACTED: Ex's personal details]

I want to take a moment and talk about Dana. Please bear with me...

In many ways, my relationship with Dana allowed me to be in our relationship. I don't mean that in any sort of bad or adulterous way. Just the opposite, actually. Dana and I had already been through what I considered an almost necessary - and rare - overcoming of the inevitable crush I get on any attractive close friend. I didn't consider that a loss at all. I embraced it as now making her a very safe person - inviolable to the turmoil of a romantic relationship. More durable. Trusted with my full self. I told her she's my chosen family. I relied on her like that. Something I had never really had in that way before. It was something I cherished.

I wasn't aware of the inherently unstable nature of this shared-responsibility dynamic in my life, though. It just so happened that my life felt balanced - so I didn't question it much. Between the two of you, I had everything I needed. Sure, I craved a deeper emotional resonance with you, and sometimes trying to keep you intellectually stimulated felt like a losing battle (though liquor and sex seemed to help with that). But I loved you, and I desperately wanted things to work. And they were working for me. I hadn't realized at that time how reliant I was on a single, external point of failure for the stability of our relationship or my mental health.

Coming back to how this all relates...

First, [REDACTED: Ex's personal details]. I knew very well that invalidating me wasn't your intent, and that you were doing the best you could. But it still hurt. Especially when I needed to talk about very deep things.

Second, Dana started having relationship issues with [her boyfriend] and had no time or energy for me when her romantic relationship was hanging in the balance - which was totally fair. But it also began a new line of thought for me: maybe, what I'm relying on Dana for, without my being prioritized as I prioritize her, is actually very dangerous.

You might recall my talking about "female energy" in our relationship. I think what I was craving was a way to fully integrate an emotional counterpoint into our dynamic - no matter how unconventional the arrangement. I even went so far as to [REDACTED: explicit]... probably not realistic. A fun thought for a bi person, though. Leaving you wasn't something I was actively debating, or considering internally. I was considering everything but that. I had started wrestling with what this internal problem was, exactly. Why did I even want this in the first place? Was I not really bi? Was I being stereotypically bi-selfish - feeling like I'd be missing out on something? Maybe even something I fundamentally couldn't get from a guy? I tried bringing it up on several occasions, but it felt like you didn't know what to say, felt like you couldn't help, and usually just dozed off.

In retrospect, relying emotionally on Dana created a critical vulnerability I hadn't recognized; emotional support has to be reciprocally prioritized - and, for me, a monogamist, it needs to be sufficiently present in my sole romantic relationship. I hadn't fully realized how dangerous a one-sided dependency was until that safety collapsed. My realization wasn't immediate at all. Rather, it was like a hole in the bottom of a big barrel getting plugged. Or a battery not getting charged up from time to time. The causes weren't instant - and neither were the effects. And clarity didn't come till much later.

At the time, though, I had started to wonder if there was something deeper. When I was with Elaine, her not telling her parents about me really hurt, and I felt it held her back from committing. (Ironically I, myself, intellectualized this at the time as analogous to not coming out of the closet, and it was the start of our demise.) I didn't want to do that to you. So I knew there was at least one item on a potential list that had to be addressed - regardless of what else might exist on that list.

You were my emotional and logical shortcut to a truth I had buried under mountains of shame, John. I may not be able to move actual mountains - but I was going to try moving this one.

Our Trip

By the time we went to [Timbuktu], Dana was fully immersed in her own breakup, leaving me without my normal emotional relief valve. My family's idea of "staying close" - which I was obligated to participate in - was announcing on a three-way group message when we got in and out of planes or long car rides, which meant they knew I was in [Timbuktu]; they just didn't know about you.

I was actively struggling with not telling my family about you - made worse by my existing thought that perhaps this issue undergirds all my significant anxieties in the relationship. Though my family never normally said anything of any substance, the very awareness that I was much more reluctant to tell them was weighing on me heavily.

When we were at the jazz bar, I desperately needed to talk to you about confronting - and the very real possibility of your meeting - my family. Perhaps even when they were still in a quasi-unwelcoming state. Our trip had been very symbolic to me. Even though there were rough bits, there were also really great bits. Most bits were. Even when there were bumps, I found you endlessly endearing. I was ready to risk what ultimately came to pass with my family, and I needed your support in that moment.

