The Letter I Wrote to Help Pardon My Father—And What I Know Now

 I once wrote a glowing letter to support my father’s pardon.

At the time, I meant every word. I believed the man I was writing about was a reformed version of the one who’d come in and out of my childhood. I described him as intentional, self-aware, community-minded. I believed he was proof that people could change. That redemption was real.

I was wrong.

But I didn’t know that yet. Or rather—I didn’t want to know. I was still living inside a carefully constructed version of truth, one I needed to believe in order to survive. That narrative had been built for me—and around me—for years. It was reinforced by a partner who was addicted, abusive, and controlling. A man who often weaponized my past and projected his own dysfunction onto others. He pointed at my mother’s addiction as evidence of her weakness. He propped up my father’s “recovery” as a blueprint for how a real man changes. And because I wanted to believe someone in my story had truly changed, I clung to that image of my dad and viewed it as a future my partner could strive to create. It gave me hope.

That hope turned out to be a lie.

Since being granted a pardon, my father has racked up multiple domestic violence charges, DUIs, and even weapons offenses. His life has unraveled—and any illusion I had of who he was unraveled with it. The man I wrote about in that letter? I don’t know him. Maybe I never did.

Looking back on the letter now, I can see how deeply it was shaped by the paradigm I was living in at the time. Abuse doesn’t just impact your self-worth—it alters your perception. When you’ve spent your life walking on eggshells, begging for stability, and choosing between impossible loyalties, you get really good at creating stories that make the chaos make sense. You convince yourself that people who do some good are all good. That growth is linear. That loving someone means defending them—publicly, loudly, and without doubt.

But the truth is: love and accountability are not mutually exclusive. And transformation isn’t measured by words, routines, or rehearsed gratitude. It’s measured by actions—consistent, sustained actions—especially when no one is watching.

I wanted so badly to believe my father was different. I needed him to be. For me. For my siblings. For the cycle we were all trying so hard to break. I needed to see someone come out on the other side of this thing we’d been born into and built around. So I wrote the letter. I used my degree, my credibility, my title, and my voice to paint a picture I now know was not accurate. Not because I lied—but because I didn’t know how to tell the whole truth yet.

The truth is that I was still living in a culture of silence and self-abandonment. I was still being gaslit daily by the man I was married to. I was still equating survival with strength. I thought if I was loyal enough, forgiving enough, and optimistic enough, maybe everything that came before could be rewritten.

But abuse doesn’t disappear because we tell a better story about it. Addiction doesn’t heal because we believe it should. Redemption isn’t real unless it’s lived, over time, and owned with integrity.

And while it breaks my heart to say this: my father has not lived up to the second chance he was given.

That letter now stands as a time capsule—evidence of how easy it is to mistake silence for peace, and performance for progress. It’s a reminder that we don’t just inherit trauma, we inherit narratives. And sometimes, we keep them alive because the alternative—facing the full truth—feels unbearable.

But the truth is bearable. And more than that—it’s freeing.

So, to anyone else navigating the messy gray space between love and harm, between who someone was and who you hoped they’d become: you are allowed to change your mind. You are allowed to tell a new story. You are allowed to grieve the version of someone you once believed in.

And if you’ve ever defended someone who later proved unworthy of that defense—know this: it’s not your shame to carry. It’s theirs.

I’m not the same woman who wrote that letter. And that’s a good thing.

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Author’s Note: On Recovering from Abuse and Reclaiming My Voice

There are still days when silence feels safer.

When the words catch in my throat, and the old instincts return—stay quiet, keep the peace, don’t make it worse. Those reflexes don’t disappear overnight. They are deeply wired, built from years of walking on eggshells and managing the emotional weather of others.

But healing has taught me that silence is not the same as safety.
And finding my voice—even when it shakes—has set me free.

There’s a cruel kind of irony in recovery work—the way cycles echo and repeat, even when you’re doing everything you can to break free. The man I once defended as a daughter—my father—spiraled back into addiction and violence, and is now going through yet another divorce provoked by that very spiral. And the man I married—who narrated my father’s redemption story with such conviction—ended up enabling him.

They became a mirror of each other.

The same father I wrote to help pardon…crashed the car of my now ex-husband, while driving under the influence. That crash landed him back in jail. And somehow, even after everything fell apart, they’re still connected by addiction, chaos, and codependence.

Turns out, no matter how many divides occur in a family, addicts will keep influencing—and enabling—other addicts. That’s the heartbreak of this disease. And it’s why choosing to break the cycle is so radical and so hard.

Writing about this is raw. It’s not about revenge or resentment—it’s about reclamation. Of my story, my voice, and my right to speak the truth.

So if you're still caught between silence and speaking, between fear and freedom—please hear this:
You are not alone.

And you are allowed to heal out loud.

—Ramona Benson

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