Psycho mother at it again, created opportunity for closure

[GoodPersonEffed]

On the concerns you have about your family getting hold of your journal, have you considered getting rid of it before you CTB? Or perhaps giving it to someone else, who you wouldn't mind having it? If you don't want anyone reading it, but don't want to destroy it in the event anything goes wrong with your CTB, perhaps you could bury it somewhere? That way you would be safe in the knowledge that you could return to it if you needed to, but nobody else would find it.

I don't want to get rid of it in case I survive. Good ideas, but none of those options would work for me. I appreciate you trying, though! I think I just have to work through my fears, I recognize they're not totally rational, it feels like I'm dealing with threats that aren't even valid anymore as an adult, such as having to protect my parents. I know I won't care if I'm dead. So much of their stuff has taken a lifetime to work out, it's getting quite old. So tired of feeling fear when it's not rational. I'm sure I'll get through this, just as I have been everything else. Talking about it takes away the power and I keep getting my power back, so it's reasonable to think I will about this as well.

I thought you were taking a break from SS or had left, was glad to see you commenting.

 

[Susannah]

I haven't read any comments, just the thread + the letter. Wow, what a struggle you've had. I have had huge challenges with my mum as well. No violence or abuse. She just never cut me loose. I never really experienced being a teenager because my mum couldn't be alone. Every time I wanted to go out and meet friends, she threathened to suicide. I could never stay in a relationship because my mum got jelous. She cried me back to her. It just got worse and worse, and today she's old and sick, but she's got this "grip" over me. That's why it's so hard to free myself. I've had it like this for 30 years. All the guilt I feel when I wish she'll die soon, so I can live.

Your thread is a reminder of the power of impact parents have on their children. We can't choose our parents, but we can and should free us from them. They don't own us. I hope you can let them go. They don't deserve you.

 

[Anonymoussn]

I don't want to get rid of it in case I survive. Good ideas, but none of those options would work for me. I appreciate you trying, though! I think I just have to work through my fears, I recognize they're not totally rational, it feels like I'm dealing with threats that aren't even valid anymore as an adult, such as having to protect my parents. I know I won't care if I'm dead. So much of their stuff has taken a lifetime to work out, it's getting quite old. So tired of feeling fear when it's not rational. I'm sure I'll get through this, just as I have been everything else. Talking about it takes away the power and I keep getting my power back, so it's reasonable to think I will about this as well.

I thought you were taking a break from SS or had left, was glad to see you commenting.

Have you ever considered writing a will? Maybe if you explicitly stated in your will that none of your possessions go to your parents, they might not get their hands on anything? Not sure how costly that is or how much time that would take though, so understandable that it might not be an option.

I don't think your fears are entirely irrational. Even if you are dead the world keeps on turning, and it's natural to not want your privacy invaded, even though you wouldn't ever find out about it!

Thankyou! Yeah I am/was taking a bit of a break. Second time I've been on here in like 2 months I think. Just dipping my toes in a bit today because I've got a huge hangover so found it comforting seeing what was going on!

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

I haven't read any comments, just the thread + the letter. Wow, what a struggle you've had. I have had huge challenges with my mum as well. No violence or abuse. She just never cut me loose. I never really experienced being a teenager because my mum couldn't be alone. Every time I wanted to go out and meet friends, she threathened to suicide. I could never stay in a relationship because my mum got jelous. She cried me back to her. It just got worse and worse, and today she's old and sick, but she's got this "grip" over me. That's why it's so hard to free myself. I've had it like this for 30 years. All the guilt I feel when I wish she'll die soon, so I can live.

Your thread is a reminder of the power of impact parents have on their children. We can't choose our parents, but we can and should free us from them. They don't own us. I hope you can let them go. They don't deserve you.

The vast majority of the beatings I experienced were because I wanted to get out of the house and socialize, be with other people. Mom would say no, and I would argue. Her reasons were always irrational, and often ended up in, "Because I said so." Then the arguments would escalate, she'd go into a narcissisric rage, and they'd end with me getting beaten. She'd often say that I pushed too much, and that if I had backed off, she probably would have let me do more. That was her justification, it was all my fault. And yet she didn't do much with me. I was an only child and I was always so bored. She'd tell me to entertain myself. I don't know what the root was of her needing me at home. She hated my best friend as an adult, she hated my husband, she tried to interfere in both relationships, she got between me and my dad, she threw a tantrum when I moved across the country and refused to ever come visit. She didn't want me to have support from anyone else. She wouldn't allow my dad to help me with anything or lend me things, I was supposed to do everything for myself. I don't know what the fuck they adopted a kid for if neither one of them wanted to engage with me. Even if I'd become the docile child she wanted, I doubt she would have been happy. I'm glad I didn't change and find out. Fuck that.