But while trying to get the words out, I felt you didn't understand what I was going through, or the emotional weight I was bearing in our relationship. Combined with what felt like another conversation where your need to tell me about some fact, or something about you - which could have waited 30 minutes for your turn - trumped my need to talk to you about my family completely.

And, John, that's when I became so furious with you that I intentionally emotionally manipulated you into a state where I knew you'd have to get something out. Then I intentionally frustrated you over and over and over again, to reflect the pain I was feeling in that moment right back at you. The more frustrated you got, the more I felt validated in having been frustrated and hurt myself. The more validated I felt, the angrier I got, and so I just kept twisting the blade, because your visible frustration itself - which mirrored my internal frustration - felt like the very validation I was craving and would never get. And I was willing to take it from you by force.

John...I deeply regret how I handled that moment. It was truly unfair, seriously hurtful, and driven entirely by my own pain and anger - not anything you had done. There was no way you could have handled that conversation with some sort of skill that would have avoided the outcome. I manipulated you to validate my hurt, and for that, I sincerely apologize. I can't tell you how sorry I am. I have cried over and over again rereading this paragraph.

Then, on the plane home, after I gave you the gold coin I purchased without you seeing - which I felt like shit about because it was nothing compared to the rug you bought for yourself - you did just one more random thing that required I swallow yet another slight without any acknowledgment, and I snapped. My emotional gestures - trying to get that coin without you seeing, my being willing to take what I considered to be a monumental step of commitment, our ability to successfully compromise for each other's needs on the trip - were met with "oh, that's cool," a lack of awareness, and invalidation.

I knew it wasn't your fault, that you didn't mean any of those things. I knew you well enough to know that, by and large, these things weren't even visible to you, and were just me reacting to my own feelings. But I was putting into our relationship what felt like a monumental amount of effort. All of which seemed completely invisible to you and went totally unacknowledged.

Of course, I knew immediately that tearing away from you during deplaning was an overreaction - even before I got through passport control. And I knew you didn't understand why the emotional stakes had been raised so high for me. But it was also partly the start of my acute awareness of my unmet emotional needs in the relationship.

The way I always felt belittled by your friends, and the significance of my telling you I needed you to initiate plans and then stepping back to see if you reliably would, were really huge for me. I needed to know that if I had an emotional need, you'd be able to accommodate it, even if it seemed silly to you. That, perhaps, I could convert my emotional needs into some structured format that worked for both of us.

But I couldn't have felt any more humiliated than when you implied - when your friend was over - that I was embarrassing you in front of company, by telling me in front of him that I wasn't helping correctly and to stop. I had to escape to your pantry so no one could see me cry or notice I had needed to excuse myself, after I had to hold back tears, trembling, sitting across from your friend who obviously disliked me and didn't say anything despite my repeated questioning.

When I finally asked to come over to pick up my stuff - after your not having initiated any plans for a week and a half, not even asking me about my weekend plans, and your having just hung out with friends and chilled - you might as well have suggested I get an Uber van so I wouldn't have to make a second trip. Practical, yes. Thoughtful, sure. I knew where all these things were coming from, and that they weren't malicious, nor did they represent a true lack of care. They were your way of trying to honor my wishes, my boundaries, and keep the peace - but I needed you to see my insecurities and vulnerabilities. I hadn't even said we were broken up. I felt like you were too busy sunbathing to even consider me.

But I had also accepted that I could neither sustain nor work around our incompatibilities, and that what happened was just the result of my letting go of having held on so tightly.

The Fallout

In the wake of our "breakup," which lacked any closure and went largely unacknowledged by Dana, I significantly extended myself to help her in her hard time. I vacated my apartment for two months so she wouldn't have to stay in [her boyfriend]'s. I supported her financially to the tune of several thousand dollars. Then Dana asked me if I loved her.

Her defense was that she asked all her guy friends, and it's fair for her to ask questions for clarity. But she broke the contract - the boundary of safety upon which our entire relationship rested. When she refused to acknowledge it or apologize for it, the relationship fractured irreparably. She became a fundamentally unsafe and untrustworthy person for me - the exact opposite of what she had been. It felt like a complete betrayal of the immense amount of trust I had placed in her. An abandonment of even chosen family.

