Wednesday, October 21, 2020

A letter to my mom and dad


I sit here, writing this at the age of 27. Just as I sat there on my walnut carved bed in my grandfathers house at the age of 9 wishing someone would rescue me. You couldn't help that little girl, full of determination to see better days. You couldn't even rescue yourselves from your blindness.Mom,I know what you went through. To say I am happy that you told me, helps me understand why you are the way you are. I appreciate you. Even if I had to become an empty soul around you to absorb your helplessness, your self pity, and your "rescue me" mentality. To say I grew up fast, was an understatement. You made me grow stronger than I thought I could be, learning to help you while learning to parent my sister.I wished you asked your little girl deeper questions, to ponder what was going on beneath those jet black curls. What my greatest joys were and what were my deepest "ouchies". I wonder what could of been if you listened to that time when I cried at the mall after I said, "Dad got really mad". I wish you didn't dismiss me. I know I'm quiet, I hold things in. But isn't that you wanted me to be exactly? The well behaved girl who worked hard and never made a peep. The artistic little girl who would go on to become the success of the family? I'm her now.I wonder if things would be different, if your mother didn't take her life. It was 1985 and you were in your early 20's by then. What would've things been like? Maybe the same if she couldn't save herself and couldn't save you. Would you know that your first born was suffering? Were you ashamed of me? For ripping out my hair? Just as you did as seen from a photo of you from prom? Could you even understand what it all meant?Didn't you see me screaming to stay home? Don't you remember forcing me to sit at the table to gag down some food from nerves? Why didn't you tell me I was safe? Why didn't you save me? Instead I saved you from fights and yelling.I don't know if I'll ever be able to relax around you. I don't know what might next offset the balance of your delicate ecosystem. I hope one day I can say you know me without knowing me as someone whose harsh, emotionless and detached.Dad,I remember the one day that mom tried to save me from you, and it back fired directly onto me. I have always been the collateral in your relationship with mom. I cried for hours, screaming that I didn't want to go. Why would you make a child who just wanted to learn, play and enjoy life travel 3 times a week to a strange place that isn't home? She called you a monster and then you sat me down in the wicker chair, 15 inches away from you as you screamed at me for not wanting to come.Why would you do that?Your girlfriend stood behind you as you did your emotional toll only to say you loved me afterwards. You are truly a monster.Why would you have strange women over with giant boobs who would hit us when playing with their makeup? Only to ask us to pose "cute" in photos in Mexico. She hit us like you hit her on the side of dark street on a Mexican vacation. She cried for hours as you kept saying "it was all your fault to her". I kept my sister close to me not knowing if we were next.Remember when you punished me for kissing a boy on the bus? Remember when you took me "for a drive" to talk about it. I hate you and mom for that. Mom for having you do the talking and for you to actually make me feel like a worthless piece of garbage rather then to let it go. Not as bad as you having sex in front of my sister and me with your bimbo girlfriend.When your Brunette girlfriend said that she was knocked down the stairs by you before you broke up and you said she was crazy and making it all up. I knew you were the one who was crazy. She protected us like her own, but still couldn't protect us from you.I only wanted to make you proud. I think you were more proud of looking good. I was the child you didn't raise who went on to get her masters. The child you didn't support to land a 6 figure job at a majorly company. The child you ditched when she needed you. You would rather be out at the bars, looking slick playing your drum set at 3 am rather than even trying to get to know your own kids. You would rather berate them with your comments "Consider this a gift", "You owe me", "Look what I did for you" rather than to eat your pride and be a father. My grandfather cemented his place in our lives as our father while you left us emotionally and financially behind. Shame on you. I owe you nothing.There is nothing more I would love to do than to burn your drum sets, to bend your bikes in half, to make you feel an ounce of what I felt over the past 27 years of my life.You left us high and dry, even with the food in your house. At least one of your girlfriends cooked for us while the other would rather let us starve.You tried to bond. But the damage was done. Every "I love you" you text is not received well. The only thing you love is yourself. The trips, the food - they mean nothing when you're an abusive father.I don't know what happened to you. Your entire family is messed in the head - living paycheck to paycheck, trying to find belonging in the arms of a money pit-hole of a church. Did Peppere do something? Did Nana hold you too high on a pedestal? What happened to make you so narcissistic?Mark, my stepdad, will be walking me down the aisle at my wedding. My grandfather isn't here anymore to be the father you weren't. You, your energy and your family aren't welcome to the rest of my life. Mark is someone I want to walk me down the aisle, sure we had our moments. But Mark always treated me with dignity, respect and never asked for anything in return. You demanded those things and never should of gotten them. No more.I just want to say to the one person who never got an apology, my younger self.I'm sorry. You were so so brave for so long. You did so well. You did nothing wrong for all the pain and suffering you went through.I can picture you now, in your purple fleece by the stone wall with your white Mulan light up shoes tossing leaves into the air without so much as a worry.I'm so sorry you would be hurt for so many years. Wanting to hurt yourself more than others. Wanting to not be a burden. You would starve yourself and spit the food out into the garbage to not feel so sick. You would later rip your hair out, even if a boy at school noticed your bald spots. You would pinch yourself as hard as you could to focus the pain from your heart to somewhere else. You now cry for hours in your apartment at night, at a loss of what transpired. Embarrassed by the binge eating, embarrassed by the hair loss. But you are still the girl with wondrous dreams, who would watch the clouds go by in awe. Who would sit and draw for hours to try to catch a bit of that pretty world out there.You are safe, little one. No one will hurt you or make you be something else for their own sanity ever again. It'll take some time to trust yourself but I'm ready when you're ready.Nicole via /r/raisedbynarcissists https://ift.tt/35mmJhp

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