I'm so sorry you've gone through that with your mom. She needs her own life. I highly recommend the book Boundaries, it addresses guilt-trippy people. It's totally understandable that you're ready for her to die! When I was a kid, I wanted my parents to die so that I could live with my uncle, who was a total asshole but allowed his kids freedom. It's natural to want a jailer and abuser to die so one can be free. I hope you can let your mother go, too, at least have enough boundaries to experience freedom. Playing the suicide card as a threat is horrible to experience. If she ever does attempt, it is not a response to anything you do or don't do, but her own fucked up shit that you didn't cause, can't control, and can't cure. I have to return to those three C's often with my parents when I catch myself doing something that's focused on protecting or changing them to break free of the enmeshment. Even reacting to what my mom is doing now comes from enmeshment, including outing her. Any kind of engagement is being enmeshed in my parents' story and not reality. I'm already returning to my commitment to no contact and not reacting or responding at all. This is the most powerful response. I'm content with no contact and maintaining what I value. She may escalate when she doesn't get attention, but my parents have no idea where I am and only my email address, and she has never ever contacted me first when she's discarded me.

I wish you well. Thank you for sharing! I hope you got some benefit from it, too.

I don't think your fears are entirely irrational. Even if you are dead the world keeps on turning, and it's natural to not want your privacy invaded, even though you wouldn't ever find out about it!

Thank you. I think that's the biggest issue with the journals, how much my privacy was invaded, especially when I was under their roof, which meant Mom thought that gave her the right to go through my things.

 

[InterstateFlowers]

@GoodPersonEffed, I think you're an amazing person and I want to support you as much as possible. Before reading this, I've always seen you as someone all-knowing and sage-like while being likable and empathetic. The eloquence in your words, the wisdom of your posts mean so much to me because you perfectly explain what I can't capture. Now that I have an idea of what you're going through, I just appreciate you even more as a human being and really proud of the growth.

Thank you for sharing your letter and being vulnerable with us. There was a generation of hatred, violence, and ugliness in your family following your grandparents and grandmother and mother and father and I'm so, so grateful for whatever power you had in your heart not to be like them. In the beginning of your letter, I've never felt more angry and torn for a person I've never seen face-to-face! I'm sorry your parents are like this and the childhood that you were given is irredeemable. The beatings, emotional manipulation, invasion of privacy, and betrayal should've never touched your life. Your mother violated your soul and well-being and future by looking into your journals. It's painful that the GPE in your mom's imagination, her fake daughter, never got to know true parental love, guidance, memories, support, hugs, lullabies, bedtime stories, opening up Christmas presents as a family, riding your bike for the first time, unrestrained joy at your first words. All she and you knew was obedience and the farthest thing from love.

I can't imagine the pain, tears, time, emptiness, loneliness, suicidal thoughts, and suicide attempts it took to get to this point. I don't know how far you've come as a person but I know it takes tremendous power and effort to see that you don't deserve to be the victim and that it's your parents who deserve to hold all the negativity. The only thing they ever gifted you at your weakest was trauma and I'm so, so sorry you had to go through that. There's nothing I can do to replace the love your parents should have provided but if my words can provide the tiniest bit of help to you, I'm happy. You've provided so much comfort and kindness and wisdom that this is the least I can do. You're well versed in philosophy, working through your emotional problems, managed to move thousands of miles of away without the help of your parents, got married, and went through college. From my perspective, you're a really admirable person for going through your terrible childhood without repeating the cycle. Please take the time to be proud of how far you've come. I know that you know that there's a lot you need to work on from least to most important but the journey it took to make it here right now is very, very, VERY commendable and I appreciate it so much.

Not only have you done amazing work with yourself so far, you're also a treasure to this community. If your parents don't appreciate you, S.S does! There's a very good reason you have 10,175 upvotes on your posts.


This is probably the most I've ever written on S.S but I'm very passionate to support you with whatever you're going through. You've helped me so much, now it's my turn to help you. Thank you for everything, stay strong!

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

Thank you, @InterstateFlowers. I appreciate your kindness and effort.

I'm not all-knowing, though! I'm imperfect, but I am conscientious and I strive. As long as I'm alive, I try to keep growing and improving.

 

[InterstateFlowers]

Thank you, @InterstateFlowers. I appreciate your kindness and effort.

I'm not all-knowing, though! I'm imperfect, but I am conscientious and I strive. As long as I'm alive, I try to keep growing and improving.

The fact you keep growing and improving gives me fluffy feelings and warmth. You may not be all-knowing but I bet you're the most accomplished person in your entire family, or generation even and I think that's way cooler than being all-knowing anyways! Although... if you were all-knowing, I know with your vocabulary and words you'd be able to dumb down for me the meaning of life lol

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

This long post is the summary of what I've been working on today and have arrived at. TL;DR version: I'm going to maintain the peace of no contact and let the offense go.


The vast majority of my journal is actually a handbook full of various topics to guide me, such as making decisions, boundaries, being defensive, self-respect, etc. Lots of quotes, especially from Stoicism and Buddhism.

I wrote this quote from Plutarch at the front of the journal:

"For as savage dogs are excited at every sound, and are only soothed by a familiar voice, so also it is not easy to quiet the wild passions of the soul, unless familiar and well-known arguments be at hand to check its excitement."


