It's been a while since I posted in this thread, but it's topical again. I hemmed and hawwed and procrastinated the fuck out of actually writing letters to my parents, and I need to do it. I need to write the letters, properly, with intention to send to them. So my mom's mom died a few weeks ago. Maybe a month ago now? She called me then, she hasn't been in touch since. That side of the family goes for cremations, so maybe she's delaying the services for after my brother gets back from sea. I didn't talk to my grandmother for a few years before her death for various reasons, largely a similar frustration that I've got going with mom. I missed the chance to send her some last letters and artwork because mom didn't give me grandmother's address the last time we talked before her death, and like fuck was I going to go asking for it. I've hesitated to call her because I don't really want to fucking talk to her until I clear the air, and I don't want to be the shoulder she cries on (because I'm more relieved than grieving that my grandmother is dead). Current status of mom: possibly grieving, probably drinking, definitely drowning herself in the What I Need To Do box/role of obligation instead of taking care of herself. My dad and his s.o. proposed to each other on their cruise a few weeks ago, maybe a month ago now. I ended up seeing it on Facebook instead of hearing it from him in a call, largely because I didn't respond to his call/text when he sent them. I expected them to be pressuring me again about getting the car stuff set up, and I spoons failure for it, not willing to listen to hear him complain at me when he doesn't have real power over me anymore. Turned out he just wanted to let me know about the engagement, and he was a little bummed not to say it to me himself. I felt a bit of a jackass for assuming that about his intentions, especially since he hasn't been so nasty since getting out of the old family house and back in close contact with his family. But for all that things have seemed better... I'm not able to believe in them. Things seemed good when I was a kid, and they weren't. People lie and sometimes I don't realize it. And then there's abuse, where people deliberately pretend things are well until they decide they aren't, and use the emotional upset to pressure people into going along with whatever. Current status of dad: probably still loveydovey and well-balanced with fiance, possibly mad with himself for not knowing what to do to help me or reach out to me more. With both of them, I want to emphasize a metaphor: infected papercuts are bad news. Sure, a papercut is a small thing. Sharp, painful, for a short while. But it should heal without a scar in a short amount of time. ...If it doesn't get infected. And if you don't know how to wash wounds out, that increases the chance of infection. And their neglect of me and my brother's emotional development really sabotaged my knowledge of how to wash out emotional figurative papercuts. Some of the things both of them did, especially through my adolescence, was abusive. Enough that people here noticed it, especially a couple times I got worked up in skype. Enough that the friends I live with now notice how it's sabotaging my current behavior toward other people. Enough that coworkers at my last job noticed it, when interacting with people that pinged me like my parents in some way or another, and offered advice on mending bridges. So I'm going to work on writing drafts. And I'm going to post them here. And when I do, if anybody checks in this thread, I would like your advice on how I can word the letters so I say my piece, express what I need them to hear, while doing minimal harm.
Spoiler: Current draft to my mom. Hi Mom, I don’t know if this is a good time for this email. I don’t know if there is such a thing as a good time for this. I regret any harm this letter does you… But, you always tell me to do me, to do what’s right for me. Here’s hoping this is right for me. When I saw the missed call, and that there was a text from [my sister in law] I knew what was up. There wasn’t much else that would get “hey call so and so” happening besides a death in the family. And I felt a bit ashamed for dragging my feet about getting that address from you. But mostly I felt relief. Relief that she couldn’t create new heartache. [My grandmother] wasn’t a real person, in my life, for a lot of years. She just seemed to be the instigator of stress and arguments, so friendly and pleasant while her life just fell around apart her. Rapid onset dementia was only the latest problem, you know? She was too cloyingly sweet---until she didn’t want to be. “But I’m friendly!” Hoarding, and money management, and everything. The constant smell of cat piss, a van that was so crammed with shit that guests couldn’t be comfortable. She was