Betsy Bauman

The Letters

Letter one  
I am a collection of everyone I’ve experienced
I am a collection of the worst people I’ve experienced
I am a collection of the worst moments in my life
I grit my teeth and clench my jaw when I’m in the shower, sleeping, and writing 
I wake up with my mouth sore and my muscles tired
I will be a museum
With more than just my heart on my sleeve
Here is all of me, to judge, to gawk at, to admire and ponder at
Love me whole or not at all

Across the Resurrection Bay, the mountains are covered in their alpine glow.
(with my boots wet in the mudroom)
I remember the gentle moments. When I was in your arms in the afternoons, with that morning’s iced coffee melting away on the table and the sun creating shadows from your fingers, slowly tracing my legs back and forth.
I remember waking up at 3am and reaching over for you, always pulling you closer and whispering to each other how much love we have, or if we had nightmares. 
I do hate you. I have to remind myself
 I can be understanding if I try hard enough. I can heal and journal and read and travel. I can make friends and write love letters to them, and experience true requited platonic love. But I will never understand why the ones who have gotten closest to me and said they love me, have hurt me beyond repair. I give so much of myself, I strive so fucking hard and love with everything I am. I believe it’s a fault of mine (I blame the church). My friends are healing something they didn’t break, nor fully understand. 
It is ingrained into me: forgive until seventy times seven
I feel pathetic. I have been torn down, my fingers broken and my body bruised. My body has been used for their pleasure and contentment. The words and the fights became a part of me. I have gotten the worst of everything. Years later, I am rebuilding something I did not break. I have a problem of being told what they believe my worth is, and still staying. It’s a fault. 
Like stones tied to my ankles
Am I really that fucking weak that as soon as someone gets a hold of me they test the waters, and see that I will never stand up for myself, so they unleash that part of themselves? What do I draw out in a person, what about me triggers something so deep that they become wolves to raw meat? I’m a safe place, even for those that enter the church with intent to steal and destroy. I will always be a safe place, it's my fault.

Letter two 
I never had time to debate if I wanted to come out or not. I had no choice but to get thrown into the pit and immediately be put up to fight against every person in my life. I had no time to sit and contemplate, to cry or to question. It hit my life like an avalanche. Coming out to one person came with being black mailed and ultimatums, so I had no choice but to come out to everyone and embrace who I am.
Still writhing
I was in a daze of hurt, pain, and self hatred for so long, that I didn’t realize that this justified anger was consuming everything I was and making me who I am. I still feel this anger, it’s comfortable and it feels like home now. Because my anger is all I have, it’s protected me and kept me safe, it tells me when people can’t be in my life anymore because they’re hurting me. 
I love my anger
Years later, I sit alone and gently ponder on how things could’ve been different. If I was given the space, the love, the acceptance that you hear about or watch in movies, that I may be a more gentle person. I would be softer, more vulnerable and maybe love easier. 
(And easier to love)
My sister views me as an angel, waiting quietly in the dark to dissect my every move and word. She yearns for an understanding of her older estranged sister. I don’t blame her. Tucked away under all the anger for my family there is a vein that flows with confusion and resentment towards them. I know them- I can walk a stranger through my life and theirs and why we are the way we are. But I can’t understand what my younger sister feels when she looks at me. I feel so distant, so strange and foreign. I have lived through everyone’s lives, and all their experiences- I have the same ones & more. But for her I don’t know. It makes me so fucking mad for some reason beyond my comprehension. Maybe that’s why I need her to love and accept me so badly. Because she may have an idea of me that I’m unaware of. 
Tell me, my love, do the Caryatids miss their sixth sister 

Letter three
I sat in the shaded sand, dripping wet in a cove overlooking a sunken grave. Still gasping for air and coughing the salt water out of my lungs. I had no idea what was to come. Have you ever saved a man’s life? I wish I could say the same. I've been drowned, held under and told to swim up. I think I’ve always had too much understanding for you. I was young and didn’t know what a trauma bond was. You didn’t either, you still may not. Under the blazing Filipino sun and above the sunken grave, I fought for my life (and yours) while you drowned me. How do you feel, ma chérie, after begging for my hand in marriage only because you knew the crimes you committed against my 19 year old body? 
Was it the church that drove your desire 
For my purity 
My body 
My innocence 

Letter four 
“Porges’s thoery: The autonomic nervous system regulates three fundamental physiological states. The level of safety determines which of these is activated at any particular time.” (Van Der Kolk) When we first feel threatened, the first level will ensue. Level one: Social engagement. Wherein we reach out to our communities for help, support, and comfort. If we don’t receive these, the second level starts. Level two: Fight or flight. We try to ward off the attacker, flee the danger or physically respond. If this fails and we cannot escape, if we’re held down or trapped, the third level starts. Level three: Freeze or collapse. Our bodies try to preserve themselves and energy by shutting down. 
A study done showed that women who had an early history of abuse and neglect were seven times more likely to be raped in adulthood. (Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score)
So no, I do not forgive my mom. I never will. Yes, I do, and I will continue to blame her. Because as I sat on the edge of her bed and told her of the crimes committed against my body at nineteen by a man I saved from drowning, she said I probably wanted it. She said I wanted it. I wanted it.
A year or so later, I called my older sister the morning after to take me to the pharmacy instead of calling my mom. With raw bruises on my wrists and legs, I was held by my sister’s arms in the parking lot of a cvs.
I hate September. 
-
Dear mom,
Remember when I came home from the Philippines and lived at home for two months? I basically slept the whole time, for the entire two months I stayed there before you kicked me out again. You see, mom, my body had already entered the physiological state of freeze or collapse. I was frozen, dissociated and exhausted from what I had just survived. Yes, I survived. Because plane crashes and being tortured alive are in the same catagory as rape when talking about trauma and recovery. You’re considered lucky if you survive a plane crash or car accident. If I told you how many times I survived, mom, would that finally warrant a response from you? Maybe I should've told you, shown you, the bruises, the test, the whiskey, the lemon, the blood. To show you I didn’t want it. 
-
I sat on the edge of mom’s bed. I was still so desperate, years later. I begged and pleaded for understanding of the situation. I got an answer, which made it worse. The weight of generational trauma is my cross to bear, I’ll gladly take it from my siblings. When my mom hurt me the most, I wasn’t mad at her. I didn’t even blame her. That’s the thing about forgiveness- sometimes it bites you in the ass. Or in this case, catches you in between a diamond encrusted punch and the washer machine in the laundry room. I forgive too fast, before the act is even done.
You didn’t even take me to the doctor after you broke my finger, mom. 
At one point, I was your baby. I don’t know when you stopped seeing me as your daughter, and started viewing me as someone you could take in the boxing ring.
Was it at 13, when I hit puberty and started to look like you at my age? 
On the edge of your bed, you confessed your sins of abusing your daughter, hoping for the same forgiveness you find at the foot of the cross. You were only met with tears of pain; my heart continuing to break knowing I was the only child of yours to experience this level of severe generational repetition regarding physical abuse. 
Why me, mom? Did you see yourself in me, at 18? Maybe it was to get back at your mom, somehow. I’m not sorry that it happened to you. Because now it’s happened to me, too. I’ll never forgive you. Maybe the only peace I’ll ever get is because you’ll understand all too well why I can’t. Because you never did, either. 

Letter five 
A letter to my dad: 
I never held it against you. I forgive you. It’s not your fault. But you should know: being an accomplice to a crime can still put you in jail. I know you didn’t want it to happen. I’m sorry it did. I’m sorry you held me there, for her to get to.  
I love you,
Betsy B.