A Letter To My (your) Mother

[Brontie]

Well done everyone.
I know this types of things brings up all kinds of painful memories so just keep reminding yourself about the healing aspect of getting it all out there on the outside of you and not on the inside festering and causing diseases.

There’s plenty of space here for more of the same.
Acknowledge and then release the anger because we hurt no one but ourselves by holding onto it.

 

[becvan]

Dear Mother,

I no longer hate you. I no longer consider you. You are only a biological component that brought me into this world, nothing more. I feel sorry for you, being a sociopath. You have no idea how sick and twisted you really are and you will never know love since you are not capable of it. My life is enriched by your lack of presence. Good bye.

bec

 

[Brontie]

You took me out of school at 14 to take care of the kids. And when they took you to court you told them that I was a bit slow anyway and wasn’t expected to do well in school. You got your exemption and I stayed home and took care of the kids like they were my own. So much so that M (the youngest) still feels more like my daughter than she does my sister. During this time, my dad was in prison, again, for 18 months for some stupid offence, thieving or fighting. And you took to the sofa with a blanket and a pillow and left me to do everything!!!


Later. I was married, N was away serving three months in Northern Ireland. I travelled 500 miles to Scotland to visit you and to show off my new son, your first grandson. You tried to pull him out of my arms telling me that I wasn’t feeding him properly. You said I wasn’t a fit mother!!! I was a new mother with a new baby!! And I honestly think I was a hundred times a better mother to my son than you were to me!!!!

We got into a row and when I turned away you hit me across the back with a broom handle taking my breath away. It only served to remind me of what you were really like. I never visited again for a long time. We got together on and off. We even paid for you to come for a visit when we were stationed in Berlin. But you hadn’t changed. Nothing had changed. You could still trigger me so much. I tried to get through to you. I tried to be understanding. You said I was a goody-two-shoes who never understood anything.

I don’t feel angry anymore, just sad. Sad that we couldn’t make things work for us once he was gone. I think we were all hurting a lot more than we realised and it took quite a few years for that pain to begin to fade enough for us to begin to get along. Us kids managed it. Why couldn’t you?

Did you know, we each buy some flowers for our own homes on your birthday and place then in a pretty vase in the centre of a table and think of you. And did you know, my new grandbaby was born on your birthday 3rd Dec. and she is so beautiful, smiling all the time. I held her in my arms today and I thought, so that’s what it looks like to be really loved and cared for.

I don’t know that I believe in an afterlife but if there is such a thing, I hope you can see how we all turned out. I hope you can see all these lovely kids and know that your life here wasn’t a waste of time. I hope too that you are finally taking care of one of those kids - Jessica, my first granddaughter, and your first great-granddaughter, whose visit here was so short.

The stuff I’m still dealing with didn’t come from you. I often wonder how many times he beat me before I was old enough to know what was going on. That’s the stuff that did the damage, stuff I don’t even remember. The kind of stuff that begins early enough to warp the mind and f*ck up the psyche.

Might be time to write my dad.

 

[Abrasky]

Dear mum,

Mum when I was 9 you were angry at me the whole year. It was like you hated me. Your behavior was guilt tripping/ part deprivation of love. I didn't feel feel like I had a mother that year. It distorted what I think of how I love and nuturing. I thought after that the way I love or nuture had to be wrong. I didn't think I could nuture/ work right after you did this.

This is something women folk in MY family do. You probably learned it from your mother. You pick someone and are angry at them for everything that happens to you from your husband who is attacking you sometimes and all your woes. My sister does it. When there is anger and hate, there is no love.This stops here. I am not passing this armor reducing behavior on to my son to carry into the next generation.

You loved me every other year except that year. You chose to do that.My PTSD is largely about my memories of you blaming me over and over that year with your anger and being passed responsibilities that were not mine to own.

This year was terrible, I was psychologically being broken down by your idiot husband being at me all the time and taking away experiences in order to make me comply with sexual abuse which I had stopped, and I had to witness this idiot step-dad take my brother continually out in his car, my stepfather who had built me up with love suddenly abandoned me and I never had been able to get close to people again. I had to look at my brother's face every time he left and believed he was being abused, my grandmother who threatened me with her other sons not liking me making me and punsished me by staying in my room for 3 hours, she abandoned me emotionally, It made me feel all my good was bad. I thought I was bad after this.

This is my worst memory of you. After that year, I had a bad day at school lol. I went to you for security you were washing the dishes. Instead you were angry at me again I went away thinking I was responsible for all the self destruction in my family. You told me you wished us kids were never born. I went away in the sunroom and quietly sat down next to my brother who was playing lego. I cried. I thought maybe if I was dead then the self destruction wouldn't happen in my family. I didn't want to feel anymore. I lost my empathy then and it took me a year to get it back. I pretend to be dead sometimes because I feel like it will take the self destuction flashbacks away because of what you said to me.

