FOO letters - not to send

[Blueberry]

It's time I wrote some more letters. They tend to churn around in my head and when I try and write them down they disappear. But I imagine that quite soon I'll be getting them down on 'paper'. No wonder I feel so exhausted atm.

[Hope66]

Me too Blueberry - I am also intending to write some more 'letters not to send' -  to you.   
Hope 

[Blueberry]

F,

You ask "Why are you doing this to us?" 

Why have I reduced contact to occasional emails?? Um, have you forgotten that the last two times I had FOO contact  to anybody more than you alone I left early after crying for hours? Have you forgotten - or did you just not notice at the time - that GCBro was reported to have said he wanted nothing more to do with me since I was going to ruin the family holiday?? You're seriously wondering why I don't want contact with anybody after that?? I guess you've forgotten or didn't notice the nice things I did for you and M in the early part of that holiday.  Instead you tell me how hurt M is because I've set her a boundary since then. I'm just flabbergasted at the amount of cluelessness in our family.

Since you refuse to understand anything I say to you, always denying or finding some hole in the logic, can't you at least understand the language of emotions? It actually takes an awful lot to get me to cry as an adult. Congratulations, contact with FOO does it every time. And you wonder why I don't want contact with any of you!

Why on earth would I want contact with a bunch of people who think it's fine for me to end up in tears for days? And to have no one of my adult blood relations seeing if there's not a way for me to stay on? I was absolutely devastated last time I had contact with all of you. It makes me feel even worse that you apparently put no importance on this. So it's just a repeat of "Oh well, Blueberry is crying as she always did as a child." And apparently now not having either of you or M thinking that could have anything to do with the current situation?

I am sick of the treatment of me in our family!! Sick of it. I have had enough! You shelter M from my feelings, you sheltered and protected B1 from her feelings when he was young, but me? No. I just heard rounds of: "you have to learn to put up with other people". I don't actually. Especially not people who treat me the way you do and don't see anything wrong with this.

[Blueberry]

F,
FWIW I do appreciate that you drove me as far as the nearest mainish line train station rather than having me navigate that part of the journey on rural bus routes. It made the whole thing seem a little less like I was just being dumped, sent off home while everybody else moved onto the rest of the holiday. I also remember you standing on the platform as my train left and you looked sad. But you still don't understand that your behaviour contributes to this situation! How on earth could you stand there and think: "how sad, but we'll see Blueberry some other time."?? I don't think you will. And I'm so sad about this too. I'm crying while I write this.

Brought up the way I was by you and M, I've been feeling guilty on and off for months about not having written to thank you for the trip to the mainish line station, though undoubtedly I thanked you at the time. That's so perverse. There are so many other unexpressed feelings in our FOO, so many that have caused all this chaos and I'm worried about not writing 'gratitude' in this aspect. Shake head in disbelief at self.

[Three Roses]

Sending you huge, safe, comforting hugs! You are worthy of being treated well. I'm glad to know you. 

[Hope66]

Me too, I am very happy to know you, Blueberry - and  to you on writing your letters.
Hope 

[Blueberry]

Thank you 3Roses and Hope. It means a lot. 

[Sceal]

 

[sanmagic7]

blueberry, you brave soul.  glad to see you're getting the poison out. 

again, this  stuff makes no sense cuz, in reality, it's nonsense.  there is no sense to it.  we've tried to make sense of it for so long, finally discovering it's not in our power.  like trying to make a skyscraper on a foundation of pudding.

loving hug to you blueberry. 

[Blueberry]

To B1,

You phoned. I'm going to put here what I might have said if a) I hadn't been slightly dissociated and b) I hadn't been protecting myself from further FOO damage.
(Quite a bit of it I've already posted on here to other FOO members. You're somewhat interchangeable. )

I didn't talk about me. I think actually you might have noticed a difference to earlier calls, from before Horrendous Event. I let you flounder around. Yes, it was quite nice to speak to the little ones but you made your decision last time I saw you in person whose side you're on and it definitely wasn't mine. That means your little ones won't have much contact with me. Because contact with you and our generation and older generations in FOO is too damaging to me.

In a healthy FOO, it might be possible to be neutral and not take sides. You thought you were being neutral, possibly. But you weren't. You were enabling our SIL against me. Thanks. You were gaslighting. My T says your methods are great at shutting down any discourse there could be on behaviour in FOO. Shutting me down. Shutting me up.

I'm so angry and so upset, so hurt! When M said things to you when you were a young adult, F waded in (in my hearing) and told M if she ever wanted contact with you again, she'd better apologise! She did. But nobody does that for me. You search around for reasons to support our SIL, why she's right and I was wrong. If you had been supporting your own wife, I could understand it, but your and my SIL?? Sure, you don't want any problems with our other B. I'm expendable. I'm very far away.