the flighty, detached, “~oh, I’m sure it’ll be fine~” that taught you and dad that no, it wouldn’t be, and gave you both a reason to be less patient with me. I wish she had felt like a real person to me. I don’t really miss her. I mourn the absence, the could have beens, the wish I hads, the wish she hads, the missed connections. I wish I knew how to be there for you, since you’ve seen the deaths of two brothers and now your mother. I fear you’ll bury yourself in your obligations, your duty to do what you need to do for others, and neglect yourself. I can’t be there for you. I fall apart faced with some kinds of stress, some kinds of emotions in others, and I hide it by going still and quiet and numb. I think I hurt you when I was so quiet on the phone, and I can’t fix that. I resent [my grandmother] for not being there for you through your life. I resent the fact that she wasn’t herself toward the end, that she took your mom away. I don’t even know how bad things were between you two, I have no fucking clue, but I know it must have been bad, since you moved in with [your friend] and [her mom] as a teen. And she’s dead and I feel a little sad and a little ashamed but mostly relief. And that’s awful. Ideally, I’ll reach a point where I’m not resenting her, or anybody or anything else. Where I can let it go, and be content. I’m not there yet. ^^^^ This is a video of a music machine. It’s a cool song, and you might enjoy it. It’s also useful for metaphor. It’s a marble machine. Hand-cranked, so the crank turns certain parts, and those parts pull and push the marbles around, so they fall at the right times to make music. At a couple points, the video follows a specific black marble around, so you can see where it’s going through the process. Very cool. But if you asked me to explain how it worked, that’s about all I could tell you. I know what I saw, what I was exposed to. I haven’t seen all the innards of the machine, which parts connect to what. If it stopped working, I wouldn’t know how to fix it. There’s a difference between having the sense of how it works... and knowing all the little details. I remember you told us that our only jobs were to do well in school. You didn't want to push us into being overachievers who burn out early... You didn't want us to worry about finances or working until we were older. You wanted us to do what we wanted in life. You encouraged us to chase our dreams. You didn't give a lot of practical advice about getting there, though. When I got anxious about things I don't know, you told me not to freeze up, to just give it a shot. When I asked for clear directions, you told me "there are no recipe cards for life." I think you meant that you didn't want me to rely on having clear, reliable instructions, since so much of life doesn't have any. I hope that's what you meant. As it is, I came to view all the world as this terrifying, deep dark ocean of unseen currents and dangers. No idea how to safely navigate, how to get myself out of trouble when I found myself in any. Scared and afraid to leave my safe places. And you would get frustrated and angry when you saw me not taking initiative to do anything. I should have watched Tangled with you. Maybe that would have helped. Like a year ago, I came across a similar idea, in a speech by Pema Chodron. “The instructions I received were to prepare well, know your subject, and then go in there with no note cards. Honestly, that is the best advice for life. No note cards. Just prepare well and know what you want to do. Give it your best, but you really don’t have a clue what’s going to happen.” It seems like the kind of thing you were trying to get across to me, but it’s not what you said, and it’s not what I heard. I asked for cooking advice, and I heard “oh, just try things, a pinch of this, some of that, see what happens.” That was so chaotic! So difficult for me to hear! I didn’t know how to learn from that. I didn’t know how to look at the outcome, and figure out what led to that outcome, and see what to change to get an outcome more like I wanted. I didn’t even have a sense of how the marble machine worked! It was like I had a fixed view of just the xylophone part, where the marbles drop. No turning crank, no turning wheels and cogs, no parts on the big wheel with those studs in them to make the levers raise and release a single marble… just the fact that marbles fell on the parts that make the music. You overlooked, or understated, my needs. You assumed my intelligence and aptitude with some areas meant I wouldn’t really struggle in others. That I just needed to try harder. That I needed to get used to things being hard, because the childhood pains I experienced were so little compared to what you’d known at similar ages, and were so little compared to what I would experience later. Part of being