Just woke up to uBPDm, here's the letter I will never send.

[happykiwi]

Hi Everyone.  I'm 44 and just woke up to my Mum and her ways.  I must have been in denial (or just plain stupid).  Anyway this site has helped me immensely.  I have been reading non-stop and I've decided to go for NC.  I took someones advice and wrote her a letter that I wont send as she would not comprehend it and will use it against me.  I thought I'd post it here.  Sorry if that is inappropriate.

Dear Mother (you are no longer Mum as that name is reserved for women that love and nurture their children, not use them to inflate their own ego).

This is a breakup letter.  I will no longer have anything to do with you until you die as of course I will bury you as you have made it very clear you expect that from Me, your daughter.  No responsibility on your part for any of the financial needs as you just expect my husband to pay for it.  So yes we will bury you.  You will be cremated in a cardboard box, with no Priest or church service and there will be no wake.  As it would be hypocritical of me to listen to people say how wonderful you were when inside I will be jumping up and down in joy that finally in this life I am free of you and your negative, toxic energy.

Do I sound bitter?  I probably am right now.  You see I've just woken up from a very long sleep.  44 years of sleep in actual fact.  Sleep where I went through the motions with my 'mother' confused why in the last eight or so years I've started to feel hostile to you.  Started to see that you weren't actually there for me.  You weren't in my corner championing for me, protecting me, loving me, feeling proud of me, feeling proud of the mother I have become.  Nope you were just hanging around to see what you could get.  Be it flattery which you obsenely crave regarding your looks.  Sorry to break it to you, but you are 65 and from now on you are going to look older and older until you die.  That is life.  What makes people beautiful is what is in the inside.  Beauty, love, joy, kindness will radiate through peoples eyes, if they have it.  You don't.  You are all about you and what you can get.  Your eyes are small and glitter with ugliness.  Right now I am crying writing this because I am angry, hurt, sad and betrayed by your behaviour to me growing up and towards me as an adult.

I would like to give you a few pointers re being a Mum.  You don't go around constantly telling your children that in your next life you are not having children.  That makes the children you have constantly think they must be horrible children for their mother to not want them and that they are making your life miserable all because they were born.  Here is a heads up Mother.  Children are a precious gift.  You chose to have us.  Therefore you suck up whatever the heck it was you hated so much about having kids and you love them, you nurture them and you do everything in you god given power to make them feel good about themselves.

I was so blind about you that I used to believe my brother was a result of nature not nurture.  I realise now I was wrong.  It was nurture.  you believed he was a bad kid and wham he became one.  You turned him into a scapegoat and I became your golden child.  You praised me in front of him, you compared me in font of him, you put him down in front of me.  That is bad parenting 101.  So he did what you told him.  He became bad.  He rebelled and dropped out of school.  He is lacking a mothers love as much as I am. He just doesn't know it like I do.  Probably just as well he doesn't breed either with the amount of self hatred he has.  And you told so many lies to me about him.  Just FYI?  He's doing really well at the moment.  Solidly employed, money to travel and when he visited Dad, Dad was happy to say he saw no sign of constant drinking like you reported.

And regarding my Dad.  Wow what a swifty you pulled for years.  In my trusting you I actually believed all the garbage that came out of your mouth about Dad.  Why did I believe you?  Because you are my Mother!  Mother's don't tell lie after lie to their children to manipulate them and isolate them from siblings or parents.  That just shows me how screwed up you are.  Thank god for my patient, kind, funny, eccentric and loving Dad.  He has patiently sat back and waited for this day to come where I would see the light regarding you.  I can tell you he is very happy right now.  I'm so grateful I have someone in my corner (apart from my darling husband) that understands you and your ugly presence in this world.

As a result of your parenting style I have quite a bit of inner work to do.  I have to tell myself I am a beautiful, kind, wonderful, funny, weird human that deserves love like every other human on this planet.  I was never spiteful, selfish, cruel or aggressive as you liked to constantly told me.  If I was that person you liked to label me with I would never have had a social life with great friends and I would never have attracted someone as wonderful as my husband to my orbit.  You see I realise now those are the words you use to describe yourself.  You actually despise yourself.  You have no self esteem.  You have no love for yourself.  I believe you have not grown up and are stuck in a child like state regarding your emotions.  Due to your cold Mum and alcoholic Dad.  They were bad parents, they weren't good parents, they said and did terrible things to you.  You deserved better.  I'm sorry for you childhood and how it has shaped you.  You will not understand anything about this letter and will only see it as a terribly unjustified attack towards you.  Once again it will all be about you.  You wouldn't even register the hurt and harm to my emotional wellbeing you have wrecked upon me.  And for that I forgive you.  I forgive you and I feel sorry for you having to live in this existence with your stunted emotions and narcissism.  I forgive you for not having empathy to see or hear what you are.  I forgive you.  But I wont forget and I will strive every day to be the best Mum to my two delightful children that I have been blessed to guide and love through this life.

