Andy Trattner

August 12, 2025

A Letter From 10 Days In Hell

When you sent me
into handcuffs and imprisonment,
taking away my life, time, and
humanity
for an indefinite period,

with no understanding of your actions
nor true remorse...
nor responsibility just excuses...

When you self-righteously told me,
over and over,
how you knew my interests & needs
better than I did myself,
such that I truly had no voice —

and the incompetent Taco Bell-level healthcare workers
who have themselves been in and out of jail and
vent their frustrations of their jobs and lives by
forcing the "patients" to just
SIT DOWN RIGHT NOW
in those horrible chairs of
blood feces urine and horse-tranquilizer
forced and required inside you to sleep...
six days straight...

When they took away my one right to make phone calls
and all I had was their rulebook
and a purple crayon

and the wristband with my inmate ID

the Auschwitz hell of confinement
I fortunately had
the courage and pride and strength
to escape

it truly broke within me many misconceptions
and over-kindnesses
I had previously been living.

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You will never know the full extent of what you have done to me, 
on your couch watching TV with your newest bf
instead of speaking and spending time face to face, 
truly showing your priorities,
care, trust, support by
being with me 
instead of against me.

You will never know how much 
the handcuffs of 
aggressive and non-responsive police bit 
into my heart and soul and
sealed away my one remaining 
blood family member.

But you will know 
what I will say and do, 
henceforth,
because I believe 
people deserve better. 

They deserve clear and appropriately-scoped communication 
in advance of disempowerment 
by force.

and i will never harm you 
as you have harmed me.

I do, however, now have the right to 
legal self-defense, civilly pursued,
in anticipation of your demonstrated ability
to compel me by violence of the State to 
"listen to your feelings"

I hereby declare you shall NOT make any attempt to contact me, 
until I state I am ready 
to re-open a channel from you to me. 

Email with 
1) remorseful statements and 
2) emergency, 
only.

I will not listen to your feelings 
until I am ready in the future, 
and I hope I can recover quickly. 

But honestly I think my capacity to listen 
was destroyed in that awful awful place 
and I will henceforth cleave to 
the cold hard facts of objective reality. 

at least when it comes
to you and me.

I truly wish you the best 
and hope you can heal from 
whatever inside of you creates this 
laziness, hostility, inability to trust, social anxiety, and 
misdirected set of actions and beliefs 
against those you claim to love. 

kindly, always,
your former brother.

About Andy Trattner