Between losing her and you, I had lost my entire functioning support system. My process of confrontation with my family was already underway, exacerbated by my fallout with Dana, which highlighted my family's complete disconnect from my life and lack of actual care when I reached out for emotional support and was ignored and dismissed immediately, without so much as an interrogation into what might be wrong - because they had their own problems.

Essentially, the dominoes had already started falling, and each one made the next one worse... and the last domino standing was my family. As I said, I have a very finely tuned sense of what people are really thinking - no one more so than my mother. I knew she wouldn't accept me as I was. But I put more effort into addressing this with her in a healthy and charitable way for several weeks than I've ever put into any "conflict."

When I finally decided to "come out" again, it wasn't just about clarification or honesty. It was about finally addressing the deeply internalized shame I'd carried since coming out at 22 and experiencing nothing but avoidance, denial, and invalidation. The intense shame my aunt reinforced after I was victimized had only compounded this, turning my identity into something I felt inherently ashamed of or unsafe expressing fully - which manifested in my discomfort holding your hand in public.

So when I chose to openly reaffirm my identity and boundaries with my family, it was far more than an act of clarity. It was an act of emotional survival, a direct confrontation of decades of internalized shame.

My mother's immediate response - after crying, again, just like last time - was: "You know I can't support that lifestyle. But I still love you." Literally the exact same response I got 20 years ago. Not one thing had changed.

After multiple therapy sessions with my mom and her therapist (at my urging), I told my mom - after her having accused me of trying to manipulate her - that I'd meet her anytime with an affirming therapist. Then she asked me if I still accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. That's likely the last thing she'll ever say to me. It was clear: her care was conditional on my believing what she believes.

I was abandoned by my father when I was 11. I realized I never even had my mother in a healthy way when I was 41. John, she abandoned me. My own mother abandoned me - the lady who gave birth to me, and whose tit I sucked on. She was never really there in the first place.

The kind of retroactive schema-shattering process that occurred when I realized what an ass my father was happened all over again with my own mother. It shattered the remaining good ideals I still held about my family. It also revealed, clearly, the source of many of my lingering long-term relational and mental health issues.

The Time It Got Bad

WARNING: This section discusses suicidal ideation and self-harm. Please read with care.

Your concern about my safety was well-founded, if delayed a bit from its true apogee, which occurred before - not after - I left [Denver]. Maybe two weeks before we met at the zoo.

In those weeks, I started down two paths - after some quick research ruled out my 8th-floor balcony as being not quite high enough to be certain of a swift or complete job.

On the first stage of one, I cut a deep 4" long gash in my leg to see if I'd have the control and pain tolerance to reliably cut an artery such that it would be quick and unrecoverable, with certainty. Sitting in the tub with a growing pool of blood and a razor blade, I realized the answer was "probably not." I thought that was a funny thought at the time, given the obviousness of the statement and my trembling hand. Looks like I'm going to have a nice scar from it though, which is cool.

Then, after some more research, I tried to order some gas through Amazon when I was drunk - which had become a go-to coping strategy. They contacted me for an alternate address because they can't ship to a residential address. That's when I decided bumping into suicide-prevention laws probably meant it was time to go back to therapy (complicated by state mental health licensing and my move).

My suicidal thoughts and actions weren't irrational impulsivity; they reflected my sense of abandonment and my belief I was truly, deeply, inherently unworthy of love as a human being. That my life, as it was, was meaningless, fruitless, and irreparably broken. That any beliefs I held about human goodness were flights of self-delusion and fantasy. That I was - and always would be - completely alone in this world. That any toiling had been simply to prolong my miserable, unwanted life. My worst fears had come to pass.

I lost everyone.

[REDACTED: For friends' physical and legal safety]

[My other friends] were some combination of shitty friends, ignorant of my orientation, not emotionally close, or primarily takers. There are two that I still intend to be in touch with.

The Reunion

I had nowhere to turn.

I was desperate.

I tried you and Frank.