And so far I've never managed to adequately protect myself in FOO or have barriers up for long enough. i've come crawling back eventually. It might have taken years, but I did eventually. I won't again though. You phoned today. I didn't phone you. I'm remembering too a time in the long ago past when you decided to hug me because I was going away for months. I didn't want your hug, I put up with it. You're an abuser and an enabler. Some time I'll be strong enough to put up a boundary that you'll recognise as one. Maybe. Or maybe you'll just never recognise?? My T says empathy is obviously not your strong point. Up till recently, some of me has been looking up to you. Some ICs or ITeens. Still looking up to older B for protection and for support, somehow ignoring the physical abuse. Cuz "it wasn't often". Or I "wasn't really hurt". No, those are FOO excuses. Probably ignoring the physical abuse because it was the only way to exist in FOO and still is. I can only exist in FOO if I try and pretend everything's fine. But it isn't fine!!! So I've got that straight now. I can only exist in FOO if I pretend the abuse - emotional, verbal, psychological, physical and CSA - didn't take place. I know you didn't do the last, but you did everything else. So, I can't have respect for myself and exist in FOO. Slowly but surely, I'm choosing respect for myself.

You said before, last time I re-connected with M and F that they'd have you to reckon with if they went back to their old behaviour. I hoped during Horrendous Event that you'd protect me from SIL2. You wouldn't, so it got more horrendous. In fact, instead you passed on this

B2 wanted nothing more to do with me since I was going to ruin the family holiday.

And that's somehow OK to pass on? My T is right. Empathy is sorely lacking. Though you expect it from other people. But I can't change anybody in FOO, or anywhere else. Only go NC or do MC and grey rock. It was those last two I was practising in the phone call.

It actually takes an awful lot to get me to cry as an adult. Congratulations, contact with FOO does it every time.

I suppose for you

it's just a repeat of "Oh well, Blueberry is crying as she always did as a child."

I am a bit sad to no longer have contact with the little ones or even with your wife. She seems the healthiest of our generation and she was the only adult who asked if I could somehow stay on. But her loyalties are naturally to you, and I won't get in between.

I am sick of the treatment of me in our family!! Sick of it. I have had enough! I heard rounds of: "you have to learn to put up with other people". I don't actually. Especially not people who treat me the way you do and don't see anything wrong with this.

The "you have to put up with..." is what you said about me and SIL2. You said she's not going to change, implying that I have to. I'm doing so. Just not quite the way you were or are expecting. You've lost me. I have a FOO in name only. The reverse applies: you have a sister in name only. The little ones have an aunt in name only. M and F have a daughter in name only. You all made your decision. I'm hanging on for the money.

Blueberry

[Blueberry]

It's good I've been re-reading this thread again, not just to see how useless contact with FOO is but also to see:

What I do feel in addition is relief. I have a bit more energy again, I'm looking after myself better, I have more motivation to do things I think I ought to or even things I want to. My therapist says that when I block emotions or expression of those emotions, I block a lot of other stuff too. He's right, I've been observing that through my body language and breathing patterns etc. over the past year.

[Blueberry]

B1, I reiterate: I want to be left in peace. Full stop.

Blueberry
_____________________________________

There's nothing more to say, I find.

[Blueberry]

It didn't take long for the hatred I expressed here to evolve. For quite a while now M has mostly been playing a much lesser role in my thoughts and feelings. She is much less 'around'. Sometimes she comes back, but last time in T I sent her off with the strength of my anger. Just the feeling of anger and knowing it was towards her allowed me to move the obstacle of her from my path, in the visualisation.

Possibly this previous expression of hatred helped set all that in motion.

M,

I hate you! You did so many awful things to me in my childhood, teenage years, continuing on into adulthood. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you!!

[Blueberry]

To B2,

I'm angry and I'm upset. You're never going to read this so I can use the words I want.

I left the family holiday because of your and your wife's actions and you dared to phone me at home a few weeks later as if nothing had happened, as if everything was the same as it had been before.

With the amount of triangulation that goes on in our family, you knew full well why I was leaving. How dare you phone and just pretend everything's normal!

I'm upset because you did and said all sorts of things behind my back. You never let on what you thought of me. You pretended something different. Even when you phoned after Horrendous Event, you didn't let on that things might be different. Even recently when I emailed you about one of the children, you responded with "Nice to hear from you." That's a lie. How can it be 'nice' to hear from a sib you accused of ruining the family holiday? How does that add up? Unless you're thinking you can reel me back in with that? But you can't. Not anymore. You crossed a line at Horrendous Event. You went one step too far.

The only way to normalise contact would be if you and everybody else in FOO went into counselling to figure out all your roles in the family dysfunction and then started working on changing. As if that's going to happen. It's not. It would be a wonder if any of the males in the family did that. So there won't be any normalisation of contact. Forget it.

What on earth were you thinking about your d?? She's my godchild. You asked me if I would be godmother at a time when you were fully aware I have psychological problems. I take the role of godmother seriously, but I'm taking my own health even more seriously. So it didn't occur to you that I might fight back at some time, I might say "No! I'm not putting up with this anymore!!" This also being your wife thinking it acceptable to slip 'mental health issues' into the conversation at random intervals in front of M and F's guests and me too of course. I'm not contacting your wife about this. You're hearing it instead. You pretended to be nice, caring brother before Horrendous Event, never stating directly that I was stressing you. I know you'd say that you were showing me indirectly and that I was too clueless to pick up on it. Actually I'm not clueless. You have to say these things, you can't just expect people to pick up on it. Especially somebody you hardly ever see face-to-face. 

