“Love Kate”: Letters to the Dead
I’ve been collecting a lot of my old writing recently. As you might have guessed, I’m autistic. As an autistic woman, I love getting letters, but more importantly, I love to write them. When I was younger, going through so much, I would write letters to dead people, or people that I loved, but would never send them. I didn’t know how these people would react if I were to send some of these letters. My friends say I should put them in a book, but I don’t know how people would feel, if some certain people knew I wrote about them to dead people? I’ve never been good at expressing my feelings with others, all I am able to do is take what they say and cry.
One particular person I wrote a lot of these letters to was actress and singer, Deanna Durbin (1921–2013). She was alive when I wrote many of these letters, but I never sent them to her. Why? I didn’t want her to read about my boy trouble, or the fact that girls were gaslighting me into thinking I was a horrible person, or the fact I struggled with mental illness (I mean, I still do). But the fact that many of the letters that I have written are to Movie Stars or to Holocaust Victims or Holocaust Survivors.
May of the movie stars I wrote to, were dead or pushing 90 by the time I wrote these. One of them, I wrote when I was 12, and I wrote to Kathryn Grayson (1922–2010). I don’t know why I picked her, but I was so upset when I wrote this. I had just been blamed for being SA’ed (Assaulted). I was upset and I just had an argument with my mother over it. (Trigger Warning)
“May 23, 2004.
Dearest Kath. Grayson,
I’m sure you’re probably not used to getting things like this, but I am overwhelmed, scared and upset. I had an argument with my mother. She said, “How could You do this?” You’re probably wondering what? He hurt me, and now I’m taking the blame for it. It really sucks, because I didn’t even like him, I mean, not in that way?
I had just gotten back from the Lithuania trip and I am still shaken up.
I was on a train, and I was the apparent target, as usual. I don’t understand why I am? I’m not even that pretty! Really, I’m not! The only thing I do have is a period and boobs, which I get teased about maliciously. I don’t like this at all. I feel like I’m a complete fraud.
But anyways, getting to my point. I was just wandering out to go to the window, when HE decided that he wanted to pull me into the bathroom and lock the door. It happened so fast, I didn’t have time to react. He shoved me against the wall. He told me that I was going to “behave.” Only God knows what he meant. I then felt his sloppy mouth try to kiss mine, in a way, I think he was trying to French kiss me, and his hands started moving all over me, and not in a good way. He put his hand underneath my shirt and tried to undo my bra. I suddenly realized what he was doing and like Barbara Stanwyck, I shoved him back and I slapped him. He was in shock, of course, but not at the fact that he had just been slapped, but by the fact that he had been rejected.
He turned to me and said, “OTHER GIRLS WOULD HAVE LOVED WHAT I WAS DOING!”. Basically, he told me, I was unlovable. I feel that way Kath, I feel sick to my stomach. What if I had let him have his way? What would have happened to me? Would I have been the whore? Or the Slut? Which one? Aren’t they mutually exclusive? I didn’t know? I was berated by the teachers and they said they would keep an eye on me. I told them I didn’t want anything to do with it and it was his fault. When we got back of course, I was the one to take the fall (as I usually am). No one would believe me, not even my own mother. My God Kath, what is happening to me? Am I falling to pieces? What am I doing? Help. Please. I don’t want to be seen as the slut.
A few days ago, he admitted what he had done, but the damage was there. At school, they all are tormenting me, saying I shoved him inside of me. I didn’t. I stopped it before it went that far. God, I never want to feel a man’s hand like that again, unless it’s for love. Is that how it feels? To be violated? To be inhumane? What was wrong? What wouldn’t he stop? I tried to shove him several times, but he had me pinned to the wall. All I could hear was my screams that were coming from inside of me, but they wouldn’t come out. I just felt like I was being tormented, but I don’t know what was really happening to me. One girl said, “You should have let him made you feel good! He did it to me and I loved it!” I wanted to say, “That’s because you’re flat and have no sensation in yourself.” But I could only just look at her with fear in my eyes. I am 12, and I cannot imagine any 12 year-old going through what I went through on that fateful trip. Thank God I’m going home on Saturday, away from this place. Anyways, I’m sorry you had to hear about this. I hope that next year will be better.
Love, Kate”
I was told that by a therapist when I was young, that I should write letters to peolpe I love, or write letters to myself. Like Dear Evan Hansen, who wrote letters to himself as a way to gain self-confidence, I was told that I should write letters to the dead. The funny thing is that many of the people that I wrote these letters to, were very much alive. Deanna Durbin died in 2013, Kathryn Grayson died in 2010. But people like Gerswhin, Anne Frank, Otto Wolf, and others, they died before I was born.
My mother said, “I’m not one to spread my story, but I think you should publish these.” My friend Stacey thinks I should as well. I hope to get these all typed and hopefully send to a publisher. I am an autistic Jewish woman, I need my story out there. Believe what you want about Autistic women, we go through even more shit than autistic men.
Another Letter I had written, was in 2012, this time to Deanna Durbin. Sometimes, when I read these letters back, I sound in a lot of ways desperate, for something or for someone. I sometimes wonder, “What the hell is going on with me?” But I now know. The name in this letter has been altered for his sake.
“April 13, 2012
Dear Deanna,
I have something to confess. I’m ugly. Yes, quite ugly. I must be, because Jerry doesn’t notice me. Why doesn’t he? I wear the beautiful vintage dresses and the hat. I have my hair all curly and I wear makeup, at least I try. I am trying to be girlie, and I’m not dumb. I am the smart Film girl and I am doing my best to get him to notice me. Maybe, take me home? I don’t have any experience with men, hardly, but I want to . I want him to take me home. I know he has a home, but why is he ashamed of me? He sees me as a friend, and I think I am over being that. I wanted to be more. But am I? What is going on with me that seems to not make me attractive to him?
I feel like Lillian Gish paid the price for my sanity. I am with him almost constantly, and I am “one of the gang,” but I cannot see my way out of this. I have been moping over him. I feel feelings for him, but does he feel for me? I guess not? Right? What am I doing wrong? I help him with Film Editing and I help him with Film Class work, and I even let him hold me in his hands. I am not that bad, am I?
I don’t know if I am even that sexy? Is sex appeal the new thing? I am trying, to be attractive. Mother thinks I’m not doing enough. I’m screaming inside again. What do I want? I just want to be someone that someone takes home and puts their arms around. Will I ever get that? I don’t know if I ever will?
Will I ever feel the pleasure? Everyone I know has had sex by now, and I haven’t had it. Every time I want it, I can never have it, because I’ll be considered a whore or a slut. I can never feel the love I think I deserve? Will he ever notice me? I don’t think I will? Will I ever bee seen as more than a ‘best friend?” Someone make me beautiful like Ann Blyth. Goddamn, Ann Blyth could have any man she wanted, because she was beauatiful. Look at my stubby self. No woman would ever want to be me.
I feel like you could have gotten any man you wanted, and I wish I were you.
Anyways, enough of me bitching and complaining.
Lots of Love.
Love, Kate”
My letters get so emotional, and to be blunt, I’m glad that I have some record of my life, before and after my autism diagnosis .
