Letters To My Family

[Bach]

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.

[Not Alone]

  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.

[Bach]

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

[Bach]

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!

[Bach]

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.

[Not Alone]

I have read your words. Heard your feelings. My heart aches for you.

[Bach]

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

[Bach]

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

[Not Alone]

Brave and heartbreaking. 

[Snowdrop]

 

[Bach]

Notalone and Snowdrop, thank you for reading that. It means a lot to me. 

[Tee]

  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