[TigerCaat]

To my mother, this is what you said to me



If abortion had been legal you would never have had me.

You were forced into a loveless, abusive, fake marriage because you were pregnant



I wanted to be a dancer and you said dancers were thin.

I wanted to sing, but you said I didn't have the talent

I wanted to try new things but you always made excuses for why I should not.

This is what you did to me.

You ignored me. We may have always been together but emotionally, you were miles away.

I can recall being a hyper child. Climbing on you, talking, patting you to get your attention, interrupting, being unable to sit quietly, always asking questions, questions questions. You tuned me out, sent me to my room, sent me outside, sent me to my grandparents, sent me anywhere.

You did not treat me like your small child, but your "person". You confided in me, shared intimate details with me and caused me to deal with issues that were way beyond my ability to understand.

You failed to bond with me.

You screamed and raged a lot.

You were rarely encouraging, rarely involved and rarely interested in anything I wanted to do. I say rarely because occasionally you were but it was at a cost to me through complaining.

You acted like you were always the victim and I was the one who caused all the problems.
If anyone every questioned how we did things, you became the victim. Everyone else was to blame but you.

You purposely separated me from my grandparents, the two people who cared about me the most... just to be cruel to all of us.

You micro-managed me through guilt and intimidation.

You married an alcoholic who was equally absent but also drunk and unpredictable.

You failed to teach me boundaries or any other necessary life skill. You allowed me to do as I wanted as long I didn't bother you.

When I was little, you ignored my night terrors, bed wetting, lying and fantasy-talk.

You influenced my opinion of my father. Telling me things to make me fear and dislike him, then forced me to spend time with him. It was like you wanted to make sure that our time together was horrible. If anything positive ever happened, you would fly in to a rage and accuse me of not being loyal to you and again play the victim.

If I ever complained or questioned anything you did, you would say, "You always blame me. I'm always the one at fault."

You knew I had attention problems, you knew I was depressed, you knew I had difficulty in school, you knew I had a horrible time bonding with other children but always blamed it on my lack of trying.

Even as an adult, you made several choices that put your life first and those of your family as unimportant. Going as far as to leave the Country for a new life, even if that meant losing contact with everyone. You also did this with no word to anyone.

You talk a good talk about being a mother and grandmother, but you just don't show up. You don't come for holidays, birthdays or any other event, saying that your husband prefers it that way.

This is how it made me feel at the time

I felt desperate and fearful being separated from you, even if you were in the next room.

I felt like my trust in people was shaken to its core.

I felt invisible to you.

I felt love for my grandmother.

I felt fear towards my father.

I felt degraded and shamed when you would lose your temper over something random.

I felt stupid when you would yell at me to get my attention in a conversation.

I felt ignored, even when I did the most over-the-top things to gain attention.

I felt like I had no one who loved me.

I felt that even though you had not wanted me, eventually you would see that you were thankful for me.

I felt very confused when you would say things like you would have aborted me. I did not feel sad, I just felt confused.

I felt bad for you. I honestly wished I had not been born. I wished things had been easier for you.

I felt to blame. I felt guilty. I wished your life had not been so bad because of me.

I felt angry with you for ignoring me.

I felt the only way to gain attention was with negative attention.

I felt frustration as an adult when I tried to make my own choices and was portrayed as a bad person.

I felt like I owed you everything.

This is how I feel about it now

I feel regret. Not because I caused your problems but because I did not get a loving mother who nurtured me and valued me.

I feel confused because I don't understand relationships.

I feel relief because I made the decision a few years ago to free you from motherhood.

I feel sad when I see my friends who are very much loved by their mothers and see them together.

I feel sad because I never got to feel what it was like to have a mother who nurtured me.



I feel thankful that I have ADHD. It allowed me to look back at my life and understand why I did some of the things that I did.

I feel understanding for that small girl who tried and tried but never could live up to the standards imposed on her.

I feel empty and tired because I have wasted so much time trying to become the person I thought you wanted me to be.

I feel curious about what it feels like to be a child and not have the weight of the world on your shoulders.

I feel sorry for you and I feel sorry for your current husband.

I feel anger because this seems to be the root of my other problems.

I feel unheard. No one ever gave me credibility or felt that I deserved better treatment from you. I was always asked to be easier on you and to understand just how much you had gone through.

I feel like I want to blame you. Why did you have to do this to me?

I feel little sympathy. I raised two children as a single mother. It was hard but I loved it.

I feel like screaming when I realize I choose men who treat me just like you.

I feel crazy when I meet people who care about me and I shove them away because I fear they will reject me or leave me.

I feel frustrated that I have a hard time connecting to people because I don't trust them to sincerely like me.

I feel flawed.

I feel embarrassed.

I feel like there must be something hugely wrong with me if my own mother could not love me.

I feel regret that I put myself in to relationships that were impossible so that I could reinforce that I was unlovable.

I feel broken by all the negative self-talk that haunts me daily. It is always quick to beat me down and remind me how flawed I am.

I feel hijacked when I find myself tolerating any behavior or trying to earn a person's love. This is all I know.

I feel there is no way to reach that child. She is so hidden. I can't find her.

What do I want from you now?

Nothing.



I want to be free of the guilt, the shame, the toxicity and the feelings of being unwanted.

It is no wonder that I doubt all of my relationships. My own mother did not want me. Why would anyone else.

I have been your daughter long enough.

[kaliope]

hi tigercatt
i applaud you for writing this letter and getting all of that out. my letter to my father was ten pages long. t had brought up writing it but said it wasnt a good idea for me at the time. i did it immediately and sent it off for fathers day. t didnt mention it was one of those letters you didnt send.

the good girl, the child that strove to be the perfect daughter, had just done something very very bad that was going to make dad very very angry. i was very ill at the time. four months out of a nervous breakdown and trying to stabilize on meds, manic. i completely lost it. started hallucinating that people were grabbing me and trying to harm me. in the end i got locked up against my will. i was devastated.

but writing that letter was the best thing i ever did for my recovery. it was the turning point. eventually the flashbacks, the depersonalization, derealization and the hypervigilance went away. i was able to move forward in treatment and cope with life again.

I hope this letter is as healing for you as it was for me. take care.

[ManOfConstantSorrow]

Terrific letter - how well you voiced your feelings and how strongly you say what you now want - I hope you get it.

[connect.the.stars]

So much here. Makes me feel. Feel.

Some things you said, I can understand.

Thank you for sharing this.

Thank you Tigercaat

[Fuzzybear]

Powerful! Thanks for sharing

[TigerCaat]

Originally Posted by kaliope

I hope this letter is as healing for you as it was for me. take care.

I felt heard for the first time.

It was empowering

[ThingWithFeathers]

Good on you, TigerCaat! I wish I were as brave as you. Maybe one day I will be.

[Werewoman]

Writing such letters is so empowering. I wrote one to my mother and actually mailed it and have never regretted it.

I am thinking of writing a letter to my mother as well. I'm going to do it eventually, I'm just not 100% sure what to say or, more accurately, how much to say and what tone to take. My goal is not really to find closure or healing for myself so much as to put an end to her continued efforts to contact me despite my unresponsiveness after over 22 years of not communicating with her (after years of emotional, verbal, sometimes physical abuse and neglect she abandoned me when I was 15). She's delusional, so I have to be concrete and fairly brief.

Anyway. I identify with much of your letter, and applaud you for writing it. Takes courage.

[thepeaceisinthegrey]

Thank you for writing that. So much of it can be written into a letter to my mother. It took a lot of courage for you to write that and it makes me think that I need to write one myself.