This latest thing with my parents is excitement, and set off the semi-tame/semi-savage dog.


I'm so glad I decided to sleep on sending them the letter. Today I wrote one to their friends and our extended family members. It would have fulfilled the consequences of my previous threat to expose the actual status of our relationship. And yet it still didn't feel right.

My parents are doing and have always done what they think is best. That is not in any way an excuse, however I do recognize that they acted from their beliefs and what they consider virtues. It doesn't click for them that if they were doing what is right, they wouldn't have to lie and present a false front. They come from a generation where beating and controlling one's children was the norm, and what the neighbors think is very important, and they cannot tolerate others knowing the truth and judging them, much like a narcissist. All of this is aside from Mom's rages and issues, and Dad's enabling, but they fit into a moral framework that, to them, supports their actions, much as radical Muslims believe it is ordained by their god to beat and subjugate women. My parents have values, though they don't really walk their talk, and the following quote from Montaigne addresses that. It simply doesn't click for them in practice, nor does it for the majority of people since time immemorial:

"It is a rare life that maintains its good order even in private. Everyone can play his role and act the honest man on the stage; but to be well-managed within, in his own breast, where everything is allowed and where everything is hidden – that is the point. The next closest thing is to be this way in your house, in your ordinary behavior, for which you are accountable to no one, and where there is nothing studied or artificial."



If I go on the attack, no matter how justified it is, I'm staying in their insane story. What Mom is doing and Dad is enabling is not harming me, it's harming them. They are the ones who suffer in having to maintain their false personas and keep their stories straight. That has to suck, and I have compassion for that. I have compassion for being blind and fucking up at one's own expense. It is sad that they keep doubling down, but I recognize when I have done the same to my own detriment. I also recognized last night in editing the letter to them how they can't be vulnerable and therefore reap the rewards of intimacy with themselves and others. They each have a lot of shame from their childhoods, and the antidote to shame is compassion. Because they don't admit to each other or to themselves how bad things were in their childhoods (my dad doesn't speak of his at all except for a couple of things, has never even told my mom), they can't receive comfort, heal and grow, and they can't be truly close and intimate with one another, let alone with me. That is so sad.



I've gone through all my Stoic and Buddhist quotes that apply to this situation, and I've decided to rise above the pettiness and maintain my distance and my peace. It does not sit well with my soul to harm their relationships, no matter how logical the consequence. I really have grown into a better person in spite of all the hardships, and I'm going to continue to do so. There is power in this, in working on knowing and empowering myself, rather than wielding my power against them. A virtue isn't really a virtue unless it's tested, and I love my virtues. They teach me so much, they keep me safe, and they help my life to flow more smoothly, the latter of which is, according to Epictetus, the whole point of them and of philosophy. According to Gautama Buddha, the roots of violence and oppression are in this thought: "I have power, and I want power." I already have power, I do not need more by doing violence to the foundations of their social support system. It would not improve anything for me or for them. They are nowhere near me physically, and I have been away from their network of friends and extended family for years. That makes it easier for them to do what they do, but it does not harm me. In fact, I am quite safe. The only way they have to contact me is my email, and my mother has never, ever reached out first after shunning or discarding me. She doesn't hoover; I was always the one to return to the ot machine of hope.

A couple of quotes I particularly liked that applied to the immediacy of my feelings and wanting to act:


"Things seen through a mist of rage appear greater than they are."

- Plutarch


"The best corrective of anger lies in delay. Ask this concession from anger at the outset, not in order that it may pardon, but in order that it may judge. Its first assaults are heavy; it will leave off if it waits."

- Seneca


So many other quotes from Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Musonius Rufus and others reminded me of my values, and how values and virtues are tested under fire and result in being a stronger, wiser, and more contented person. My contentment is in maintaining my distance and letting this minor aggression go. If I pursue "justice," I will have to give up peace, I will have to wonder what the next assault will be, I will have to continue to defend what they have no reach to touch anyway. And I'll look back and regret any offensive actions. I will regret wielding power against them.

"Whenever someone does you a wrong or speaks ill of you, remember that he is doing what he thinks is proper. He can't possibly be guided by what appears right to you, but only what appears right to him. So if he sees things wrongly, he is the one who is hurt, because he is the one who has been deceived....Starting from this reasoning, you will be mild toward whoever insults you. Say each time, 'So it seemed to him.'"

- Epictetus



From Gautama Buddha: "Beings have their actions as their refuge and their shelter." I recognize that poor actions lead to a poor refuge and shelter. If I don't go after Mom and Dad, I keep a good refuge and shelter, there is nothing for them to attack. The person they are presenting to the world to support their public personas isn't even me. Their actions set them up for attack from me or from others who will eventually figure out something is off, and their lies maintain a weak foundation. I don't need to attack them, and their efforts do enough harm to them without me making it worse for them than it already is. Plenty of Stoic quotes reflect that, even though I already knew it.

