Dear Fyodor,
Now that I have calmed down, we can discuss what happened.
I thank you for the writing lesson you gave me. It was too scary, too deep, and too honest. It still hurts, but it was worth it.
It started with the part of your Karamazov Brothers book in which Ivan talks with Alexei about beating. He tells a story about a man hitting his horse and then about two girls tortured by their families. And it triggered me.
I thought my heart would explode. It was a chain reaction, a firework of old traumas and current questions. You see, Fedya, I am those girls.
I admire how accurately you described their families, especially the fathers, who mistreated their children but never showed their ugly nature to others.
Growing up in that hell, I couldn’t complain or ask for help. No one believed these intelligent, respectable university lecturers were monsters at home.
Quickly enough, I understood that I could only rely on myself, as only in fairytales do little princesses get saved. One of the things that helped me survive was the childish dream that one day, when I grew up, I would put my father in jail. I didn’t. Instead, I am writing a book about that brave little girl who survived and…