YOU abandoned me, At the end of this year you came into my room and told me I wasn't behaving like I used to be which was a loving child. And I wasn't going to live at home anymore and I was leaving. You made my aunt pick me up. You abandoned me. You let me think for 5 hours I did not have a mother or home anymore. It was like you were trying to manipulate me because my 9 year old love was different to your expectations. It made me thing the only way I could get people to love me was to manipulate them. And it took a year and I manipulated my friends for a year and didn't have any friends before I realised I didn't WANT to be like YOU.

You failed to PROTECT me. When was attacked with violence and you did nothing to stop it. You went to your room as if I deserved it. It effected my memories. This violence gave me PTSD. A mother is supposed to be a wolf. They protect. Where were you?

This is not just effecting me, it efffects my son. I have so much anger from what you did to me, when it has finally come out once and for all, and I have yelled at him. And he doesn't deserve that anger wave. YOU DO! I haven't been able to work. I haven't been able to provide for my son because of my PTSD. I don't know how to love or get close to people. I just don't do these things, and only learning that love is something I can do because it is not flawed in me has made me realise how much I have missed out on.

You told me that I should spoil my husband more. How dare you give me hints on how to raise my son and treat my husband after the way YOU treated me. It makes me sick. You have a gall! this anger is because of flashbacks of YOU, you b####ch. And have no idea how you have effected me. Well you do now. I don't know if I can get past how you were my mother. I don't have too! Call me when I told you I wanted space and you get a serving. You just did.

 

[Marlene]

Mom,

I love you and I hate you and I've yet to be able to figure out what to do about it. So I stay away from you.

You and dad raised your son to be a self-centered, ego-fed, unable to do anything for himself monster. As soon as he figured out that he could use his fists to make me do things for him, he did. And you let him. The older and stronger he got, the worse his fists got. When I told you what he was doing to me, how he was hurting me you told me that I was being dramatic and that this is what brothers and sisters do. This is why I never told you that he raped and sexually abused me. I didn't want to hear another excuse from you mouth for his horrible behavior. I didn't want to hear you belittle me once again and take up for him and excuse what he did. I couldn't stand to hear that this was somehow my fault. Too many years of hearing the same thing from you sure did the trick.

You never stood up for your children to your abusive husband. You never even tried to make it stop. You just let it go on with him and then go on with his mirror image of a son. You left the family for a year to save yourself and never even paid attention to how much worse it got in that house. I've never been able to pinpoint why, but I do know around that time you gave up on me. Your excuse was that I was so strong, I was so independent, I acted like I didn't need anyone. That gave you a ready-made excuse. I was those things because I had to be in order to survive in that house. You never asked me why I had become how I was. It never bothered you enough to ask. I often wonder if you loved your son more or if your life was just 'ignore it and it doesn't exist' and that made you happy enough not to rock the boat.

At one time we were close. This is the days before the memories came to the surface and I had to deal with them and remember and understand why I had pushed them so far down. Now...now, I'm at the point where half of me wants to just cut you out of my life and the other half knows it won't happen until you die. So, I stay away from you. And my life and my past are now none of your damned business because you had your chance and you blew it big time. I honestly hope you're happy with your life and the decisions you made. All I know is that I have to live with the consequences of your decisions for the rest of my life.

 

[Heather]

This is my 4th attempt at this.....

Mom,

Get out of my life. I am done. You gave your daughter away and she spent 20 years looking for you. When she finally found you, you wouldn't even meet her. Then you added insult to injury by saying, "you never even thought about her once".

After you tossed her away like trash a year later you married a man that sexually abused your daughter's. You kept sending us down there summer after summer after summer. When you found out what was going on you said you didn't feel responsible at all! Even though we were acting out like crazy! I went up to you and asked you how many sleeping pills you would need in order to kill yourself?! And you answered me!!!!!!!!!! You never even asked why I was asking you! You're a Registered Nurse!!

My sister refuses to acknowledge anything that happened to her growing up. And you support her denial 100% Saying that she's dealt with. Yeah, she's dealt with it by shoving Taco Bell in her face and marrying someone when she's on vacation with her kids comes over drunk and tries to rape me!

So, you really need to get off your f**king high horse and stop criticizing me and take a good long hard look at yourself! Stop blaming me for the mess because THIS IS NOT MY FAULT YOU F**KING A$$ B*TCH. You married him, You support that fat A$$ b*tch in her denial and what the bastard did to me was unspeakable! AND I DON'T REGRET ONE BIT GOING TO THE POLICE! Next time I ask for help give it to me!!!!!!!!