I recognize I am feeling defensive, and rather than focusing on the journals or the Facebook photo, I need to focus on that. Another quote from Guatama Buddha:


"Defensiveness is the origination of various evil unwholesome things: the taking up of clubs and weapons, conflicts, quarrels, disputes, insults, slander, falsehood."



My parents are defending themselves, and if they act as next of kin, that will also be defense of their public personas. In defensiveness, they have taken up conflicts, quarrels, disputes, insults, slander, and falsehood. I would be wisest to not take up clubs and weapons and join in the conflicts, quarrels, and disputes. According to Buddhism, I am being skillful in acting from wisdom and my contentment in having safe distance from them. I got the following from a Buddhist website and added to the list in the quote:


Mental states that are based in wisdom, contentment and love motivate or give rise to actions that lead to a decrease in suffering and an increase in serenity, peace, contentment, well-being, balance, equanimity, self-respect, other-respect, groundedness, satisfaction, wholeness, etc. These states and actions are termed "skillful."



Every day, I try to be skillful in whatever situations I'm faced with. I don't always succeed, and sometimes the savage dog wins. But when I do overcome challenges in a skillful way, I feel more powerful and my conscience is clear. I'm going to leave them alone, enjoy the safe distance from their own savage dogs, enjoy the refuge and shelter created by my self-constraint, and relax about the pettiness.

Also, it has always been my nature that I don't want to harm others, but if they push me too far, I will fight back. This is not a situation where I need to. It has also always been my nature that I do not manipulate, I am not good at it, and I am grateful. I see now how I could have manipulated my mother when I was younger to get my way, but I much prefer being the honest and straightforward person I am. I would have eventually worked to become this way anyway, it serves me better to have a clear conscience.



Some final quotes that serve me in this situation:


"So long as we draw breath, so long as we live among humans, let us cherish humanity. Let us not cause fear to anyone, nor danger, let us rise above losses, outrages, conflicts, and taunts. Let us bear our short-lived wills with magnanimity."

- Seneca


"The success of an insult depends on the sensitivity and indignation of the victim."

- Seneca


"You need not be a sage to take insults lightly, but merely someone of sense -- one who might say: 'Do I deserve these things that happen to me? If I deserve them, there is no insult; it is justice. If I don't deserve them, let the one who does the injustice blush."

- Seneca


"It is far more wretched to harm than to be harmed."

- Seneca

 

[Ghost2211]

Having seen some of your journey and emotional progress with the abuse your mother brought to your life it's truly lovey to see how strong your voice is, and how well you're advocating for yourself. Narcissistic parents are a terrible thing to endure.

There's really no working with narcissists, and the healthiest thing for their victims is to remove them from their lives. Sadly, this becomes complicated when the offender is a parent.

I'm sorry you're dealing with such things. I know all too well there's no easy solution.

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

Folks, please ignore the troll, don't even quote. Mods will delete as they did the other posts from this person.

 

[InterstateFlowers]

U are just pure evil. Do you know how serious we are in this forum . You are creating those neg vibes abt Facebook profile pics and using ctb as a method of revenge. How many young folks might get influence d by your act , ps stop the casual talk not here . MOD pls close this thread, reason ,(sending negative message to some who seriously contemplating suicide from evil parents)

U talked alot . Are u genuinely want to ctb or to upset her. ? Your entire plot seems to have you , yourself as the actor, director , producer . It's evil coming here for empathy , making yourself the good guy. There are many ways to upset her, bottling down emotions would make u hate her to the point of wanting to kill her making u a murderer

You are the troll . What do u want here. Empathy ??? Did I hit the right spot. Mod who is the troll , u see how this manipulating evil doing , now I uncovered her evil acting as a lamb ...

"It is far more wretched to harm than to be harmed."

- Seneca

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

"It is far more wretched to harm than to be harmed."

- Seneca

"The success of an insult depends on the sensitivity and indignation of the victim."

- Seneca


"You need not be a sage to take insults lightly, but merely someone of sense -- one who might say: 'Do I deserve these things that happen to me? If I deserve them, there is no insult; it is justice. If I don't deserve them, let the one who does the injustice blush."

- Seneca


"Beings have their actions as their refuge and their shelter."

- Buddha

 

[StellaArtoix]

@GoodPersonEffed
It is what you decide to do. This is your journey not theirs. This is for your needs not theirs. Not for revenge but for closure..thank you for the mention. I respect your opinions and thoughtfully written post.

U are just pure evil. Do you know how serious we are in this forum . You are creating those neg vibes abt Facebook profile pics and using ctb as a method of revenge. How many young folks might get influence d by your act , ps stop the casual talk not here . MOD pls close this thread, reason ,(sending negative message to some who seriously contemplating suicide from evil parents)

I do agree GPE posts are in the wrong forum, perhaps off topic better suited for counselling stuff and journals. People seem to get warnings here for going off topic and posting in suicide forum when not CTB related so I guess it fair.
One of the reasons I'm here is cos I ended up being sold as a child into child porn by my father. Lots of people come from disturbed childhoods I could only wish to have been brought up in some of the " bad upbringings" talked about here. One thing I've never done is take my shit out on other people.