a parent is providing a good example for your kids. And you think so poorly of yourself. It’s the result of emotional abuse, of neglected needs, for years and years. I don’t know all you’ve been through, since I didn’t experience it and you didn’t tell me it. But I know just enough to know that. I am your sunshine, your only sunshine. Me and my brother have been, for so many years, the most important things in your world. And that sounds so loving, that sounds so wonderful…Until it’s really fucking scary. Until I think of it as, you don’t love yourself. And so you couldn’t teach me to love myself, either. And knowing that you put so much of yourself, your life, your self worth, into seeing us do well… and then me struggling, and not doing well? It meant I wasn’t just failing myself, by struggling for all these years. It meant I was also unintentionally hurting you, too. What I don’t get is why you tried to raise us how you did. A pretty house out in the woods… where we shouldn’t go too deep, for fear of bears. Another pretty house by a river and road, where we shouldn’t cross, for fear of cars. Away from neighborhoods with a lot of kids, where we couldn’t easily socialize. I think you were trying to raise us how you wish you’d been raised. A nice place, with nature. And you didn’t think of us like you’d think of flowers. Different plants have different needs. Different soils, different acidity, different levels of sunlight, different amounts of water. And… I never felt that you were helping me understand my strengths, or help me to use them to compensate for the things that challenged me. I felt like you were a hurting woman who wanted the best but couldn’t stop screaming inside: We were loved, so loved, so why weren’t we thriving? How could we take it for granted like that, why weren’t we embracing our freedom and your love and flourishing? What else did we need? Why couldn’t we tell you? Have you ever heard the term “doubly-gifted?” Or “twice exceptional”? Because I strongly suspect that I’m autistic, and gifted enough in certain ways that let me pretend I’m not. Like I’m a Linux computer, but I’ve got the ability to run Windows programs… mostly. Like I’m a plant that thrives in different conditions. I kind of hope I am. Because if I am, that explains some of the challenges I’ve had, and some of the things that I find really easy (and can’t believe others struggle with.) It means you and dad weren’t terribly neglectful of some of my emotional needs by just ignoring them. It means that we’re just different sorts of plants. That you really did do the best you could, to provide for the needs of a plant more like you… and it was just unfortunate that I’m a different sort. It doesn’t really help for me to hear that you love me and that you’ve only ever wanted the best for me… because I’m not my best, and I don’t know why. Blaming me doesn’t help. Blaming you doesn’t help. Understanding would help. Not understanding, as in knowing every single little detail. Understanding… as in having the sense of it. The flow of it. You remember that time I steered the sailboat onto the trailer? The way dad had cut the engine, and we were drifting a little sideways with the river mouth, and I was so so so focused on what was ahead of us? The way he was ready to take over if I missed by too much, to get the engine back on to push us back upstream if need be… And the way I steered the front of the boat perfectly into a target about four inches wide? I could see it, I could feel it. I had the sense of how it all locked together, even if I didn’t know the exact speed of the river or the wind, even if I didn’t know the weight of the boat. That’s the kind of knowing I want. You’ve said “don’t label yourself” … as if a label is a box. As if a label limits you. They don't. Saying an area is a garden doesn't mean you can't expand it. Labels aren’t limiting like insults unless you let them be. For me, a label is a light finally on. Saying “oh, is that what it is.” Relief. Finally thinking maybe I understand, finally thinking maybe maybe someone can give advice on what I should do, and how to do it. When I was in [] grade we moved to [town] and the girls of my grade rejected me. I didn’t understand it, and it hurt, and the not understanding was what hurt the most. If I didn’t have at least a sense of why they did it, then the question haunted me. Was it something about me? Would others reject me too? How could I have possibly put that aside? Of course it wounded me. It had never happened to me before. A child’s pains are so much more raw and real because they haven’t developed the experience and calluses to move on. And that’s all I remember you giving me. “Why are you still upset about that, you need to move on,” but no advice on how to move on. People need to feel that their emotions and experiences