No Contact Letter: Signed & Sealed

[Our abuse recovery guide]

It's been sitting in my work bag for weeks now—that damn letter.

Over the past month, at the advice of my therapist, I have worked on writing a No Contact letter to send to my uBPD mom. I have been NC with her for 4 months now, but my T said I needed to tell her why. Writing the letter itself was honestly, the easiest part. I started it by listing out how my mother's behavior has affected me. It was a very long list that I pruned, organized, and crafted into sentences and paragraphs. I never in my life thought I would be writing a letter like this.

At my last session, my T asked if I was comfortable sharing the letter with her—she asked me to read it aloud. I broke down before even starting, trembling uncontrollably and sobbing—I've never felt so scared in all my life. My T offered to read it for me, but I felt like I needed to do it. I needed to hear the words the way my mother would hear them upon opening it for the first time—raw. By the end of my reading, I felt calm wash over me. I knew I was doing the right thing.

Over the past few days, I've struggled with when, or even if, I should send it. I know that cutting ties with her is 100% the only option for me. Boundaries have never worked with her and she is incapable of accepting responsibility for anything. I can't fix her, but I can fix myself.

I can only imagine how terrible it will feel for her to read this. I found myself worrying about her response to this declaration. Will she harm herself? Commit suicide? Maybe she'll just quietly move on? Not likely. She won't be able to understand that I'm not doing this to hurt her, I'm doing this to save myself. She has always been the victim, the whole world is out to get her.

My T said my letter sounded like a textbook definition of parentification. I googled it and came across this article (www.womboflight.com/2014/02/01/when-shame-is-mother-the-tragedy-of-parentified-daughters/). It hit me to the core. I felt empowered, finally ready to send that damn letter.

Today, I took a moment to check her Facebook page. It was what I needed to see, a reminder of who she really is. Hoards and hoards of negative posts about me, sandwiched between posts about how I'm her "entire world." It is such a burden to be one person's everything for your entire life. I removed the letter from my bag, folded it up, stuffed it into an envelope, and slapped a stamp on it. Maybe by the end of the week I'll have the courage to put it in the mail.

I vacillate between being scared and being excited. Scared of her response, but excited to start truly living my life for the first time in 30 years.

I think I'm ready. Thank you for reading.

[oceaneyes]

It's been sitting in my work bag for weeks now—that damn letter.

Over the past month, at the advice of my therapist, I have worked on writing a No Contact letter to send to my uBPD mom. I have been NC with her for 4 months now, but my T said I needed to tell her why. Writing the letter itself was honestly, the easiest part. I started it by listing out how my mother's behavior has affected me. It was a very long list that I pruned, organized, and crafted into sentences and paragraphs. I never in my life thought I would be writing a letter like this.

At my last session, my T asked if I was comfortable sharing the letter with her—she asked me to read it aloud. I broke down before even starting, trembling uncontrollably and sobbing—I've never felt so scared in all my life. My T offered to read it for me, but I felt like I needed to do it. I needed to hear the words the way my mother would hear them upon opening it for the first time—raw. By the end of my reading, I felt calm wash over me. I knew I was doing the right thing.

Over the past few days, I've struggled with when, or even if, I should send it. I know that cutting ties with her is 100% the only option for me. Boundaries have never worked with her and she is incapable of accepting responsibility for anything. I can't fix her, but I can fix myself.

I can only imagine how terrible it will feel for her to read this. I found myself worrying about her response to this declaration. Will she harm herself? Commit suicide? Maybe she'll just quietly move on? Not likely. She won't be able to understand that I'm not doing this to hurt her, I'm doing this to save myself. She has always been the victim, the whole world is out to get her.

My T said my letter sounded like a textbook definition of parentification. I googled it and came across this article (www.womboflight.com/2014/02/01/when-shame-is-mother-the-tragedy-of-parentified-daughters/). It hit me to the core. I felt empowered, finally ready to send that damn letter.

Today, I took a moment to check her Facebook page. It was what I needed to see, a reminder of who she really is. Hoards and hoards of negative posts about me, sandwiched between posts about how I'm her "entire world." It is such a burden to be one person's everything for your entire life. I removed the letter from my bag, folded it up, stuffed it into an envelope, and slapped a stamp on it. Maybe by the end of the week I'll have the courage to put it in the mail.

I vacillate between being scared and being excited. Scared of her response, but excited to start truly living my life for the first time in 30 years.

I think I'm ready. Thank you for reading.

[exodus]

Just curious, what was the therapist's explanation as to why they thought sending a letter was necessary?

[Leaving]

Just curious, what was the therapist's explanation as to why they thought sending a letter was necessary?

Exodus, I'm wondering the same thing. 

