I have been on very minimal contact with my mother for the past four years, seeing her only once a year at a holiday dinner hosted by my brother, answering her occasional email invitation to visit her with a polite but firm refusal, and not initiating any contact whatsoever myself. I am no spring chicken and my mother is getting very old now. At this past holiday dinner, I found myself feeling sentimental towards her and wishing once again to have some kind of mother-daughter relationship with her. This is a self-destructive urge of which I am a long-term veteran, but somehow I had the idea that this time I could be in control of it, and that it could benefit my therapy, so I made a vague overture earlier this year. Her response was suitably cautious and respectful, and for a minute, I actually thought I could do it, but then I thought about it more carefully, and the idea of spending time with her was terrifying.
I spoke about it at length with my trusted people, and determined that even the thought of a phone call panicked me. Still, though, the desire for some kind of interaction has not gone away. In addition to that, my sense of fairness and my understanding that a lot of what's wrong with my mother has similar root causes to what's wrong with me compels me to feel uncomfortable with the idea of doing something to her that she so often did to me both literally and metaphorically -- offering something, but then either snatching it away when I reached for it, or giving me something different and expecting me to be grateful to get anything at all. So I've written this letter in hopes of...Whatever it is that I'm hoping for. I'm not even sure. I would love to get some feedback, so any comments would be appreciated.
Dear Mom,
I've been wanting to write you this letter for a long time, and have been thinking at great length about how to most compassionately say what I want to say. The first thing I want to say is that I was sincere when I made an overture towards increased interaction with you, and it brings me no pleasure at all to have come to a non-negotiable conclusion that, while I am open to corresponding with you, I will not be able to visit you. I have recently been reading a lot about something called Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and it has explained a great deal to me about why I react the way I do to many situations, including spending time with you. I miss spending time with you, but I have realised over the past many years that it inevitably leads to my doing self-destructive things that result in my being ill for anywhere from days to weeks afterward. I thought for many years that the fact that I could visit you and we could walk and talk, go swimming, eat dinner, and part with warm feelings towards each other meant that our relationship was good, but I have come to the sad realisation that being with you is not safe for me, and my ability to enjoy your company does not correspond to my being able to deal healthily with thoughts and feelings beyond my control that arise in my subconscious in response to hearing your voice and being in your physical presence. I feel horrible saying this, but even the most enjoyable day at the beach sets off things in me that cause me to hurt myself in ways that I don't even notice until the damage is done. I am, of course, working on this in therapy, because my desire to improve myself, to be happier, more productive, and have better relationships, is unceasing. Now that I understand so much more about the root causes of my mental and physical ill health, I feel hopeful that I will achieve new progress. Hopefully, some time in the not-too-distant future, I will be able to visit with you, but for now, I really cannot.
I wish it was different. I hope you understand that this is not about punishing you or holding the past against you in any way. I really would like to be able to have some kind of relationship with you that won't be damaging to me, so if you want to write back, please do.
I think it's very well written. :hug:
I'm not sure from your post whether you're thinking of sending that letter or not. I've been told over and over again about that kind of very open letter to parents "Good that you wrote it, but don't send it, you're making yourself too vulnerable."
Now I look back at emails I sent my parents 4-5 years ago, I was busily explaining this kind of stuff. It didn't make any difference, it didn't help me, even though at the time I hoped they understood.
I've also been told on here and on OutOfTheFog (our sister website) that the most important thing is to protect myself. More important than trying not to hurt family-of-origin (FOO) members by changing my mind, saying 'No' etc.
If you're just writing the letter here to get it out of your system and to let your feelings evolve without letting your M know about any of it, well that's what this part of the forum is used for mostly.
Quote from: Blueberry on June 23, 2019, 07:51:25 PM
I'm not sure from your post whether you're thinking of sending that letter or not. I've been told over and over again about that kind of very open letter to parents "Good that you wrote it, but don't send it, you're making yourself too vulnerable."
Now I look back at emails I sent my parents 4-5 years ago, I was busily explaining this kind of stuff. It didn't make any difference, it didn't help me, even though at the time I hoped they understood.
I've also been told on here and on OutOfTheFog (our sister website) that the most important thing is to protect myself. More important than trying not to hurt family-of-origin (FOO) members by changing my mind, saying 'No' etc.
If you're just writing the letter here to get it out of your system and to let your feelings evolve without letting your M know about any of it, well that's what this part of the forum is used for mostly.