For weeks, Frank seemed to be willing to make time to come get my fancy TV, which I had offered to him for free. But he could never find time to just come see me - even knowing my situation. Then, he never came to the zoo for my going away, despite our having chosen the zoo specifically to accommodate him and his child. Just like my parents, he never gave a shit about me. Then, he refused to apologize - just like my mother. Clearly, my feelings didn't matter - only his life and his problems, which he easily could have accounted for - just like my family. Fuck him. An overreaction? Yeah. But do I really care at this point, given I have no intention of visiting him and I've realized how emotionally dead that relationship is? No.

You showed up late, which you know is my pet peeve - and which made me feel like somewhere deep down you think it's okay for me to literally wait in the cold so that you don't have to (which is what would happen if you were early for me). That resonated - badly - with the emotional work I felt had always been invisible to you, and with my actively open wounds. I don't even remember how you reacted to the news about my family. Thank God it wasn't telling me to get over it in some way. I think maybe you just said, "Sorry you've been having a tough time."

Then you said something about being surprised any of my piercings were still in after I had mentioned Dana's betrayal and my removing the piercing I got with her. Nothing about Dana. Just your comment about my piercings. You didn't recognize the huge significance of that to me. Instead, in my most desperate moment, you belittled me - you told me you really thought I was impulsive to the point of putting holes in my body, ill-considered. I knew you didn't mean it. I knew you couldn't help it. And that was exactly the problem. You couldn't help it. You've probably even forgotten the comment.

Honestly, I don't remember anything at all past the piercing comment until the Waymo. I vaguely recall talking to a museum staff lady at some point? Maybe? Not sure if it was that day I was looking for the reverse glass paintings? Or maybe you didn't buy a ticket to the special exhibit? I only recall these now because you mentioned a museum in your other email.

I clearly recall waiting endlessly for you to finish your latte in the cold after I'd already been waiting and had already drunk a whole latte. I even remember the kind of music they were playing. But honestly, I dissociated after the piercing comment. I was a robot in auto-pilot - "just get through this without doing anything whatsoever to rock the boat or cause any emotional discomfort in you whatsoever" mode. I basically have no memory of that time period - exactly like my childhood dissociative episodes when my parents would argue. "Just don't trigger anyone or anything, don't draw any attention whatsoever. Whatever is required."

The next time span I remember clearly is the cab. I remember every detail of seeing you through the window after the door was shut, the cab pulling away and making a right-hand turn. I remember immediately feeling absolutely crushed and completely alone in the world. I remember leaving our chat because I didn't want to see you on my WhatsApp list. Then leaving Frank's chat for the same reason. And then thinking "fuck this" - and leaving the [Timbuktu] group chat to send you a message before I deleted WhatsApp, because Signal/WhatsApp/etc. had become symbolic to me of my constant need to bend to your communication style in our relationship, and how much it was hurting me.

I knew that anything I had to say to you would be hurtful for both of us and leave me feeling worse. I had reached out at my worst for a life preserver - but you were sinking yourself. We were both dragging each other under.

That was also two days before my move - the thing that had prompted our get-together in the first place. And something completely unrelated coincided with that event:

I was petrified that my family was going to use my move as an excuse to message me spontaneously, and try to continue the guilt-tripping, avoidance, and denial. I was literally at my absolute limit of what I could emotionally tolerate and continue on in life. I couldn't risk them having that kind of access to me. I already had no immediate communication needs with friends. The thought that some notification could appear, unavoidably, at any moment on my lock screen and say something that would destroy me was absolutely terrifying. And like you said about chat apps, it's impossible to block anyone completely - plus, they can just use someone else's phone.

I simply thought: What TF is the point of sitting around being literally terrified to look at my phone when I can just buy a new one? LOL. I mean, money doesn't buy happiness - but fuck, it could at least buy me a phone I wasn't terrified of using for now. So I got a new phone number through [a virtual SIM provider], and deactivated my old SIM on my phone. It was cheaper, faster, and easier than getting another physical phone. Access to me switched from a block-list to an allow-list, and no one was allowed. I didn't give my new number to anyone, and I've never once activated my old SIM since. I wasn't thinking about the future at that point - or how long it would be before I "switched back to my old number." I just needed to survive, and I just wanted a phone I could use without worsening my crisis.