are validated. And I didn’t get that from you or dad when I needed it. I got, “you’ll feel so much greater hurts later.” I got, “why are you letting them hurt you.” I got, “you need to get used to it.” I got a whole lot of useless note cards without any instructions on them. I got emotional neglect is what I got. And sure, you didn’t mean it that way. You just didn’t know how to help, when I seemed so pained by such minor things. When you’d been through so much worse at a similar age. You just couldn’t understand why I, a different person with different life experiences, was affected by things differently than you. Or maybe you were just angry at me for making a big deal about things that you didn’t have the privilege of people giving a shit about. I don’t really need to know what it was because your intentions aren’t what I experienced. What I experienced is what I saw and heard and felt you doing. I need you to know that intentional pain doesn’t hurt me more than unintentional pain. Intentional harm means the person doing it is an asshole. Best written out of the sensitive and important parts of my life whenever possible for my own well-being. Unintentional harm, though, that’s the killer. Unintentional harm means ~oh but that’s not what I meant~, means invalidating my feelings to tell me what you did mean, means it’s unkind for me to complain, ungrateful, disrespectful, and I just need to suck it up and deal. And that hurts far worse for me. Being powerless to resist, that’s what hurts far more than the little pains themselves. (I guess there's also abuse, where it's intentional harm that's pretending it's unintentional harm. But there's ways to identify that.) A papercut is nothing. An infected papercut, because I couldn’t wash the wound in time… that’s bad news. And that’s the thing that I was complaining about when I was a kid. That you and dad needed to learn to listen to each other, to talk, to be healthy. That you needed to be your own person, and not make me and my brother the center of your world. Because you didn’t know how to wash out your own emotional wounds, and so you couldn’t teach me to clean mine. And sure, most of what I got through my life were papercuts. But they’ve been infected for years because I haven’t known how to clean them, or because my methods for cleaning them (reaching a point where I felt the sense of them, that I understood them) weren’t good enough for “the real world.” Sure. You probably didn’t mean to invalidate my emotions every single time that you told me “you don’t know what I’ve been through, so don’t criticize me.” Sure. You probably didn’t mean to undermine my self confidence when you told me to be careful, but didn’t give me advice on how to be careful. “Use your common sense,” you’d say. Sure. You probably didn’t mean to be so emotionally volatile, so unpredictable, so frightening. You probably didn’t mean to be drunk so much. You probably didn’t mean to enforce different rules depending on your mood, to the point that people comment that I am way too sensitive and alert and frightened-looking in the presence of loud or unhappy people. Unintentional infected papercuts don’t hurt any less. And I’ve been wondering, how can I ever come to terms with the feelings I’ve buried, if I’m still afraid to criticize you? When you say things like “I was a terrible mother,” it sounds like a way of throwing it out there so I won’t say it, won’t agree with it. And if I do agree with it… does that mean, someday, you’ll turn around and say I was cruel to you? I don’t know what to do about you and I. I don’t know if I even want to. It's sections of themes, like this: [Salutations, mission statement] [Followup re: her recently dead mom.] [Marble machine, starting the metaphor for different kinds of understanding] [Too little grounding and practicality, I’ve been drowning for years.] [No recipe cards, sure. But where’s the prepare well part?] [You didn't take care of yourself, you didn't teach me to take care of myself.] [Maybe it's not abuse if I'm just wired differently and you were too incompetent to know how to parent.] [I'm a fucking natural on a sailboat in a lake/river.] [Labels only limit if you let them.] [Infected papercuts are the fucking worst, and you never taught me to wash my emotional wounds, so now they're infected. You probably didn't mean it. That doesn't make them not-infected. Politely, fuck you.]
tl;dr: you suck, you were too quick to criticize how i work and too slow to teach me different ways of working, you abused dad on purpose and you abused me on accident and fuck you. but maybe i'm wrong about how much of this was you sucking, and maybe if i just tell you that you're stupid in a dozen indirect ways, you'll finally get a clue. and not just wail that you're sorry and horrible. i think this is too long and rambly.