I'm definitely thinking about sending it to her. I want her to know it. And I do actually want her to write back. I understand there's a risk that I might regret it, but at this point, I feel that the risk of my regretting NOT sending it is greater.
I think you have to realize that if you send it that several senarios could happen. Most of them would be harmful to you and your recovery. Because most likely your mom will not understand and will take it as a personal attack. Even though it is well written.
In order to send to something like that you have to be ok with whatever response you get or not getting one at all which to me is the most harmful.
You know where you are in your recovery and what you feel you need to do. But just realize this will be hard to hear if it is actually heard. And would most likely have blow back that could cause you more damage.
I agree with blueberry protect yourself first. :grouphug:
I love your letter and think it's eloquent, well thought out, clear, and healthy. Sometimes, self protection is the act of expression - what we need, what we want, what won't work for us. I lived for many years in a state of no-contact that just sort of happened. When my FOO member contacted me after thirteen years, I talked with him a few times on the phone and then was able to review the situation, ultimately telling him I wanted no contact with him. This, too, was self protection. Speaking with him those few times allowed me to see exactly what it was I needed. Speaking up for ourselves and taking the initiative to pursue what is in our best interests can be very healing, and for me this is what happened. Best of luck to you.
I discovered long ago that what I didn't tell my mother could never come back to hurt me.
I learned during my first 30 years of life that anything I told her was used critically against me to others or used directly against me critically. It was her way or no way. I did not know about cPTSD at that time and kept trying talk to her, to have a relationship with her but that was never going to happen. I tried to do whatever to get her to like me and everything she knew about me came back in one way or another to hurt me. Nothing I did would make her happy.
After some 30 or 40 years, I gave up trying to have a relationship with her. I stopped telling her anything about me or my life. I always felt guilty for shutting her out of my life and sad that I could not talk to her. But, those feelings were easier to take than what I would feel after she used something I told her against me.
Not knowing about cPTSD or that I was suffering from it, there was something inside me decades ago that realized being a fawn or please typology with her was futile, not in my best interest in any way. After that, I told her nothing about me, my life or my feelings.
She died about the time I discovered I suffered from cPTSD, about two years ago. Knowing what I do today, I might be able to visit with her in a casual manner but deflecting any questions about my life, having compassion for what she went through, not being confrontational about all that happened to me when young that gave me a lost life, a life without emotions, regrets over what I did unknowingly that hurt others and regrets over all of the opportunities I missed by never having had a chance to live my own life. She could never change, would never understand what I might say and would become defensive if I tried to explain my life to her, this disorder to her. And I know anything personal that I said would come back to hurt me in one way or another. I tried to talk to her once in the 80's and remember her reaction well. It was not a good few days. Maybe it was about then that I quit telling her anything about me.
I felt bad about not being able to say anything to her over 20+ years but I know, in real life fact, that nothing came back to hurt me over those 20+ years.
While I have no regrets about not telling her anything for so long, I know that having to do so makes me sad at a deep level and is an emotional hole in my life.
We are all in different places in this disorder but it seems the replies above from others supports or justifies my personal decisions. It helps me feel better about shutting her out. I hope this anecdotal story helps a bit in what to send to your mother.
I appreciate all of these responses so much. Thank you all for giving them. I'm doing a lot of deep thinking about this and will not make a hasty decision. Too often in the past, I have rushed myself through a decision about dealing with my mother simply because of the stress of thinking it through, but I'm not doing that this time. There's further background I didn't go into about why this came up for me after the four years of almost no contact, and I'm onto about seven months of careful consideration how to handle it. I have taken great care so far to give myself plenty of time and space, and to take everything I'm thinking and feeling seriously. I will continue to do so. I feel that I am close to clarity about my objective and how best I can achieve it.
Quote from: Three Roses on June 23, 2019, 08:59:15 PM
I love your letter and think it's eloquent, well thought out, clear, and healthy. Sometimes, self protection is the act of expression - what we need, what we want, what won't work for us. I lived for many years in a state of no-contact that just sort of happened. When my FOO member contacted me after thirteen years, I talked with him a few times on the phone and then was able to review the situation, ultimately telling him I wanted no contact with him. This, too, was self protection. Speaking with him those few times allowed me to see exactly what it was I needed. Speaking up for ourselves and taking the initiative to pursue what is in our best interests can be very healing, and for me this is what happened. Best of luck to you.