[AloneAtLast]

Don't send it.  You might regret it later in life for reasons you cannot even understand right now. You are hesitating to send it.  There is a reason for the hesitation and it might go far beyond just fear of her. What if she did commit suicide?  How would you feel?  I am not saying it would be your fault but you will be devastated.  Save yourself. Don't send it.

[oceaneyes]

Maybe I wasn't clear, my therapist recommended that I write a letter to my uBPD mother to let her know why I'm no longer speaking to her rather than leaving her in limbo. She hasn't pressured me at all to send it, she has only mentioned that it is an option.

My entire life I have been responsible for her feelings, that's why I have hesitated. I'm working against years of learned behaviors where I was the parent to my mother, and I just can't be that for her anymore.

I have to be honest, I'm kinda surprised at the push back here, but maybe that's because the contents of the letter aren't accessible to you all. I'm not super comfortable sharing it with everyone, but I simply stated how her behavior has made me feel and the issues that I'm dealing with now as an adult. It was all about me and my feelings.

I have no relationship with her right now, we do not speak, I have blocked almost every avenue of communication with her. Last time I was around her, she became physically violent with me. If my husband/friend/in-law/stranger were treating me this way, I would walk away and never look back—why do mothers get a concession? A toxic, abusive person, is still a toxic, abusive person regardless of your relationship with them.

Ultimately, I'm not in control of how she reacts to anything that I do. She's just as likely to harm herself because I'm not speaking to her as she is to do it because of this letter. She has never hurt herself in the past, or threatened to, but as you probably know, trying to predict the reaction you'll get from a pwBPD is a futile endeavor. Actually, since I quit responding to her, some mutual friends on social media have told me how she's been posting threatening language towards me, even though I can't see it because I have blocked her.

Regardless of whether I send the letter, this is someone I'm no longer comfortable having in my life. This is a person who abused and neglected me as a child, allowed others to abuse me, and has continued to abuse me well into my adult life.

[Turkish]

Just because someone is family, it doesn't excuse assault, which it sounds like what she did to you the last time you saw her. She committed a crime.

My entire life I have been responsible for her feelings, that's why I have hesitated. I'm working against years of learned behaviors where I was the parent to my mother, and I just can't be that for her anymore.

This is interesting... .can you expand on why sending the letter, while maybe cathartic for you, might be you being responsible for her feelings?

[bethanny]

oceaneyes,

UBPD mothers control "parentified daughters" by going into OPERA MODE or the opposite, the ice queen you no longer exist to me mode, every time we DARE to be proactive and authentic and age appropriate and surrender the handmaiden and mommy role from them.

To titsuck and control people at the same time is evil says Scott Peck in People of the Lie.

I appreciated that article about parentified daughters. TY for l ink.  I read Alice Miller long ago. she helped me appreciate how entrapped we were by mothers who couldn't mirror us, only demanded we mirrored them... .and give them unconditional love and praise.  Why, the very idea someone as imperfect as I would dare criticize my mother was to my mother the greatest sin before God.  She really did act like she was always speaking on behalf of God. They call that spiritual incest.

I wrote my mother letters periodically when I moved away though the rule was I was expected to visit VERY often on her scheduling, I was more assertive in a letter than in person -- she was so terrifying and punishing in person.

My mother ignored these letters sometimes or exploded right away or became sarcastic and condescending about them, calling them "Bethanny letters" in the ugliest and condescending way, in front of other family members as if they were written evidence of my insanity. Not responding with any molecule of respect for anything I had said specifically. They went into her gunnysack of grievances that exploded when witch mommy appeared.  Outraged that I would dare find anything wanting in her conduct with me which her ego ferociously defended as perfect and self-sacrificing.  All she had sacrificed for me and the family.  Living with an alcoholic man when it was she who was forcing us to live in an alcoholic home.

Finally, during a decade of NC in person we at rare times exchanged letters. If I was Stepford and sentimental she was the nice mommy like on a holiday card, any time I neared being honest and God help me angry she went NUTS in a vilifying and guilt-mongering letter and another year or years went by. ZERO TOLERANCE FOR ANY COMMUNICATION. FOR ANY CONFLICT RESOLUTION EFFORT.

I worried about her fragility. And that was there on one level. But on another level I was NOTHING. That was most impressive. How our relationship would be tossed by her in a NY second if it didn't totally toe the line of her will.

I was stunned how there was treachery and a willingness to play MEDEA mother as Lawson in her book writes.  Willing to destroy any precious relationships of mine.  Any people that she had access to, trying to manipulate that person into pressuring me into returning to play her handmaiden and convincing them she was so concerned over my apparently having cracked up and gone mean and evil.  It was amazing how effective she was in manipulating people in my life.  Gobsmackingly impressive.  

Communicating with me she was vicious and vilifying.  All the fear I had tried to hide from myself all my life, her response to my separation showed the hardball she was willing to play.  No compromise or negotiation was possible.  She was all or nothing.  

