I really just have one question:
Why?
Why did you do it? What did I ever do to you that was so awful that I deserved the deliberate and complete betrayal, sabotage, and destruction you wreaked on my life?
I will never understand the kind of person who can be so disingenuous. We were friends. We chatted every day. We had inside jokes. We shared looks. We knew each other's business. Our families knew each other.
And then you changed. Why? For what? To what end?
Do you know that you took the only family that's stuck with me unconditionally for the past 20 years away from me? You already knew I was suicidal. Do you know how many times I *actively* tried to drink myself to death for the next 3 months? Do you know how many hours of therapy I've been to, and how much medication I'm on just to be able to function as a human being?
Do you even care? Do you have any empathy in your heart for me at all? Did you ever? Or was I always just a patsy? A means to an end?
You want to talk about lying and triangulation. I STILL don't know what you said. But whatever it was, it took my life's work away from me, and now, because you bullied me out of it (with help), I can't go back (because of said help).
I don't understand, and I will never understand what happened. And I'm coming to terms with that.
So it's time for me to let go. This anger, this betrayal, this deception, this grief, it was never mine. I don't want it. I don't claim it. I won't hold it, and I won't hide it. This all belongs to you. I place it at your feet to rot and fester until you decide to do the work to get the help you need so that you never treat another person like this again.
And so I forgive you. One of the things I've learned about forgiveness, is that it's not about accepting poor behavior, or excusing it, or even declaring it to be in the past and over. It's about letting go of the anger so that you can move past it. So I don't forgive you because you deserve it, because you most certainly do not. I forgive you because *I* deserve it.
I never deserved the way you treated me, the lies you told, the friends you poisoned, the conversations you obfuscated and manipulated, or the half-truths you elicited from others in order to paint a portrait of me so unrecognizable it may as well have been someone else. I never deserved the assumptions on your part (or anyone's for that matter) that just because YOU would have felt or acted a certain way, that I did. I never deserved the pain, the grief, the sleepless nights, the hospitalizations, and the months of my life I lost because of how deeply you shattered my psyche.
So I'm letting it go. And because you made it, like a little lost dog returning to its owner, I know it will find it's way back to you. I would say that I wish you joy of it, but I don't. I hope you experience it until it causes you to be better, learn better, and do better. And when you get there, don't bother trying to apologize. The only apology I need from you is to fade out of my life completely and never treat another soul this way again.
