Facing my offender

[Tamtheham]

it's been about a decade now since I was groomed, SAed, and mentally overwhelmed by all this......
I spent a number of years in foster care, bouncing from home to home. And when I finally found what seemed to be a good foster home, things turned for the worst. I was 16 at the time and facing a lot of mental health challenges. Self harm is a huge part of my journey, and at the time it was happening pretty frequently. I'm also a recovering addict, and this was around the time when things were picking up with that too... long story short,
The older son of my foster parent (she was in her 60's and he was 42) was a really cool guy. Always nice to talk to, and was very charismatic. Well he and his girlfriend, and his son (age 5 or 6 at the time) lived in the home. Fast forward, I ended up finding his stash of pills and taking a bunch. I overdosed and was about to be removed from the home. He told the state to let me come back into the home, and in return he had a way into my pants...... not only was I sort of in a tough spot with the living situation, I did find him attractive and he showed me things sexually I never knew about. Anyway, recently I've been doing a lot of thinking about him. Even looked him up on social media.
Id like to think I've done a good bit of healing on this subject but a large chunk of my heart is still confused and hurt. I really wanna write him a letter.
Just wanted some general feedback as to if I should, and if I should send it to him?
My AA sponsor says I shouldn't even waste my time writing one, but she also has a lot of negative male relationships so I trust her advice in almost every area but this one! Thank you!!!

[Blueberry]

I would tend to agree with your AA sponsor on this one.
Writing a letter can be healing if you know you're not going to send it. We have a whole board of letters-to-not-send called Letters of Recovery  https://www.cptsd.org/forum/index.php?board=43.0

I have faced abusers (family members) not even about SA, just some fairly minor stuff they did - it wasn't minor for me in its affects but what they were hearing was peanuts. I was not well prepared or at all prepared in fact and I had no support around. Result: huge retraumatisation.

If you do decide you want to send it, I'd suggest you ask yourself beforehand what you intend to achieve? In my experience, it's unlikely that writing to this person will clear up your confusion and remove the pain. Prepare well. Get support irl - not just here on the forum.

[Cascade]

Hi Tamtheham,
I find writing to be very therapeutic.  For one thing, it helps me slow down and really think about what I want to say.  There's certainly no harm in writing a letter, and as Blueberry suggests, posting it in the Letters of Recovery board here.  Perhaps somewhere in the letter you could include the reason you are writing it, or what is driving your need to write it.  Ultimately, unless you seek something specific in return, sending the words to your offender might give him some power that you don't really wish to give.  I'd suggest identifying your needs first.  You come first.

[Kizzie]

I'm with BB and Cascade on this one. It's likely he will not respond as you would hope he would and to avoid that but say what you need to say for you, we do have a section for that. Sadly as many of us have found our abusers do not take responsibility for their actions and to bang up against that can be very retraumatizing. Here you can write your letter and then receive support, validation and comfort when you post it.

[Armee]

Wise words already. If you expect anything if and when you send it you will likely be rehurt. If you send it and expect absolutely nothing but just want him to know what he did was wrong and harmful then maybe there is healing in speaking that bit of truth If you truly expect nothing back. But usually it hurts pretty bad. Start here and if you decide to send something we'll be here to support you thru it.

Sometimes I fall into this trap of thinking the people who harmed me didn't know it was harmful and if they only knew how damaging surely they wouldn't have done it. But no, anyone who would do what was done does not care of the harm they caused others and like someone else said will probably give them a sense of satisfaction and power to have that harm confirmed.

I'm sorry for what happened to you. I'm sorry your basic need for shelter and safety was abused and manipulated for someone else's pleasure. It does not matter that you were attracted to him. He prayed on a vulnerable child while he himself was an adult. Fully adult. It's wrong what he did. What you did was try to survive. What he did was use someone else's desperation and vulnerability to meet his desires. Wrong.

[Papa Coco]

Tamtheham,

I'm with the others. My first thought is that we sometimes get into moods where we are drawn back into our abuse. I call it being comfortably uncomfortable with the demons that I know.

For me, I sometimes miss my abusers. I do that when I'm having emotional crisis's of my own. I get melancholy. I miss the past, even the bad parts of it. I find myself tempted to call my abusers. Get close to them again. Today is unnerving, so I reach back to the past to try and find an anchor from my past to settle me down today.

I would recommend giving yourself a few weeks to think about contacting this abuser. Give yourself time to process this desire to see if it's rational or if it's trauma trying to drag you back down into your past. Trauma likes to do that. I likes to make us stay in our pain.

Whatever you decide to do, you'll find support from the folks here. I hope that whatever you decide to do helps you move forward in your healing.