Our estrangement was triggered by a modest assertion of mine that she lied about big time and exploded at me but postured weak, broken and inconsolable to others.  It was stunning to me.

They appreciate us for the "affinity."  They have no idea of the sacrifice and emotionally arrested development we are stuck at because of their exploitation of their authority role.

They say they train elephants when they are young by binding their legs with a rope to a tree stump.  As the elephant grows it is strong enough to yank up the stump and escape but its mind still assumes because of the early conditioning it can't so it stays docile and does not appreciate its power.  So it is with us. We are brainwashed so effectively by their ferocious over-control that we are not entitled or capable of living strongly and securely and happily without their blessing and codependent bond.

We were our mother's bonsai trees and God help us if we choose not to reduce our lives to the corner for our mother's addiction to absolute power over us. To keep her company in her "isolation."  So what is there for us tethered to her "isolation" and pathology. No intimacy. 

A great quote, "love without honesty is sentimentality and honesty without love is brutality."

Good luck, and if you send letter, don't think her reaction will fit your expectations. After all, this is a uBPD and the roller coaster of extreme behaviors and attitudes (I came to perceive my mother a a kind of multiple and paranoid personality) -- often the kind and nice one glues us more insidiously into the traumatic bond.  Traumatic bonds can't be ended easily.

Take the action, but let go of the result.

best, bethanny

[bethanny]

btw, love the avatar and screen-name. My point about us really BEING BIG but seduced to think of ourselves as small.  Like their little doll.  When the doll misfunctions, toddler RAGE from them.

[oceaneyes]

This is interesting... .can you expand on why sending the letter, while maybe cathartic for you, might be you being responsible for her feelings?

The only reason I didn't mail the letter as soon as I finished it was because I worried about her feelings. Even though this is a positive step forward for me and my healing, I am allowing her (indirectly via fear and learned behaviors) to control me. I have worked my entire life to keep her happy to the detriment of myself.

I personally would want to know why someone quit talking to me so that I could learn from my mistakes—that's why I feel like the letter is important. I also hope that maybe it will be a wake up call for her to seek treatment, but I'm not holding my breath. She won't be able to empathize with the pain I'm feeling, she'll skim past the "meat" of the letter and only really process the part where I'm exiting the relationship (ie. abandoning her, her greatest fear). So I'm not sure if it would be beneficial to her in that way or not.

I have never discussed with her my own pain, because I've never seen her as a source of support. I have been "trained" to suppress my emotions because I had to be her shoulder to lean on. Anytime I've allowed myself to be vulnerable and show emotion to her (sadness, anger, or happiness, doesn't matter), I've been "punished" with rage.

I hope that answers your question.

bethanny,

So much of what you wrote resonated with me. My own mother puts me on a pedestal one minute, only to rip me down the next. It's confusing, painful, and disturbing. I have never discussed with her how I feel about her behavior, but I have tried to set boundaries with her. It sort of worked, but I noticed the more I did it the quicker she was to lash out and the less involved I wanted to be. I've never had the patience to pretend to be "Stepford" (so appropriate!) to her, but I'm sure if I was she would be delightful to be around. I put up with so much abuse growing up, I just can't stomach the thought of pretending, just to keep her appeased.

The few occasions that I thought she might be showing a glimmer of empathy, it's ripped away. Usually it's something like "I know I wasn't the best mom, but you didn't come with an instruction manual." Even when she's trying to empathize, she's the victim, and I'm made to feel like the problem.

The sad thing is, before she started raging at me, I never really gave my childhood a second thought. I knew it was not ideal but I never blamed her for it. It's only since she's been targeting me that I've stepped back and really seen, with eyes wide open, how damaging her behavior has been to me.

Your story about the elephants is such an accurate analogy. I'm just now learning that I don't have to take her abuse anymore, that I have the power to change this situation. It's odd, because in every other aspect of my life, I am confident but she has always had the power to make me feel small and inadequate.

Thanks for your kind words. Your posts are always so eloquent and relatable.

[Proboscidea]

Do u think she'll even read it? Mine would read one line then tear it up and be out for revenge against me. I let

T sleeping dogs sleep hoping not to cause my sick foo to think about me.

[deux soeurs]

My BPD sister would write me many long emails and texts and at the end of each said that I may not respond as she would not read anything i had to say.  My sister was and is on a distortion campaign against me and other family members.  She has major projection issues mostly with her own severe BPD.

Oceaneyes, please think carefully before you send any kind of letter to a mentally ill individual.  The choice is up to you but it can send the disordered individual off on a severe smear campaign, like my BPD sister. 

I have learned not to contact or respond or have anything to do with my sister and my life couldn't be more peaceful.  Good luck with whatever you do!