I've been a lurker on this subreddit off and on for almost a decade, but I've never posted before. I've started going back to therapy recently. Even though I'm NC, my mom still contacts me a couple times a year, and at my therapist's recommendation, I decided to write a letter responding to my mom, though I won't be sending it. I wanted to share it here.I'm really grateful to this community.Mom,I got your email. I didn't plan on responding. But your message last month brought up a lot of old feelings I needed to write down.I need to clear the air about some things. Every time we have talked since you and dad separated, you seem to think that any struggle in our relationship - any lack of closeness in recent years - is because dad has somehow turned me against you. You've said I need to "hear your side," that I don't fully understand the situation. Like always, our relationship centers around you, your story, your experience. The truth is, dad never sought me out, told me secrets, or complained about you. All my life, you have been jealous of our friendship. You hated that we often understood each other, that we shared similar interests. I am disgusted to recall the look on your face and the nastiness of your comments when dad and I would have fun spending time together. How you would try to make me feel guilty for loving him and receiving his love, and how you would try to make him feel like it was inappropriate to love me or enjoy my company. Throughout your entire marriage, dad was always loyal to you, often hurting me and my brothers by defending you and giving you grace. But you were never able to see that, so blinded by mistrust and your own selfishness and jealousy.When I finally moved out and began to form a healthy reciprocal attachment with P nearly ten years ago, the only reason you and I had any relationship at all was because I was afraid of losing my connection to dad and my brother still living at home. I know some part of you knows this, because you tried repeatedly to get me to conform to your wishes by isolating me from my family- specifically when you used your faith as some moral high ground when P and I got an apartment together. You may not be able or willing to recognize your actions, but that is the reality I faced. Eventually, you had "a change of heart," but only after I refused to be bullied into submission by you.All my life, the thing I have wanted the very most from you - more than your love, more than your acceptance, more than your time and attention - was for you to admit to the horrible things you did to me and our family growing up. I want you to sit with the destruction of your mental illness, your hoarding, the damage your own childhood abuse caused in my life. This isn't the first time I have asked for your honesty. But you have never been able to see the truth. You would gaslight me, tell me you don't remember the trauma you made me endure, that IF you did the things I say, you're sorry. "No one is perfect," you would sob through tears. You hide behind your Christianity and "pray that God would forgive you." But the only truth you speak is about your own pain and suffering. You made me believe I was cruel, that I was crazy, that I made things up. Your needs and feelings were always paramount. Sometimes those needs lined up with my own, but most of the time they did not.I never felt safe with you. I never knew if you would hold me or hit me. I had no expectation of physical boundaries. When I was six years old and I crossed the multi-lane street near our home in California, you had dad whip my naked butt over and over with his belt to make sure I would "never forget how dangerous it was to cross that street without a parent." As if that wasn't enough, you didn't allow me to leave the house for two weeks. I remember the older neighbor girl coming over to ask me to play and you forcing me to come to the door and shamefully tell her I was grounded. Julie and I had crossed the street together - with a dream of finding a bird's nest with eggs in the hedges - and I remember being so confused that her parents had just sat her down and asked her not to cross that street again by herself. I just didn't understand how she could be treated so differently. The only answer I could find was that I must be a truly rotten child. What else could explain my punishment? How could my mother hurt me if I didn't deserve it?When I was about 8 years old, I did something that upset you while we were visiting grammy. I don't remember what I did, but I remember you were truly upset that I behaved in some kind of way in front of a friend that had been allowed to come spend the day with me and you were embarrassed. Whenever you punished me you would say: "There are natural and logical consequences to your actions." On that day, my "natural and logical consequence" was to be sent outside to select a switch, knowing it would be used to whip me in front of my friend. But that wasn't natural or logical. It was cruel and unusual. That memory has been so traumatic that I still get sick thinking about that poor little girl and the depth of shame and despair I felt that day.On the way home I remember fantasizing that we were in a terrible car crash. That you died, but dad and J were okay. In my fantasy we went on to live a happy life together. Where I could miss the idea of a mother, but never be in danger of being harmed by you again. That was not the last time I would dream of your death. And I had to live with the guilt and shame of wishing you were dead, while also believing that the only way I could ever be safe was if you were out of the picture.As I got older, you traded physical abuse for emotional abuse, a disregard for boundaries, and the true dissent into your OCD and hoarding. I would dream of living in a clean home without rotting food in the sink and fridge, without cat shit in the closets, without mice in the walls. A home where I didn't have to climb over boxes piled with junk, without tiny trails winding through stacks of papers and clothes and garbage that you wouldn't let us touch, but also blaming us for. A home where I could have friends over.I was never afforded privacy. When I was young, J took my diary and broke the lock on it. You had him read it out loud in front of our family and you laughed at my secret, tender thoughts. I don't blame J for this - this was his bid for your love and attention.As I entered my preteen and teen years, you opened my mail. You went through my trash. You unlocked the bathroom door and walked in while I was on the toilet. You opened the curtain while I was showering. I was not allowed an email account even as a highschooler. I was not allowed a closed bedroom door. I was not allowed to stay out late, even for special occasions. You accused me of lying and stealing. You called me selfish. You said I was ungrateful and spoiled.There was no joy in our home, just a constant sense of dread, suffering beneath your screaming, hoarding, and explosive rage, whether directed at dad or one of us kids.I know you would be hurt reading this letter. I haven't written this letter because it doesn't feel good to hurt you. I am angry and will probably always be angry about the realities of my childhood and young adult life. But I'm still a decent and kind person and I don't want to hurt you, no matter how justified I would feel. My lack of responses at your attempts to connect were not only to protect me, but to protect you from one disgusting truth: You were not a good mother.You kept me alive. But that's it. Any kindness or love I was given was yanked away if I didn't do/say/act in a way that affirmed you. Becoming an adult myself has meant releasing the responsibility for your abuse and no longer excusing and justifying your truly despicable and disgusting behavior.You say you want a relationship with me. But it will come at a price I don't believe you are willing or able to pay. To actually have a relationship, you will have to show me you can honor the reality of my experiences over the last 34 years. That you take responsibility for the trauma you inflicted on all of us. I recognize that might not be possible for you. If in the end you decide that I am crazy, my feelings are unjustified, or that I am a liar, I understand. Frankly, I don't care what you think of me anymore. You have to do what you have to do to survive. But I've learned what a real, healthy relationship can look like, and I don't have any interest in investing in any other kind of relationship ever again. via /r/raisedbynarcissists https://ift.tt/2SYIzSo
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