 

[Brackenshire]

Dont twist my words

 

[Wisdom3_1-9]

Actually, I'm at a crossroads about whether or not to send what I wrote to my parents. I've edited it and made some more connections, it's been a powerful exercise.

I've written a letter like this to a tormentor in my life. I think about sending it everyday, but I never do. Writing it was indeed a powerful exercise - therapeutic, relieving, freeing. I keep editing it every now and then, as specific memories or new feelings come to mind. Even if I never send it, I'm glad I wrote it.

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

As I mentioned in the OP of this thread, I had a whole thread of journaling all the reasons why it is best for me to not a leave a note for my parents and to keep me from doing so.

Compassion is a slippery slope for me. It comes from a place of strength, but it often pushes me toward a place of pity, which encourages me to lower important boundaries.

Tonight I read a couple threads by a new member who is dealing with the suicide of a friend who didn't leave a note. I am still in a place of compassion for my mother, which is what kept me from going after her after this latest aggression. After reading that person's posts, I was leaning once again toward writing my parents a suicide note to tell them my choice to suicide has nothing to do with them, which is true.

Then I remembered when I was in a psych facility a couple years ago and I was under threat of sexual assault. It was a couple months after the first Facebook incident, when I threatened my mother to get her to delete the photo. Against my better judgment and out of desperation, I called my dad because I needed protection and he'd been a cop. He answered the phone, and I told him I'd checked myself into a psych ward because I was suicidal, and the threat I was under. He said, "What do you want us to do about it? There's nothing more we can do." I started getting even more desperate, grasping at hope, and asked if Mom was there. He said, "What do you want her to do about it?"

The facility I was in, though in a different state with a different area code, had the same first name of a detention facility in the state we were from, where Dad had been a cop. I didn't realize this at the time. Dad must have looked at the caller ID and made the wrong assumption. Right after he asked what I wanted her to do about it, he asked, "What are you in jail for?" That pissed me off. I said, "I just told you I'm in a psychiatric facility because I'm suicidal! Fuck you!" And I hung up. It's the only time I ever said those words to my dad, and it's the last thing I ever said to him.

Once again, he didn't protect me. And Mom didn't follow up with an email. It's not the first time suicide has come up. The other time it came up in my mid-twenties, she'd comforted me, didn't make it about her, didn't become hypervigilant after, and didn't bring it up again. This last time, nothing.

I don't know what she's doing with repeatedly posting our photo and still claiming me after she excommunicated me from the family. I can't deal with her brand of crazy. I can't deal with my dad's enabling. Both are beyond reason. But it is reasonable to not leave them a note, to not try to comfort them. I have compassion for all they're going to experience, just as I have compassion for how they're fucking themselves up with their facade. But pity? Pity means I'll lower a boundary and take on their suffering and try to soothe it, and spend emotional resources that they won't use as intended. No matter what I say or how I say it, they will perceive it through their warped filters, and it always comes back to that (y'all see how clearly I communicate, I've always done so). It is so sad they are the way they are, it sucks and has such far-reaching impacts in all of their relationships. But I didn't cause it, I can't cure it, and I can't control it. Remembering that pulls me back from the edge of the pit of codependency and enmeshment. But it doesn't change that their stuff always has and always will suck, that I am impacted by it and, just as Dad falsely claimed for himself and my mother but is actually true for me, there's nothing I can do about it.

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

I took action! This is a huge deal for me. I rarely do with my parents, so when I do, I really mean it.

No matter how hard I've tried, I've not been able to get past this. I've written letter drafts to their friends and our extended family, letter drafts to them, just to get it out of my system without sending anything. Even though it's felt good to do that and to know that I'm not doing violence to my parents' social support system or oppressing them like they did to me, the rage and frustration keep coming up now matter what I do, and it gets consuming. I hate it.

So I finally acted, but not in the way I expected I would, and I think I'm satisfied. I called out their shit, and I didn't do harm. They'll likely keep doing the crazy shit they do, but for the first time, I called out my dad as an enabler, and for the first time, I called my mom an abuser, and for the first time, I called out being scapegoated.

I sent two packages to them from Amazon that they'll be receiving this coming weekend.

The first was to my dad. It's the book The Practicing Stoic. The gift card says: "Chapter 11, section 3, pages 213-214. From: Your conscience."

The text from the book is in the spoiler:

Spoiler

3. Honesty. Various Stoic virtues, such as moderation, have been examined in other parts of the book. We now consider some that have not, beginning with honesty -- not just speaking the truth, but living without hiding anything. On openness of action:

When you have determined that something should be done and are doing it, do not hide it from others even if most of them will not approve. If it isn't the right thing to do, then don't do it; but if it is, why be afraid of those who will criticize you wrongly? (Epictetus)​

Count yourself really happy when you are able to live in public, when your walls protect rather than hide you -- though for the most part we regard our walls as around us not so that we may live more safely but so that we may sin more privately. I'll tell you a fact by which you can judge our conduct: you will scarcely find anyone who could live with his door open. (Seneca)​

See also:

Let nothing be done in your life that will cause you fear if it is discovered by your neighbor. (Epicurus)​

It is a rare life that maintains its good order even in private. Everyone can play his role and act the honest man on the stage; but to be well-managed within, in his own breast, where everything is allowed and where everything is hidden -- that is the point. The next closest thing is to be this way in your house, in your ordinary behavior, for which you are accountable to no one, and where there is nothing studied or artificial. (Montainge)​

​

The second package was addressed to my mother. They'll likely be delivered at the same time.

