I've finally finished transcribing/removing identifiers from my first handwritten letter to NM. This came at a point in our email exchanges where, at the time, I was willing to show reflection, time, and thought by composing a letter and sending it to her in the mail. Follow the dialogue at my baby blog (meaning very early on!)
http://upsi-upsi.blogspot.com/ - copied below for your feedback.
While there has been much that has happened since then (typical narcissism - no progress, constantly new and more twisted tactics to "win"), the letter holds up for me. It states so clearly all the issues I have with the way she treats me: she rejects me when I don't live up to her expectations/image of me and our family, she doesn't think I know what is best for my own life, and she makes our relationship conditional on my submission to her desires/preferences. To this day she's kicking and screaming, making a mess of what could have been something good.
So, without further ado....
The Letter
(Handwritten letter, transcribed faithfully by yours truly)
November 2009
Mom,
When I was home this summer, you asked me about my feelings regarding the infamous shoplifting incident of 7th grade. You asked me like, “You didn’t feel rejected, did you?” When I told you how traumatizing the experience was, reminding you of how you angrily told them to “haul her off to jail!” you burst out laughing, “did I really say that?” Yes, you said that (among other things I’ve forgotten) while the other parents soothed their crying daughters. How hilarious: demanding a punishment for me that nobody was even suggesting. Can you imagine if some sadistic cop had taken you up on it, to teach me a lesson? Kind of like an embarrassed Mom forcing her daughter to drink a pink of whiskey after getting caught drinking in school. It’s the same emotion – so rageful at your daughter’s mistake, you go way overboard.
When we talked about the Meijer scene this summer, you got such a kick out of yourself. Did your mom later laugh at how she reacted to your troubled actions? I tried to re-state to you this summer how seriously the experience altered my perceptions of myself, and you looked at me pityingly, saying “well you are very sensitive, aren’t you.”
The funny thing is, you were the only one who wanted me in jail – they just took my picture, put me in counseling, made me pay a fine, and do community service. What I don’t get is why you took care of everything for me – called the people to set up appointments, got all my community service jobs for me, made it so I didn’t have to go to court, and found me a perfect little book to read: “Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls.”
Maybe you thought it was punishment enough to tell me, “you’re a criminal now,” “I was starting to not even like you,” and drive me by the women’s prison to show me where they put people like me. I had to earn my way back into your favor by being good and doing good. At the time, I felt that everything good about me was erased by the “Meijer thing:” I remember gathering all the stolen things and throwing them away in the dumpster. If I had been a pyro, I would have ceremonially burned tham as my offering to God that I was sorry for being foolish, that I was going to be a different person.
This summer, when I told you that at the time I felt like you didn’t even love me anymore, you could only remember how betrayed you felt by me at the time, saying “I don’t understand how you could have felt that way.” I felt it b/c I learned that I was valued for what I did, and could do things to lose all value. I did not want to lose value.
The truth is, I was the ringleader of the shoplifting phase, and just couldn’t bear to tell you because of how hard you came down on me thinking I was just GIRLX’s little dupe. I instinctively lied and said it was all GIRLX’s idea, giving you just what you wanted: a scapegoat. “it wasn’t me, Mommy, it was that bad influence GIRLX, you know, the one with the single mother...she made me do it, Mom, she was pressuring me.” Turns out that was exactly what you wanted to hear: an innocent weak little dupe who fell in w/ the wrong people and was “losing her way.” You didn’t want to hear that I was the bad influence, that I came up with the idea, or that I was the peer pressurer non the peer presuree. You didn’t want me to be the bad girl. So when you told me I was a criminal, I knew it was true, how else could I explain it to myself at the time? I learned when “real upsi” goes against NM in some way, don’t listen to her, she’s a criminal, defer to NM and be happy. I worked hard to convince you I was worth valuing – always put your needs and preferences before mine. I probably worked on not having preferences just to avoid conflict. But that whole way of dealing with things was bound to go shaky when I went to college, it was already happening.