It's hard for me to know what you were thinking about the relationship between me and your d. Maybe you thought you could get away with your behaviour and once I was back in my own country, nice and far away from all you lot, your d and I would revert to the contact of before: occasional phone calls, and me sending cards and presents.

Or maybe you regret asking me to be godmother and so you don't really care what the results are. If so, that's terrible on account of your d! But I can't change that. I can't cure our family dysfunction, the habit of lying and blaming. Because that's what you'd be doing if you were to tell d I'm not contacting her the way I used to because I have mental health issues or something along those lines.

I'm not contacting her by phone because it would mean speaking to you or even worse your wife. I'm done with your wife. She may be your wife, but to me she's just an IL and a nasty one at that. I'm done with putting up with her rudeness and spitefulness and nastiness to me. You know, before Horrendous Event, I did intend to try and visit you some day on your own turf, mostly in order to see your d's of course. I won't now. No way am I ever going into somebody's house who thinks it's OK to drop 'mental health issues' around the conversation (your wife) or who is not capable of telling me my presence is unwanted, even when I give the opportunity on a silver platter (you).

That's the other thing I'm so angry about: I asked you if it was really OK for M and F to be putting me in your FOC's accommodation. You said it was. I found that a bit hard to believe but didn't press the issue. Then I found out from a) your behaviour and b) from B1 after the blow-up that you were far from happy. Guess what? 'Mental health issues' deriving from dysfunctional families can make stating this kind of truth "yeah, you're right Blueberry, me and my wife, we don't want you  staying in our accommodation" pretty difficult. I'm so angry that you don't even see that you have a problem! Sure, it would've been really good if I  had been able to say to M: "no, not appropriate, I need separate accommodation", but it's very difficult. It's a symptom of these 'mental health issues'. I'm working on them. You have them too, otherwise you would have been able to say "No way" to M, or she wouldn't even have asked you to begin with. Yeah, you have them too, just a milder form. So long as you keep blaming me, you'll never see a reason to work on your own. In fact you won't even see them. I'm so angry you seem to think it's acceptable to blame me for the whole FOO dysfunction.

[Blueberry]

To M,

I'd like to express that I appreciate that you have made some changes in your behaviour towards me and that you seem to have realised one or two things. This is hearkening back to the last FOO event. No idea what changes you may or may not have made since.

Thank you for allowing me to cry without slagging me off about it or insulting me or yelling at me or telling me to shut up. I realise that's a big change for you, big progress. Unfortunately, it's not enough of a change for me. You advised me not to talk about what I was talking about at the time because "it was obviously upsetting me". It wasn't actually upsetting me. I was already totally upset at all that had transpired in the past idk 24-48 hours. By speaking about it, I was finding an outlet. Crying was another outlet. I couldn't not cry, it was all so terrible for me. I was upset at B1's refusal to help me, at what B1 told me of B2's remarks about me and that B2's remarks to B1were like a betrayal, I was upset labout SIL2's behaviour and remarks towards me.

You still seem to think you know more than I do about emotional matters in general and about my own emotional matters in particular.   

Maybe my talking was upsetting you? And instead of reverting to yelling at me or any of that, you decided to try a different tack? I doubt that though. I think if you'd been upset, you'd have reverted to old behaviour. No, I really think you still believe you know better than me. Despite you and everybody else in FOO being wrong about me for decades. You just don't see it. And nobody in FOO other than B1 has ever apologised for anything. Sorry, I'm misremembering and concealing the truth. Once a number of years ago you said something like even if somebody had made mistakes in bringing up children, there wasn't anything you could do about it later. So maybe that was an admittance and an apology of sorts from you? But it wasn't a real apology.

The other change I noticed at Horrendous Event is that you actually complimented me on my appearance instead of criticising! Wow. OTOH you didn't do so until I was really upset and was sitting crying at your table. You can be supportive these days sometimes, but you wait till I'm in a totally bad state. It's progress for you. It's a change. But it's way too little, way too late.

_____________________________

Adding on Feb. 21st

Another change I remember now: You actually agreed at the time that I was in no fit state to be dealing with SIL2 and her vitriol. Why then for **?#%* sake did nobody in FOO including you think it might be appropriate to try and protect me from her?? And why can none of you make the connection now?? Answer: Cuz you never thought I'd clear out and say "Enough! I've had it with you guys."

Maybe you genuinely believed that since I wasn't in a fit state to be dealing with SIL2, (I think you even agreed that I was far too vulnerable,) maybe you genuinely believed everything would be OK for me if I went home again and that at some point in the future when I was feeling less vulnerable, I'd be fine putting up with SIL2's vitriol the way you decide to? But you're wrong. I repeat, I've had it with you guys! I'm my own person and it's totally OK for me to decide a different way of reacting.