The first gift is the same book, same gift tag signed by Your conscience.

The second gift is a wooden spoon (what she used to beat me with the final ten years of physical assaults) that has a bow on it and is engraved in the center of the spoon with this phrase: "Serve One Another In Love."

The gift card said [trigger warning for physical abuse, skip spoiler if this bothers you]:

Spoiler

WARNING: LEAVES BRUISES UNDER CLOTHING so no one will believe it was that ba-a-a-a-d.

Spoiler

​

Instructions: Bend over. Touch toes. If you stand up too soon you'll get it worse.​

​

Now, we friends? (what she always asked me 10 minutes after beating me)​

​

From: B-a-a-a-a-a-a​

​

(Kept automatically formatting as two spoilers no matter how much I edit it.)​

​

The third gift is the reason for the "b-a-a-a-a" stuff. It's a book on the history of the use of the word "scapegoat."

The gift card said:

Dear abuser and enabler:​

​

I'm no longer carrying your stains and burdens, and I'm loving the wildnerness! I will never return to you again. You missed out on a fine daughter. Enjoy your fake daughter.​

​

From: B-a-a-a-a-a-a​

After the first package had been packed and I couldn't cancel the order (not that I wanted to), I had a moment of deep pity for my dad coupled with massive guilt for him being excited about an unexpected delivery and then getting smacked, I know exquisitely how that hurts. It was like a combo of flashback and pity, I've had it before, that shit is painful, like being quickly stabbed with an ice pick of guilt. But I worked through that shit. I am NOT being abusive. I am standing up for myself in response -- not reaction, but reasoned response -- to abuse.

There's going to be some serious drama in their house when they open the packages. When genuine truth comes up, things get ugly, and I'm not there as the scapegoat to take on the brunt of the earthquake to their abuse foundations, so they're going to go at each other.

For the first time, I finally feel like I can ctb when I'm ready. Mom may or may not take down my photo. Meh. They may still cover their asses and, if I die, claim my body, write an obit, read my journals. Meh. I haven't written anything I'm ashamed of or embarassed about. I just felt assaulted. Now, whatever they do, their consciences have spoken. For all my mom's bullshit name-calling, accurate names have now been called. It feels good. I'm looking forward to getting the delivery notifications. This is so definitive, like a divorce. I'm going to let myself enjoy that sinking in.

Thanks for all the support I've gotten. Posting on SS all these months on top of journaling has helped me stay grounded and sane, and not do something over the top that I'd regret.

​

 

[mr.smileysad]

I've shared on the forum before that when I demanded my parents take responsibility for the physical abuse from my mother growing up, they shunned me. My mother signed the email saying goodbye from her, my dad, and the dog and cats. A few years later, my mother used an old photo of her and I as her Facebook profile picture, and in the comments she spoke for me to one of her friends as if we were still in contact. I wrote to her and threatened that if she didn't delete the photo, I would write to everyone who liked or commented on the photo and tell them the actual status of our relationship, and after some resistance, she complied. That was over two years ago.

A couple months ago, I had a long thread of journaling to prevent me from writing my parents a suicide note, all the reasons why it would be a bad idea because of how they violated my boundaries and just don't hear me no matter what I say. I've also been upset because they are my next of kin and I didn't want them to claim my body or publish an obituary. As of recently, I've stopped caring about an obituary, I worked out my issues about that. I still was concerned that they would get my possessions and read my journals, I'm still triggered by my mom having gone through my things while I was growing up, it was such a violation, and as an adult, I've always had a fear that if I died she would read my journals, so it's never been the fully liberating experience it's meant to be. Lately I've been working through that, too.

Today I lurked my Mom's Facebook and the photo is back up as her profile photo.

Once I calmed down, I realized I no longer have the desire to follow through with my original threat. A couple months ago, I got free of an abusive narcissist in my life, and I felt really free when I was no longer in contact, and I didn't engage further even though I could potentially have done some damage and it would have been a natural consequence and justified. But I felt more peace just letting it go and no longer engaging in the struggle. Similarly, I no longer feel the need to engage in the ridiculous struggle with my mother and to keep fighting her insanity (she's not a narc but has some traits and behaviors). I also no longer feel the need to return to the slot machine of hope that she and my dad will hear reason or hear my heart, and that's partly what a suicide letter would be about, as well as protecting them. Now I just want to be totally done with them and free of them, whether I live or not.