You made me audition for a theater major at Western, even though I repeatedly told you I didn’t want to do it. You did not accept my feelings toward my own life, and said I shouldn’t be closing the door – I knew as strongly then as I do now that I had absolutely no interest in the life of theater: 10 shows a week, being a waitress, scraping by. Why wasn’t I allowed to say “I don’t want to audition” ? Perhaps because you thought you knew better than I what I should do with my life?
The differences kept increasing as I grew into my own person, in my own direction, which happens to differ from yours. And the key difference was how we felt toward DH: I was starting a life with someone that you openly didn’t like. And all along I suspected that you thought you knew better than me what would make me happy. When you met DH, you did not like him because, as you said, you didn’t think he liked you. You overheard him jokingly calling you Hitler, so you were “never quite sure what he thought of you.” It was a foreign exchange hosting weekend, and you are not at your best (or even normal) when you’re putting on these events: you’re barking orders and making demands. I know it wasn’t something you were meant to hear, and we were nineteen at the time! Didn’t you ever make snarky jokes about adults when you were a teenager? This host weekend got you off to a bad start – I remember we had a blow-out fight about how I felt like you weren’t giving him a chance, and your conclusion was that you “don’t have to like him.”
That time on the beach, I opened up to you about my thoughts at the time and our new relationship. You encouraged me to keep my options open, saying “a lot of clothes fit, it doesn’t mean you have to buy them.” I’m pretty sure the neutral answer would have been, “follow your heart, upsi, you’ll figure it out.” From there, you always alluded to vague unstated concerns about DH, but never spelled them out, even in “family therapy.” Your “observation” that I’ve only been unhappy with you since I’ve been with DH is totally fallacious: correlation does not imply causation. I gained strength in myself since leaving home, and this happens to be the same timeframe in which I met DH, it does not mean DH caused me to be unhappy with you. It really says something about what you think of my personal strength and character that you think someone could make me think something that I wouldn’t otherwise.
DH is the one who tells me to pick up your calls, he says, “come on, talk to your mom.” DH is the one who reminds me to get you nice presents, the one who says, “come on, let’s do something nice for them.” DH is the one that never let me blame my problems on you, who accepts me as I am and challenges me to take responsibility for my actions. DH is the one who makes special meals, tries to think of what other people would enjoy, and knows that it would make me happy to have these big family events. DH is the one who tries to help me see where you are coming from.
At our wedding, your toast really showed your attitude toward him: “we always loved our daughter, and now we love DH’s wife.” Everyone else talked about how great we are for each other, how they love both of us, and how happy they were that we were married. You said: we love our daughter, we love our daughter. We submit to the reality that now she is your wife. Although you acted embarrassed about your toast, you went on and on about it, somehow finding tremendous humor in the thing. You must have humorously brought it up 5 times after the wedding. It was not funny to me.
Since you and Dad both repeatedly deny having any issues with DH “since we’ve been married,” I am really curious how the “former” issues got resolved. Seems to me we’re still at square one: we don’t have to like him, in face we think he’s emotionally abusing you. You’ve begrudgingly “accepted” him into the family the same way you’re begrudgingly accepting (if that’s what “point taken” was supposed to mean) the issues I’ve raised about your role in our family dynamics.
I am setting myself free from the false self I’ve willingly adopted with you and for you. I don’t want to do it anymore. I am focusing in healing myself and moving on, strengthening my confidence that I know what is best for me.
And let one thing be clear: you cannot have a good relationship with me if you don’t have a good relationship with DH. You cannot have a good relationship with DH if you believe he is coming between us, negatively influencing me, and/or making me think of you in a certain way.
If you’re so afraid of “losing your daughter,” don’t make our relationship conditional on my submission to your wants.
The only daughter you’ve lost was gone a long time ago – I’m just sick of putting on the act. This daughter, the one that knows who she is and what she wants, isn’t going anywhere.
♥ upsi
