The Mailbox Inside My Chest PART 4 — Dear The People I Bled On
- Ra'Mone Marquis
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
A “Letters Never Sent” Blog Series by Ra’Mone Marquis
Pain does not automatically make someone cruel.
But unhealed pain can absolutely make someone dangerous emotionally.
Sometimes quietly.
Sometimes unintentionally.
Sometimes intentionally.
And one of the hardest parts of healing is acknowledging the moments where our wounds became somebody else’s burden.
This letter is about accountability.
Dear The People I Bled On,
There are apologies I never fully knew how to say.
Not because I didn’t care. But because for a long time I was still trying to understand the damage inside myself.
And when you grow up emotionally wounded, abandoned, fearful, guarded, or exhausted… sometimes survival mode becomes your primary language.
You react instead of communicate.
You withdraw instead of explain.
You harden instead of trust.
You protect yourself before considering impact.
And unfortunately…
people can get hurt in the crossfire of all that unresolved pain.
Some of y’all encountered versions of me that were emotionally overwhelmed.
Versions of me that were defensive.
Versions of me that struggled with trust.
Versions of me that carried anger, fear, disappointment, loneliness, and exhaustion so deeply that it spilled onto people who didn’t deserve all of it.
And for that…
I am genuinely sorry.
Not performative sorry.
Not social-media sorry.
Not “I’m apologizing because it sounds mature” sorry.
Real sorry.
Because healing has forced me to confront a difficult truth:
Being wounded does not excuse wounding others.
It may explain behavior.
But explanation and justification are not the same thing.
There were moments where my pain made me emotionally unavailable.
Moments where fear made me guarded.
Moments where abandonment issues made me overreact.
Moments where internal chaos made me difficult to love.
And there were also moments where I hurt people intentionally because I was hurting myself.
That’s hard to admit.
But honesty matters.
Because if this series is going to be truthful, then it cannot only discuss the ways I’ve been hurt. It also has to acknowledge the ways pain shaped my behavior toward others.
I am not proud of every version of myself.
But I am trying to understand him.
Trying to grow him.
Trying to heal him.
Trying to stop survival mode from continuing to write my relationships.
And maybe that’s one of the biggest lessons adulthood teaches:
Unaddressed pain eventually introduces itself to everybody around you.
I think for years I carried emotional wounds so quietly that I convinced myself I had control over them.
But suppressed pain does not disappear.
It leaks.
Into conversations.
Into reactions.
Into relationships.
Into trust.
Into love.
Into silence.
And some people paid emotional prices for battles they did not create.
Again…
I am sorry.
I know apologies do not erase impact.
I know growth does not undo history.
But I hope at the very least this letter reflects genuine accountability.
Because healing, to me, is no longer just about understanding why I hurt.
It’s also about making sure my wounds stop becoming weapons.
And I think that’s one of the hardest but most necessary forms of growth.
To stop asking:
“Who hurt me?”
Long enough to also ask:
“Who did my hurt hurt?”
That question changed me.
— Ra’Mone
These were never just letters. They were surviving out loud.
***Side Note: Please do not assume you're one of the individuals on my list of folks that this is for. Feel free to ask me directly.***
The Mailbox Inside My Chest Blog Series
Part 3 - Dear The People I Kept Hoping Would Choose Me - Available Now
Part 5 - Letter To The People Who Couldn't Love Me Correctly - Coming 6/30
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