So goodbye to my guilt of not being able to fix whatever is going wrong in your life.  Goodbye to my guilt whenever something wonderful happens in my life and how that will impact on yours.  Goodbye to the guilt of having a husband that provides so wonderfully for his family.  And hello to the fact that no matter what I do in this life to make you happy will never work because you will never be satisfied.  Your motto is truly "the grass is always greener".  That makes me sad but I feel such relief now and my shoulders are no longer heavy with your oppressive presence.

Goodbye Mother.  Hello Peace.   

[Turkish]

.You don't go around constantly telling your children that in your next life you are not having children

That's a horrible thing to say, and I'm sorry she said that. When severely dysregulating, my mom would say, "Sometimes I wish I'd never adopted you!" When I was a teen, my sarcastic response was "you and me both lady!" Of course I never said that out loud;  I'd have been smacked around or had something thrown at me.

I'm glad that both you and your brother have a r/s with your dad now. It must feel like finally having a safe place to land.

I see a bit of empathy towards her regarding her parents. Despite everything else, how do you feel now that you wrote the letter?

[happykiwi]

Thank you for your kind reply.

I feel really good about it.  I feel strong.  I just can't believe how I never saw this before.  She left three weeks ago after a two week visit and I just couldn't get over how toxic and ugly her energy is.  I didn't know why I felt such dislike for her.  I asked my husband what has changed?  Has she always been like this?  He said she had been like that since he met her, 16 years ago.  He said he couldn't understand how I didn't see it but is very happy that now I can.  When she left it was like a black cloud lifted off our home and my heart.

I realised she was not healthy for me or my family.  And this Mother's Day I enjoyed spending time with my children and loved that for the first time I hadn't agonised over Mother day cards that didn't read true.  I used to read the cards and think wow, do people really think these lovely things about their Mums.  LOL the signs were always there.  this year I refused to be a hypocrite so sent nothing and didn't phone.  What a relief

[Turkish]

I'm glad your MD went well with your primary family (husband, kids). I get on ok with my mom given 2.5 hours' physical distance, and phone calls about every 3 weeks ("months" according to her 

I love my mom, in a detached way of which i sometimes feel guilty,.but the distance helps.

[ShieldsUp12]

I just can't believe how I never saw this before.

Just wanted to let you know you are not alone in this feeling. I'm about your age and I can't believe  how much mental/emotional damage she did to me that I was in denial about for half my life.

I must have been in denial (or just plain stupid). 

I have a tendency to think I'm stupid as well, but that's not being kind to myself (or yourself). I chalk it up to a kind of Stockholm Syndrome. Maybe you and I both couldn't see it because we needed to survive it, and it was the only way we had.  

Even now, I've had to write down all the truths about her and how she has really done damage to me in the past so that I don't get FOG'd again into doing something stupid/ self-harmful. I recently was re-triggered by a truly insane and hateful email she sent to me that I got tricked into looking at after she left me a phone message that seemed like maybe she had made a change and I was being too harsh on her.   :'(

The only good thing is that I've gone back into T to try and figure out what is going on with me that I need to work on. Obviously I have some repressed problems if her vmails and emails still have that effect on me.

I hope this letter you will never send was cathartic for you. You deserve good things. Get it all out!

[acs73]

Wow -- your letter invoked more cleansing tears as i could have written this. I just posted yesterday for the first time. After 40 years of a life similar to the one you describe, I too woke up. I too reconciled with my Dad. I too took responsibility for my own inner self and happiness. I too looked at my 3 sweet children and realized I owe them a life free of emotional volatility. I am working on No contact but as the people who are stuck paying her rent is difficult. But reading your letter gives me additional strength. Thank you f or sharing.

[happykiwi]

acs73 you are welcome.  I think part of me posted the letter not only to help me heal but to hopefully ring true to someone else and give them some strength at ca crappy time.

My awakening happened only 24th March this year when my Mother arrived for a visit.  Thank god she lives five hours by plane away.  From the moment she hopped in the car I wanted to get away from her.  I couldn't understand it.  It was like flight or fright had been turned on.  I have never felt so oppressed and trapped from someone and realised there was something terribly wrong.  Then bang all these memories came flooding up.  She was here for 15 days.  And for 15 days she sat and expected me to wait on her like a queen, and she spewed vileness constantly out of her mouth.  Every person on TV had gotten old, or had work done or put on weight etc.  She spewed nothing but negativity about all the people we know in our lives.  She tried to put down my kids but I made very it very clear to her they were off limits.