I'm going to sleep on it, but I wrote the following letter and I think I'll likely send it. It's the kind of closure I need. I need to finally, boldly lay their shit with them where it belongs, stop fighting, stop giving any more fucks, and just close the door. I'm sharing here because I feel heard here and because I've gotten so much good support as I've processed about my parents in the previous thread and, really, since I joined the forum. I look forward to any comments, and thank you to everyone who's supported me so far, with special thanks to @Lostandfound7, @Brackenshire, @Pryras, and @Lorntroubles.

Here's the letter:




I told you I forgave you. In return, you told me you were tired of the blame games, wanted nothing more to do with me, and circled the wagons against me -- Mom, Dad, dog, and cats "signed" the email. What a power play. Such a show of maturity really put in my place.

Interesting, Mom, that you've gone back to using my picture as your Facebook profile photo. Before you took it down when I previously demanded you do so, you spoke for me, thanking ______, as if we were still in contact and had a loving relationship. I don't know when you put the photo back up, but I do know you are lying to your friends and to our family, and have been for a long time now.

If you felt justified in your choice and your act in discarding me, you would not need to lie.

The false GoodPersonEffed you've created supports your revisionist history. That GPE never had her ass covered in bruises the shape of a wooden spoon. She wasn't beaten over a hundred times. She never had a mother who took out her rages on her daughter's body and blamed her for it. Her mother never kicked her out of the house as a teenager, so there was no reason for her father, who as a police officer knew how vulnerable she would be, to step in and protect her. She never ran away from home because she couldn't take the stifling control and regular beatings anymore, and she never ran to a predator for shelter. She never had to confront the predator with her family at the church, and her father never added to the victimization by telling the pastor about [personal]. She didn't drop out of school because she was afraid if she showed up, so would her mother. She didn't have a grandfather who beat her grandmother, and she didn't have a grandmother who in turn physically assaulted her children without provocation. She didn't have parents who took her out of psychological counseling and out of ToughLove because she got outside support and the rages and beatings would have to stop. She didn't have a mother who had a temper tantrum and stopped speaking to GPE's husband because her mother crashed their wedding and made a video, the latter of which her husband specifically forbade, and he rightfully demanded the videotape. She didn't have a mother who threw such a tantrum when she moved out of state that her parents never visited her in a decade to affirm the life she'd built. She didn't have a mother who, when she bought her own plane ticket, had a tantrum and told her to not come home for Christmas because she wanted to spend a couple of days of that vacation with her best friend. She didn't have a father who, the more her mother tried to control her, increasingly hated his daughter for not giving in to that control, a daughter who until the age of 17 was expected to bend over and touch her toes and take the beatings, and to figuratively keep doing so for the rest of her life. You're right, Dad, it wasn't that bad, because it never happened, not to your fake daughter.

I could easily fight back. I could write to [friends and family names], and to everyone who originally liked and commented on the photo, as I threatened to do. I could do serious damage to your support system. But the lies you're telling and the fake GPE you've created do no harm to me. It is you who have to keep making up new lies to support the story of how we're still close, yet I never visit and you never have updated photos of me. Or maybe you've made up a story that I died. If you haven't, maybe you'll get lucky and that will happen and your secrets will be buried with me, and you can get bonus sympathy and support. Otherwise, if one of you dies first, the other will have to make up reasons for why I won't show up.

It's interesting how many times I was beaten and bruised for lying, and how Dad hated a liar more than anything, and now you are the liars. I don't know how you've kept it up this long, especially Dad, as he doesn't exactly have the social skills for lying and hates it so much. I can imagine you standing in the grass divide, talking to [neighbors], and every time my name comes up, Dad gets irritated and goes in the house. I'm surprised people haven't yet figured out that something is seriously off, because you've been lying for quite a long time and it's not sustainable unless you've come up with a really good whopper, such that I'm a missionary. I'm sure you're very proud of the fake GPE, whatever she's doing, and humbly accept credit for how amazing she is.

I don't need to punish you. You punish yourselves. I don't need to enforce my boundaries that you disrespect and override, because I am safely thousands of miles away from you, and consequences already naturally happen and will continue to until they snowball. You have your precious reputations, but you can never let someone be close enough to you to know the truth. You keep yourselves separate from intimacy with others. And at some point, what you've built on a foundation of lies will naturally come crashing down.

You lost out on a daughter who would have cared for you and protected you when you were vulnerable in your old age. You lost out on the trust and closeness of friends and family who genuinely care about you. You did it to yourselves -- Mom through rage, domestic violence, control and oppression, Dad through enabling, and both of you through denial and discarding me. Dad, you protected a city and you protected the neighbors, but you didn't protect me. You two protect yourselves and each other, but I'm the one who benefitted because I'm free of all your shit, while you are the ones fettered by your lies. Thank you for the betrayal of shunning me, it turned out to be a gift.

You have once again proven that you will never recognize or respect my boundaries and autonomy, that you don't take responsibility for your actions, and that you are unsafe for me. I am glad to be safe from you, from your rationalizations, from your physical and emotional violence and oppression, and from your warped ideas of normal. If only I could divorce you so that you aren't my legal next of kin. I don't want my body or my possessions in your control ever again, even if I'm dead.