All you want to do is sweep everything under the rug and act like it doesn't exist. Well, that is complete and total bullshit. I suffer everyday still because of what that bastard did to me and you don't even care. All you care about is kissing her ass and it makes me sick.

I am DONE with you, you made your bed go lie in it. Get out of my life. I am tired of your insults, put downs and toxic behavior. Leave me alone.

 

[Finding Shawna]

I'm so angry for what you did! I knew you were unhappy, but a phone call on xmas eve & haven't heard from you since. I'm left picking up the pieces of you 35 yr marriage! Dad, the boys...no one knows how to feel or think. I carried the guilt of knowing about your affairs for 5yrs, like I'm the one who did it! You say we need to grow up & get over this! How dare you alienate your childeren after always preaching that your job as a mother is forever!

 

[therapybankrupt]

Dear Mom

You had me so conditioned that you did the best at what you had and you knew. I never wanted to hold you responsible for the things that happened to me but where were you when these things happened in our house. Why did you send me out again when I told you a car was following me home from school and I was terrified? My sister and I could have been killed. You sat at the table with a teacher wanting to take me home to clean. No red flags?

Oh and all the other times I came to you when i was hurting it was always about being the better person or understanding that the other person had it far worse than me. Did you think this made me feel better? Could you just not say you were sorry this happened? I learned to push down my feelings they were worth nothing. The other persons more important. I did not learn about boundaries. Is that not taught?

You did not know you should not take your children around known perverts. Instead teach them to kiss a certain person holding there arms down so they wouldn't groop you. It was frightning to have to go through that! You said by the time we were Thirteen you taught us right from wrong and we were on our own. I still needed guidance. I wish you said or did something when you knew I was putting myself in danger or making mistakes I can never take back. It was like an elephant in the middle of the room. I respected you I would have listened. I was a obedient child.

I came to you when I new my marriage was not good. You responded with all marriages are hard you just need to work at it. I had two babies and was looking for support. I worked at it to my own deimise for 24 years. You said after it was over you knew all along I was going to crash. You saw the signs. Yes now you would love to put him down and blame him for the condition my heart and mind is in. Why did you not ask if you could help? I am your daughter.

How about when I came to you about some of my secrets from the past trying to make sense of them. You could not say you were sorry? You just could not accept it happened on your watch. Or why didn't the neighbors tell you? I never believed in blaming parents for my past. I do not I just wonder where were you and just what were you thinking? I also wish you could have protected me.

I am going to beat this misery without you cause I know you can't change what you didn't do.

Love your Daughter

 

[Loveneverfails]

Momma,

I don't really have words for how I feel. I was never good at fitting in with the others and boy did you know it. I don't remember how old I was the first time you told me you didn't know how to love me, that is how young I was. You told me that repeatedly, that there was a 'fire' in me that you didn't understand like it was some horrible disease you couldn't handle. It stung every time you said it. It still does, because you still say it.

You told me as a young child that my father disowned me before I was born. I understand now why you did it, that it was the only way you knew of to convince me to stay away. But it hurt me so deeply, made the abandonment I felt so much worse. I struggled with it my entire childhood, wondering on how and hoping to somehow earn his love and yours, wondering what was so wrong with me that my own parents told me they didn't know how to love me. That is a lot for an eight year old to carry. Too much. I wouldn't wish that on an adult I hated, much less an innocent, abused child.

I watched you cut yourself, cry, slap me, talk to people who weren't there and say things that made no sense or were incredibly cruel and it broke my heart. I wanted to protect you from what made you sick and I couldn't. And every time you checked into the hospital, even though I knew you belonged there, I felt more abandoned than ever. I know you were and are mentally ill Mom. I know it's not your fault and I know underneath everything you struggle with that you are a very good and loving person. But Mom, you broke my heart. I forgive you, but you really did.

Love,
The One You Call 'Different'

 

[safenow]

Momma,
I'm sorry you died so I could be born. The man you wanted to give a child to ended up hating me because you went away. Did you hear me talking to you when I lived outside? Did you see me staring up at the sky and talking to you? Did you see me in the closet all those times, momma? I bet you were not happy about that. Did you see how she hurt sissy and me?

I hope you had a good talk with her when she died. But I don't think you two are in the same place up there. I wish you had lived momma. It would have been so nice to have a momma that loved me and wanted me.

I still think about you from time to time.

 

[p-no]

I was never allowed to call you by anything other than your first name, and that hurt me deeply, always. It was difficult saying your name because every time it reminded me that I was not allowed to love you. And still, you were the mother most loved and adored in the whole world. If you had realized that, and let it happen, you would have had someone to stick by all your life and love you the way only children will.

 

[Jen93]

I cut it out. Decided it was too personal.