I remember saying to my husband what has changed?  Nothing he said, she has always been like this you are just seeing it for the first time.  It must have been the six months apart that opened my eyes.  I remembered when I first got engaged to my husband and I could feel her disapproval.  I asked her one day what it was she didn't like about my husband?  Her response "He's fat and doesn't have any land".  What the heck?  This was only 16 years ago BTW.  My comeback was "But he's ambitious MUM, just watch".  I now realise she was disappointed I hadn't married a rich man as she had nothing to boast about to her friends and wouldn't be looked after in her old age.  Ironically he is now doing extremely well and we have a property portfolio.  She kept taking pictures of our house, cars, pool and view when over and I know they were for bragging rights.  At no point did she acknowledge my husbands hard work or me for believing in him.  BTW this is a woman that told me on our 5th anniversary to wait till your 10th, you will hate each other by then.  Onto our 13th and still very much in love which must eat her up inside with jealousy.  She's two husbands down and onto a narcissistic boyfriend.

My favourite memory that popped into my head was when I was about 12.  I was walking up our hallway to go to my bedroom.  And my Mum called out that she could hear my thighs rubbing together the whole way up the hallway as I walked.  What I heard from that was you have gigantic thighs hence you are ugly.  I carried an unhealthy body image for years and you know what?  It must have been jealousy as I look back on old photos and see a hottie with a gorgeous hourglass figure on a tiny 54kg frame.  It's my favourite as when I repeat it I get such looks of horror from people it justifies my feelings for this horrible woman that I was born too.

I read your posting yesterday and I feel for you with the rent business.  That sucks. Be strong and I think if you and I use this forum we should come out stronger and happier.  Life is too short to be unhappy and/or surrounded by toxic energy hmmm?

[FelJen]

I am the scapegoat child. Thank you for posting this. Keep your promise for your brother's sake. I'm very proud of you, and I hope one day my sister will have this courage. She is the golden child in my family. I have a little more compassion for her now. Best wishes to you.

[bethanny]

Good for you. There is so much to grieve but much also to celebrate when the scales leave our eyes and we let ourselves finally be honest about what we have sensed all along but our radar got jammed by our uBPD parent who conditioned us so young to walk on eggshells or the tight rope to try to keep the dictatorship benign.  How through the years we kept putting the discordant and moments of as Christine Lawson has called it annihilating anger in the background and the dangerous validations of our idealizations (which were more orders and really oppressive) in the foreground, trying to believe these were messages of love -- a dangerous conditional "love" which made us believe we couldn't "be" in this life and evolve with our uniqueness but we had to read from a script provided by the uBPD for the perfect trophy child and only "do" for them.  To be human doings not human beings. We had to serve our parent(s)' wounded ego or egos that conditioned us for self-hate, hate that ricocheted at us from their own self-hating damaged egos.

In both an alcoholic and/or borderline family the siblings are divided as they grow up to a large extent so they don't get to bond and support each other and the family is fed propaganda about each's roles and crimes against the uBPD. We are like spokes on a wheel connected to that hyper-demanding person all in the name of rescue and "goodness".  Their paranoia is so deep they create this matrix (which hurts us in the end collectively as well as the uBPD) and everyone knows subconsciously the dire consequences for crossing this uBPD individual who has demanded, as Scott Peck has written, to "tit suck from and control us at the same time" which is evil evil evil.  They infantilize us while we parent them.  Crazymaking. We are robbed of a sense of dignity and emotionally incested.

I had assumed so much in terms of the uBPD at least appreciating the vigilance and focus I had struggled and sacrificed to give her and away from my inner needs and developmental passages.  But when I finally burned out and had to slow and stop and was forced to address the troubled and desperate person I had become I was horrified to discover that as far as my uBPD was concerned  all memory of the devotion and sacrifice and accessibility was erased and I was seen as a profound evil and even crazy enemy she must punish and manipulate others to see as dark and evil as well. After obligingly keeping traumatizing secrets for years of dysfunction, of violence, of inappropriate demands for the uBPD, their betrayal and public invalidation of us is gobsmacking and heart-breaking. With my mother I assumed the rage and sense of betrayal she felt would escalate and then finally we could begin to build an adult to adult relationship.  I thought tough love if I could ride that bronco would work.  But the uBPD is like the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain but worse.  Unwilling to step out from behind the curtain and finally admit the reality and embrace the humility.  

I read where elephants are tied to a stump as babies and cannot physically break free.  This continues to control them as they grow up.  So, even when they grow up and the stump is no real physical challenge to break free from, the poor elephant does not try to break away, because it was conditioned for so long being tied to the stump it has succumbed to its helpless plight and BELIEVES it is absolutely tied down so it is. That is similar to our conditioning and our blockage to adult maturation and empowerment.  

I think of the years I have dedicated to getting to the bottom of my "conditioning", my deep levels of compulsive fear and anxiety and self-hate.  And the challenge of even with intellectually knowing now the scope of that conditioning, struggling to lessen this hard-wiring since childhood.  Feels like I am living out that movie Groundhog Day, where recovery is two tiny steps forward at the very most one or even two tiny steps back at the very least. Living within an electronic fence that still limits me so, but at least today I know why it is there.

Still, as I have heard but can't remember the exact quote from 12 step rooms, better to know what you have always known but fought acknowledging you knew, than not.