Goodfuckingbye.

this sounds a lot like my mother and father however they were not quite as abusive emotionally and physically and I hate them both and unless you can write this somewhere damaging then they don't ever deserve a letter I have learned to just forget about them maybe even pretend they don't exist but you can only pretend sadly

 

[esse_est_percipi]

The first was to my dad. It's the book The Practicing Stoic. The gift card says: "Chapter 11, section 3, pages 213-214. From: Your conscience."

The second gift is a wooden spoon (what she used to beat me with the final ten years of physical assaults) that has a bow on it and is engraved in the center of the spoon with this phrase: "Serve One Another In Love."

So sorry to hear that she put you through that kind of physical abuse. I'm not sure I can fully grasp the mentality of people who abuse and humiliate those weaker than themselves.

I apologize for asking this if you've already answered it elsewhere, but did she ever show any kind of remorse or say that she was sorry at any point?

I'm glad you were able to do something that is in line with your equanimity and reason, and not with your perturbation or rage.

Do you think your parents will grace you with some kind of rejoinder or response when they get the packages?

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

I went on a bit in the following. Your comments and questions helped me process, and I tend to process externally. Thanks for the prompts.

So sorry to hear that she put you through that kind of physical abuse. I'm not sure I can fully grasp the mentality of people who abuse and humiliate those weaker than themselves.

I can't grasp the mentality, either. I've tried. I can understand how one convinces themselves they are right to do so, but I still don't understand it.

I apologize for asking this if you've already answered it elsewhere, but did she ever show any kind of remorse or say that she was sorry at any point?

About 15 years ago she mentioned in a conversation one of the ways her mother was abusive, which she and her brother used to laugh off. I also knew that before her father stopped drinking, he was physically abusive to her mother. So I said to her, "It must have been scary. And it must have been hard growing up and witnessing domestic violence." She got quiet, then she said in a low voice, "Yeah, I guess I brought some of that to you." That was it. As far as her being super-controlling even throughout my adulthood, again, I once put my foot down and returned some money she'd spent on a gift for my house (almost $2,000) so I could have my freedom from her control, she emotionally blackmailed me with it. She'd been giving me the silent treatment for four months, so I put a check in her mailbox; she called that night and said in the soft voice, "You didn't have to do that." I asked, "If it was your mother, what would you have done?" Again, a pause, her voice lowered: "I probably would have done the same thing." That's it. She stopped "spanking" me after I worked up the nerve to ask her to stop, she looked like she was going to kill me, then did it one more time and stopped. But as an adult, she fought over all my personal decisions, and no matter how many times I told her to stop getting emotionally involved in them, she woud not. She doesn't have the rational capability to do it. Just like posting my photo, not only does it not make sense, because she was the one who initiated permanently shunning me, but even after I threatened her with rational and embarassing consequences, she's doing it again. I just don't get it at all. Since I was a toddler, I've never gotten her irrationality. And yet she seems so grounded and common sense. It's crazy-making, always has been.

I'm glad you were able to do something that is in line with your equanimity and reason, and not with your perturbation or rage.

I like how you put that. Yes, I too like that I figured out how do something in line with equanimity, reason and personal values of not doing harm, rather than react to provocation, perturbation, and rage. I had to learn that on my own, I was not given an example for it. I've done a lot of healing, and in recent years, Buddhist and Stoic texts taught me the values and virtues, and in practicing them, I've seen the rewards. My parents purported to have such values and virtues, but they didn't walk their talk, and I was raged at and punished for not walking it. Again, crazy-making.

Do you think your parents will grace you with some kind of rejoinder or response when they get the packages?

I should probably wear a diaper for a week after they receive the packages, because I will shit myself if they respond with an email, that's the only way they have to contact me. When I call them out in writing, unless I make a demand, they do not respond. They are intimidated by my writing skills, and they cannot overpower them, such as by yelling in writing. And at this point, what more can they threaten? They've already done the worst by shunning me. There's nothing more they can take away in punishment (another of my mom's consistent attempt-to-control techniques).



It's such a disappointment that they and so many througout the world are so unreasonable and so dangerously, abusively psycho. I get overwhelmed by the recognition. I'm sad that more people can't learn techniques to be self-empowered rather than to seek power by harming others in the name or goal of something "right." Retaliation fueled by being on a moral high horse is intoxicating and damaging, both to the other and, especially, to the self. I've suffered the ill effects before and I don't like them! Looking for the "win" just keeps shit going. If I were going for the win in this case, I would have gone for their support system, and justifiable and applicable to the situation though it may be, it would have done damage to me inside and made me an oppressor to my former oppressors. That doesn't feel like a win. Acting on the rage doesn't feel like a win. I would have rather been satisfied and at peace with not acting, I tried, but I at least know that I've tried for quite an extended period in spite of my discomfort, and found a compromise that didn't compromise my values or my external or internal safety.