A Final Email From My Mother

1958

I have spent years in therapy trying to fix what I felt was a problem with my relationship with my mother.  For years I really felt like I was the problem.  I thought for sure there was something wrong with me.  Finally, after twenty years of therapy and multiple betrayals of trust I have come to realize that I am not the one with the problem.  No, I don't think I am perfect!  I know I have tried.  I have set healthy boundaries only to have them violated by my mother.  I have tried to learn from my relationship with my mother and when things weren't working to try and understand what was really going on.  Had I done something wrong?  Was I not understanding something?  Was I being selfish?  Am I too critical or unforgiving?  I spent a lot of years being angry at what I thought my mom should be and realizing she was none of those things.   I have spent my lifetime feeling sad and unloved and unlovable.   It was obvious by my mom's actions that she didn't love me.  She didn't even know who I was.  She wasn't interested in who I was or what was important to me.  I truly just wanted to be my own person and to be loved for who I was.  That is not what I experienced.

My mom comes from a childhood of abuse.  My grandmother was neglectful and she married several men who were physically and sexually abusive with my mom and aunts.  One husband was prosecuted and found guilty and went to prison for sexually abusing one of my aunts.   Over the years I heard about physical abuse that was so bad that my mom had to hold her head over the bathtub because she was bleeding so badly.  I know there was a lot of emotional abuse too.  When my mom was 16 she left my grandmother in Texas and fled to New Jersey to live with her father, my grandfather.   My mom married my father when she was 17 years old.  It was not a marriage made in heaven.  They divorced after 18 years of marriage.  My father was physically abusive with my mom and there was a lot of emotional abuse as well. 

My sisters and I with our Mom

As an adult, I understood that my mom had an abusive childhood and I came to understand how that abuse had impacted her life.  I could feel empathy for my mom and what she had been through.  I loved my mom.  I had watched her be hurt by my dad.  As a child, my mom had bruises and black eyes from where my dad had hit or beat her up.  I tried to help my mom and be there for her.  I knew I couldn't trust my dad.  I felt alone and like I did not fit in with my family.  My parents continued in their abusive relationship for years.  My sisters were very close and seemed to share something special that I did not share with them.  Was I an outcast?  Why did I feel I did not fit it? 

As I continued to learn who I was and what I wanted in life, I found that my relationship with my mom was toxic to me emotionally.  I did not hate my mother.  I loved her.  She was my mom.  However, I came to realize that I could not change her and decided that I did not want to be treated the way she treated me.  I could only change myself.  I didn't want to hurt my mom but the relationship we had was not working for me.  There was no mutual respect.  I found the relationship I had with my mom to be very emotionally abusive.  I was told I was a failure because I did not make the kind of money she made.  I chose a career in health care and my mom could not understand why I would choose such a career.   Success can be measured in a lot of ways, but to my mom success is measure by money.  Money she had and used as a way to control.  It took me years but I came to understand that my mom did not do things for me out of love.  She did monetary things for me so that I would be obligated.  You see when she gave me something there was always a string attached to it.  I was grateful for the things my mom did but I did not feel it meant she owned me.   This became a source of contention between my mom and me.  My sisters seemed to not feel the way I did. 

Easter 1964

I moved away from my family.  I felt the need to be on my own.  I wanted to be out of the emotional field that my family created.  This move out of state was perceived by my mom as a betrayal to her.  I wasn't trying to betray my mom.  I just wanted to be able to be my own person.   I came to realize that the only way to win my mom's approval was to be perfect.  It is impossible to be perfect but I did try at first.  When I was 33 years old, I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.  I began to realize over time that my years of struggling to be perfect were taking a toll on my health.   I could not ever live up to my mother's expectation of who I should be.  I needed to learn to be ok with who I was.  So I began to shift my thinking and trying to understand more about this toxic relationship I had with my mother.  A couple of years ago, I stumbled on to a book by Karyl McBride,  Will I Ever Be Good Enough, Healing the Daughter of Narcissistic Mothers. As I read Dr McBride's book, my relationship with my mom was making more sense.  I was really understanding why I felt like this relationship with my mom was toxic.  It was....  I joined a support group Dr. McBride had on Facebook.  In learning about being raised in a narcissistic family I was learning about how this could affect your health.  I posted a question on the Facebook group asking what the relationship was between being raised in a narcissistic family and autoimmune diseases.  My sisters and I all suffered from autoimmune diseases and both of my younger sisters had struggled with years of drug addiction.

 

My mom and sister saw my Facebook post and my mom became enraged.  On September 15, 2011, I received the following email from my mother:

Amelia, I saw your post on facebook.  I tried to call you and left a message to please return my call.  Since I have not heard from you I am sending this email.  I am asking you to leave me alone and to not say anything slanderous about me, my daughters, grandchildren or family again. I have made arrangement to take care of my legal papers.  I am thru with your many years of poison pen letters and your abuse.  I know your ill but I am throught.  I wish you well but ask to forget who I am.

 

If you ever say anything slanderous about my daughters, myself or my family in the future,  Rest assured I will see you in Court .  Wether it's in Texas or Utah I will see you in Court.

 

Mom 

 

That was two years ago and I have not heard from my mother since that email.  I did reply to her email that I was not slandering her or her family.  I was just trying to understand the connection with autoimmune diseases and our narcissistic family dynamics.  I apologized and told her I would respect her wishes and leave her and her family alone.  All I know is that I did not do anything wrong.   I have a right to learn and understand about my emotional and physical well being.  I have come to realize that for me there is a connection with my emotional and physical health.  So I guess in the end my mom did me a BIG favor.  Since I found our relationship toxic and since I could not change her, being no contact is the best way to protect myself from further abuse.  My heart is heavy to realize that this is where we are at but I also feel strong about remaining no contact.  I realize that being no contact is better than continuing in a toxic relationship where we continue to hurt each other.  I love my mom for she is the mom that raised me and we have a lot of history.  I don't miss being treated as invisible with no respect and like I have no feelings.  I trust in God that all things happen for a reason.   I find comfort in knowing that I can learn about narcissism and how to stop this cycle of abuse and how to not pass this legacy on to my own children.