Last night’s ‘mis’-guided missile hit with sniper-like accuracy. It blindsided me once again. You always seem to hit me when I least expect. I can’t even believe I was surprised. But, the alternative is for me to live in a state of constant vigilance. It’s exhausting.

Although my ever-present attention on you has served your agenda to be king, center of the Universe, it does not serve mine. It instead keeps me from placing my focus squarely on me and the beauty and wonder of life on this planet that is everywhere around me. 

Your way of insisting I see life through your filters is a waste of my valuable time. I’ve missed enough days, weeks, months and years living your way. 

Mine is an active decision I choose to make every minute of every day from this moment forward ‘til the day I die.

Your rant last night hit its anticlimactic crescendo with an empty apology that actually did me a favor. It woke me up. It was clear exemplification of perhaps my one and only inarguable point: That your arguments and reasoning are not just illogical but lack basis in any kind of healthy reality. 

That said, it is YOUR reality...your monkey, your circus, not mine. None of it really has much to do with me, does it? As misdirected and cruel as your theories and accusations are about me, it’s really all about you and your cunning disguise of feelings of insignificance and lack. Why did it take so long for me to figure that one out?

You are good. I’ll give you that…but apparently not that good. Unfortunately and although I cannot predict the timing of the attacks, I can now accurately map how they might progress. It is like the movie Groundhog Day; that predictable.

With surgical precision, you carve out a list of every weakness you believe I possess. Then you deliver your vomitous speech to me with venom in your voice and an emotionless stare; the one found in the hollow hole of a shark’s eye as he mechanically snaps his prey in two with bear-trap jaws. 

Ironically, it doesn’t even matter if you believe one word of what you say or do; what matters to you is that you are convincing enough that I do. 

You are a master of observation. You simultaneously seek and file any sign of reaction as you press me closer and closer to the edge with your tirade.

Your words and actions are calculated to crush. And you stop at nothing—until such time you are satisfied that your mission of the moment is complete. Once I have lost my footing and lie wounded and bleeding at the bottom of the invisible canyon that exists in your mind, you claim victory.

Makes you feel alive, doesn’t it?

Then, as quickly as it all began, you stop...the perfect eye of the perfect storm. 

You go on to calmly explain your part as necessary and your words as truth with a voice in disturbing contrast to the one used to maim. Your account justifies your position and at the same time blames the whole incident on me with gaslight-driven rationale.  

Do you ever wonder why the feeling of winning that you crave, like an addict on crack-cocaine, is becoming increasingly fleeting? Whereas it used to satisfy you for days or weeks even, it now only lasts a moment and then it’s gone. And like that addict, you are driven to go bigger and bigger to get the same level of high.

It is such a vicious and fruitless cycle.

It’s one hell of a hamster wheel you are stuck on. I do not have a monkey wrench big enough to stop its spinning. Only you can do that. And when I sob in despair when all is said and done and you have believed me reduced to ruin, the tears that used to be about me, are now of pity for you.

I admit, for years I readily accepted I was your casualty. All of my beliefs were borne of the victim filter through which I viewed the world. That was my hamster wheel.

So confusing then, but not anymore.

It has been a while since I shed a tear in self-pity. 

You have given me a great gift. By the very abuse expressly concocted by you to wreak havoc with my self-love and self-esteem, you have fueled a fire in me fierce enough to turn the frequency and program of victimhood to ashes once and for all. It was either that or die in its grasp while gasping for never enough air. And I choose me!

I’m done grieving that which I never had in the first place.

I’m done holding my breath.

It is a glorious breath that I now inhale deeply for all my brave little lungs are worth. I do not wait to exhale on your command.

I’m free!  

Thank you!

I can only hope that you have actually read to this point. I understand how difficult it is for you to entertain criticism or instruction of any kind unless it comes from you and is directed toward anyone other than you.

And for someone to actually accurately reveal your game must be unfathomable to you. After all, everyone else is an imbecile compared to your superior mind. Now, I am going to share something very important with you. I hope you can receive it, but I have no illusions of your ability to hear.

What hurts and cuts another does not create the space to heal your own wounds. What renders another weak by your hand, is not the path to strength. You cannot lift yourself up by standing on and perhaps breaking back and neck of another. That is a fool’s game….your fool’s game.

It is only by reaching out with your hand with purpose and love, lifting another first do you get to rise up. There you will find true strength and power in this life…and with it, GRACE…all the things and more that you desperately and secretly desire, but have evaded your grip. 

You don’t get to magically leap to a higher level by taking me down. It takes you down instead. 

Only by lifting another first…higher than you, do you start to heal.  

And this is where it ends for me. I cannot lift you. You are too heavy. I have tried. For me to lift you, you must lift me first. It’s the only way…and so we shall remain until and if you decide to take a step to heal your childhood wounds.

The choice is yours. Sucks doesn’t it?

And now, to my reader:

Does any of what I’ve described sound like your life?

This letter is not for “them” — it’s for you. How long do you want to keep living in a state of victimhood? The process of freeing yourself from that energetic frequency begins when you decide it will.

This letter is not born of venom or hate. It is born of the writer reclaiming her space and letting go of the energies that no longer serve her. It is born of the writer’s realization that she is not responsible for healing the wounds of another but only for healing her own. This letter-writing exercise is an example of the work I do with clients in the Minefield Coaching program who are actively working through toxic relationships with narcissists.

The challenge is now yours. Are you ready to emancipate yourself? You too can have this freedom, joy, and clarity. But you have to walk through the shit storm first. 

Don’t forget to email me your emancipation letter so we can celebrate your decision together.

Love,

Katelyn