Three Roses, thank you especially for this. My need for expression is very much at the core of this. I said above that I want her to know it, and that I want her to write back. Upon further thought, and in light of re-reading this thread, I don't feel as sure that I want her to write back. Part of me does, part of me doesn't, and part of me is just curious to see whether or not she will. But ALL of me wants her to know it. So I have to think some more about the implications of that.
Time to put it away for the night, and run it by my therapist at my session tomorrow...Thanks again, everybody! :grouphug:
That sounds like a great plan. Good luck Bach. With your decision and dealing with the effects after. :hug:
To communicate in some way, whether by sending or by having a conversation.
Dear PP,
I cannot come see you when you are "in town" next week. It is too long a drive too late at night for me to be able to properly enjoy time spent with you. You know how important it is for me to take care of myself these days. In the past, you have seen and acknowledged what happens to me when I push my physical health too hard in an effort to accommodate your complicated schedule and still spend quality time with you. I think that for a while now, you have been so wrapped up in your own pain and misery that you have been unwilling or unable to see anything but rejection in my being unable to make the kind of extraordinary efforts to see you that I used to. My feelings for you haven't changed one little bit. I miss you and think of you every day and still wish keenly that you would have more space for me in your life, and I would have more opportunities to see you without so badly taxing my body, but after all these years of wear and tear on me, I just can't do it anymore no matter how much I want to.
Good self-care! :applause:
:yeahthat: You're setting the boundaries you need and putting yourself and your needs in first place :thumbup: :applause:
I softened the tone of this letter quite a bit, but not the boundaries set, and elaborated a little on the reassurance that I still care, and after careful consideration sent the result. I feel good about how I handled this. At the moment, I'm also feeling good about not having fears or expectations about how or if PP will respond. I hope that lasts.
Quote from: Bach on July 07, 2019, 02:44:06 PM
I feel good about how I handled this.
:applause:
:applause:
I just looked through this thread for the first time in a while. I never sent the letter to my mother. I thought that she would probably contact me to follow up on the possibility of some kind of communication, and that I would send the letter to her in response, but she never did contact me. I saw her at my brother's Thanksgiving, and that was a whole other thing, but no appropriate occasion to send the letter ever arose. So, I suppose that if an occasion ever does arise, I have it in reserve, but if not, I might go for the rest of her life without ever having another significant interaction with her. I THINK that's okay with me.
The letter to Problem Person (PP) didn't have immediate results, but a while later pretty much out of the blue he started being more considerate. This result is not surprising. Acknowledgement would have been nice, but the main thing is that after about 18 months of deterioration following a falling-out, the relationship is back on a positive track. I have held up my end of that by giving to the extent that it is comfortable while maintaining the boundaries that are necessary. Some of those boundaries are between me and my hopes or expectations. It's a complicated relationship and this is not the first time we've been through this cycle. I'd love to think that some day this cycle will end and we will be able to have a good relationship without these periodic explosions of drama and angst, but that might not be realistic. We'll see.
I have a bunch of letters I want to write that I've been thinking about for some time, but I guess I'm not ready to actually write them. There is so much to write about, but it's so hard. I feel it in there, and it really needs to come out, but it isn't moving. It's like being constipated, if you will kindly pardon the crudeness.
Quote from: Bach on January 13, 2020, 12:33:29 AM
So, I suppose that if an occasion ever does arise, I have it in reserve, but if not, I might go for the rest of her life without ever having another significant interaction with her. I THINK that's okay with me.
I'm guessing that there may be times when that feels okay and other times when it does not feel okay. I don't want you to feel caught off balance if you do have feelings of desiring significant interaction with her.
Dear Bach,
Stop being such a big whiny baby about being sick. It's really not that big a deal. I think you're making it up that I felt sad and lonely when I was sick the week we turned 10. I mean, yeah it was a little weird and scary when we had the weird headache and didn't know what was happening then fell asleep on the bed at Rosalind's room with the Star Trek stuff all around, but, you know, the rest of the week was okay! I guess I was sick and didn't feel good and stuff but it was winter outside and being sick meant that I didn't have to go out and stuff. And of course I had to stay in my room whenever anyone else was home, I had the flu and it was really important that no one else get it! Why does that have to be such a big deal to you? I mean, you have some idea now that I was miserable being alone and sick and having to take care of myself, but, you know, for me, it was actually a pretty peaceful and fun week. Being alone in my room was okay, I did that all the time, and I had the pills and thermometer and stuff for symptoms, and during the day it was fun to have some ice cream if I wanted and watch game shows and cartoons with my cat quilt on the couch all day and be in the house without having to deal with Mom and I and T. I don't mind taking care of us but I wish you would stop trying to convince yourself that we hate being sick. Okay?!?