I don't think I'll ever be able to check it, John. Yet I'm still paying for it. I vaguely recall reinstalling WhatsApp but realizing it wasn't possible to log in to "my old account" without reactivating my old SIM - and I just can't.

I haven't seen any of your messages to me. I am really, truly sorry. I know your heart was breaking, and I wish nothing more than that I could have been there for you to put the pieces back together...

...and if I had received your messages, I'm sure I would have been compelled to reply. To try and show you care and love. But doing so would have put me in very real danger. Your normally overwhelmingly adorable self just happened to be interacting with me when my every childhood wound was wide open.

I was protecting both of us.

The Closure

When Dana emailed me a few weeks ago, I gave her my new number. But like I told you, forgiveness doesn't mean forgetting or that some wounds don't leave permanent scars. I had to let that relationship go because it wasn't healthy for me anymore. If this relationship isn't healthy for you in any form, I understand that. I do. And I give you permission, in advance, to tell me so, should that be the case.

But please, John, I beg you to consider that you've been grieving the perceived - but with very real resulting feelings of - rejection and abandonment of a friend and boyfriend. I've been grieving the direct rejection and abandonment of my own mother, simply for being me. My only remaining parent. Can you see that? Please try to understand what I have been enduring for the last few months, just as I want to understand what you've been through. Both of my parents have turned their backs on me. Not for something I've done, but because neither really wanted me in the first place and are disgusted by my very being as a queer person.

I've loved getting all the Mother's Day notifications from Amazon - which can't be disabled! Really, really wonderful. Snaps for Bezos. Who wouldn't have a perfect family? Speaking of which: I really don't mean to minimize the pain of those whose mothers have died recently - which seems like reason enough to add that feature - though I feel a death may possibly be easier to cope with than being rejected.

When I say I had to learn how to hold myself together emotionally without any external validation, I really mean it. I didn't have anyone, John. Not one person. And I was in a new city, where I knew no one and nowhere. I was staying up for multiple days. I started getting blackout drunk just to get to sleep at night. My psychiatrist has since weaned me over to off-label use of Seroquel (please don't mention the prior lawsuit, I already know LOL). And I still find myself restless and desiring flow-state or mania-like symptoms to distract me from the mountain of grief that has been slowly titrating its way out of my system at a pace I can manage. I screamed, John. Literally. I was absolutely broken to the core. I still sob regularly, every day.

My aunt emailed me maybe six weeks ago. Her email, after six months of not responding to anything I had to say to her, was: "Thought of you today." Then I told her that I didn't appreciate receiving empty, nothing-burger emails after months of not responding to me. She said, "Well you have to understand me, too." I told her I was done. To never write, email, or otherwise try to get in touch with me - mixed with expletives and questions about which mail-order university gave her that doctorate degree in psychology.

My email and my mailing address - which I only gave to you and my family - were the only safe ways for me to receive messages because I could defer reading them until it was safe.

There is literally not a person on this earth right now that would tell me they love me without being paid for it.

John, when you tell me that your friends and therapist told you, essentially, that you are a fool - when I hear that, what I hear is: "Anyone with half a brain can see you're a waste of time. You made me look bad in front of my friends - the only thing that gives you any value."

When you call a seismic shift in my life - a life-altering, traumatic event - a "poor time as of late," I feel like you're completely dismissing the most traumatic event of my life as an inconvenience or a temporary bummer for me. Probably not the actual cause of any of my actions. And even if so, my feelings don't really matter - not in comparison to your suffering.

I don't want to cause you another half-year funk, John. That's the last thing I want.

And my circumstances are my problem, not yours. They don't excuse anything I've done or said to you that has hurt you. At all.

[REDACTED: Ex's personal details]

If you need me at any point, now or in the future, I'm here.

If it's urgent or an emergency, you may text or call. [my new phone number] Please use iMessage if you message. Please reserve this option for something truly urgent.

[REDACTED: Ex's personal details]

John, I might as well have been in a coma in the hospital after my mom and aunt both died (but worse), and after having lost my chosen family and boyfriend, too!

I want to take responsibility for what I've done to you.

I also want you to see me, and the love I have for you.

With my undying and unconditional love,

Steve