A Woman In Therapy Writes An 'Unhinged' Letter To Her Ex-Husband — 'You Look Like A Trash Can Wizard'
Share your resentment in a letter you never plan to send.
Mart Production / Pexels Lindsey describes herself as a single mom, a survivor, and an advocate in her TikTok bio. In a move that was funny, powerful, and healing, she recently shared “an unhinged letter” she wrote to her ex as part of therapy.
The woman shared the 'unhinged letter' she wrote to her ex-husband, calling him out for looking 'like a trash can wizard.'
She explained that when she started going to therapy a few years ago, her therapist told her to write a letter to her ex-husband as a tool to process their relationship. Lindsey unearthed the letter and read it to her TikTok followers.
“Dear David, and by ‘dear,’ I mean, ‘Go [expletive] yourself,’” Lindsey’s letter began. “My therapist told me to write this letter to you. I think it’s totally [expletive], but she said the things in my healing journey that feel like [expletive] are the things I need to do the most.”
“That’s totally true,” Lindsey commented, highlighting how far she’s traveled on her healing journey that she’s able to see that truth.
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She continued reading her letter, sharing, “I was looking at pictures of you today and I’m honestly at a loss as to how I ever found you attractive. Kind of like how at the beginning of the movie ‘The Watcher’ I thought Keanu Reeves was hot, but then at the end, I thought he looked like a disgusting creep.”
“The difference is that Keanu Reeves is actually a really great person who pretended to be bad, and you are a bad person who pretended to be good,” she proclaimed. “Also, Keanu Reeves isn’t so bad looking, and you look like a trash can wizard. Like, if Dumbledore made a baby wizard out of drugs and raised them in a trash can, but then that wizard sold his powers for more drugs.”
Lindsey noted that her therapist told her that she often uses dark humor as a mechanism to avoid processing her emotions.
Judging by her "trash can wizard" analogy, it seems like her therapist was spot on. Yet dark humor has a valuable place in the healing journey. Anyone who’s lost a loved one knows that grief humor is a great way to push through pain.
In the next section of her letter, Lindsey explained, “I attempted to dive into some feelings and then just wrote a giant knock-knock joke on top of it.”
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“At the bottom, it says this: ‘I don’t know this is supposed to help me heal, because I just want to set this on fire.’” She ended her letter to her ex by signing off, “In closing, please [expletive] off forever… with rage, Lindsey.”
She shared a post-script illustration, saying, “I also drew a pair of cargo pants; it says, ‘Your favorite cargo pants with the functional pockets to store all of your audacity.'”
Lindsey’s letter to her ex is markedly funny, but it also shows how healing the act of writing out our emotions can be. Managing big, difficult feelings is never easy, yet there are tools that exist to help move through them, including writing them down.
Therapist Jason VanRuler shared 3 ways to help process emotions, starting with acknowledging that you’re feeling the feeling, in the first place.
1. Admit your feelings.
“Number 1 is just to own that you’re feeling it,” he explained. “Sometimes we deny things, like, it’s obvious we’re angry; it’s obvious we’re sad, and yet we kind of gloss over it, because it seems like it’s the unpopular thing to say… So, just own how you’re feeling.”
2. Allow yourself to feel your emotions.
“Step number 2 is feel how you’re feeling,” VanRuler continued. “If you’re feeling sad and you want to cry, actually cry.”
3. Talk it out or write about it.
VanRuler advised people to "find someone who’s trusted — a friend, a therapist, a partner — and talk it out with them. Or, if you’re not in a spot where you can do that, write it out in a journal. You will find that that helps you to process and get some clarity because it helps us to get a little bit more [of] an objective view on what’s going on and put everything in its right place.”
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Writing is an act of resistance. It’s an act of healing. Writing a letter that you know you’ll never send to someone who hurt you is a hugely powerful decision, as it lets you freely express what you want to say in a safe space and removes some of the control that person has over you.
So, take out your pencils and practice this small form of self-love, by telling someone how terrible they truly are. Save your letters for a future date, so you can look back at the person you once were, and see how far you’ve traveled.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers mental health, pop culture analysis, and all things to do with the entertainment industry.