The Letter That No One Knew How to Hold

By the time I reached my freshman year of high school, the man who had tormented me was gone, but the damage wasn’t. I was living with my mom again, and the loneliness felt sharper than ever. I didn’t have the words for what I was feeling, but I knew I was drowning.

I wrote a lot back then — the same way I do now — trying to make sense of the things I couldn’t say out loud. But one day, the writing wasn’t enough. I wrote a letter to someone I thought was a friend. In hindsight, he was more of an acquaintance, but he happened to be a peer counselor. Maybe that was intentional. Maybe I was reaching for someone who might actually listen.

In the letter, I told him I didn’t want to live anymore. I told him I was in pain, that I felt alone, that nothing at home felt safe or supportive. I told him I didn’t see the point in trying.

He did exactly what he should have done. He took the letter to the school guidance counselor.

I didn’t know any of this when I walked through the door that afternoon.

My mother was waiting. She was frantic, but not in the way you hope a parent would be — not with concern or fear or softness. She was yelling. Demanding to know why I would write such a letter. Telling me she didn’t know how to deal with me. Telling me she was calling my sister so I could “explain myself.”

I remember standing there, numb, while she dialed the phone.

I only remember one thing my sister said: “What would I tell your nieces?”

Not Are you okay? Not I’m here. Not Tell me what’s hurting.

Just: What would I tell your nieces?

I remember feeling devastated at the thought that I might hurt the children. I remember feeling ashamed. I remember feeling like even in my darkest moment, my pain was something other people had to manage.

That memory has come up in therapy recently, and my therapist helped me see something I had never named before: that moment taught me my pain didn’t matter. It taught me that expressing suffering would only result in other people centering their discomfort. It taught me to hide.

It was the second disappearance.

This piece is part of my series, Disappearing: A Story in Three Parts.”

[Return to the series overview →]