Love,
Middle B
Dear Bach,
I don't want you to enumerate my traumas or whatever you said. I don't believe you that it will help and I don't care. Go away and leave me alone!
:pissed:
Trigger Warning: Angry at Mom. Not to send.
Dear Mom,
You are a terrible person. I know what you did. I know my whole life you wanted me to die, and I know you actually tried to kill me. You could say that there's no way I can know that by "remembering" or "flashing back" to being suffocated in the crib, but I remember the time you did it in your room sometime during the earlier middle years of my childhood. I don't remember what I did to bring it on, but I do remember that you put your hands around my neck and squeezed until I started to black out, and I also remember having that stunned and yet unsurprised feeling after you let go and left the room as I lay on your bed with the fancy bedspread I can almost remember that this was an experience I had survived before. There was no fear or astonishment, just the bleak knowledge that, yes, that just happened, and yes, it was you, my mother. With what I know now, I understand that I must have had a * of a flashback from that. In fact, I almost wonder whether that happened shortly before I got that infamous formative case of flu. "Pffft, I always remembered that stuff", yes, absolutely, I remember remembering it after the dream I had in 2006 about coughing up a hairball that reminded me. It wasn't a repressed memory, it was simply a memory I had chucked on some shelf in the bookcase of my soul that I came across again. But anyway, yes, you did choke me until I started to black out at least once in my life. And you never protected me in any way, or showed me any kindness.
I once tried to talk to you about this, and you said "I had a bad mother too, you know!" And yes, I do know that, I do recognise that you were also once a traumatised little girl, but you wanted that to be a free pass for every rotten choice you made as a mother, and guess what, it doesn't work that way. I don't love you and I don't want you to be happy. When I'm your age, I will not deserve to languish in anxiety and isolation, but you do deserve it. I am better than you, if for no other reason than that I did not pass it on. The toxic abusive narcissist cycle stopped here, baby! I AM BETTER THAN YOU.
I have read your words. Heard your feelings. My heart aches for you.
Dear Dad,
Today I had a nice memory of you when I was sauteeing stuff to make spaghetti sauce for dinner. I remembered you teaching me your thing with sauteeing the tomato paste before adding the crushed tomatoes, and telling me which spices to use. After we made it together a few times and figured out exactly how much of each spice we liked, I wrote down the recipe and used it faithfully for many years. These days I usually use a technique and quantity different from your all-day simmered freezer-filling glory to cook the sauce, but I still brown the tomato paste and use the same spice blend.
It was nice to have a good memory of you. Earlier in my life you got a lot more credit than you should have just because my mother's failings made your failings seem small and relatively harmless in comparison, but perhaps in the past few years, you've been getting just a tiny bit less slack than you deserve. I really wish that you had lived long enough for us to talk a few things out.
Love,
Me
Trigger warning, disturbing Mom stuff. Text follows in white, highlight if you want to see it.
Dear Mom,
It's not just that I know what you did that I want to tell you. I also want to tell you that I know what you FELT. What you felt toward me. Your resentment. Your hostility. I know that what you always wanted was for me to die. You didn't want to have a daughter, you wanted to be a tragically bereaved mother. You hated me and wanted me to die, and somehow I was supposed to be thankful that you were one eyelash saner than those mothers who murder their own children. That you never went through with killing me was supposed to be enough. And then you told yourself that you must not have been that terrible a mother since I never ended up killing myself! You sorry excuse for a human.
The deeply engrained part of me that is YOU that I still have not gotten rid of hates you and wants you to die now, and the rest of me is working on not feeling guilty about that.
&$%# you.
Me
Brave and heartbreaking. :hug:
:grouphug:
Notalone and Snowdrop, thank you for reading that. It means a lot to me. :hug: :grouphug:
:hug: I'm sorry this happened to you. But I'm glad we are friends. We come from similar backgrounds.a great big hug of understanding and encouragement :hug: