Whuf.

r/

So I sent this. Everything in brackets [These things] was removed.

I love you, and I really do want to reconnect with you. I don’t want you to read this whole letter hoping for a way forward, though: I don’t know what that looks like, I don’t have a plan. This is a message explaining where I am right now. It might not help much, and it will probably still hurt to hear that I’m not ready. I wish I was.

I don’t blame you for who you were or are, or what we were and are to each other. I know we’re never going to perceive our past the same way- heck, I have trouble perceiving it the same way twice in a row. We’re people. It’s complicated. You are my mother, and you have shaped my growth. I’d like to think you did a good job in a really harsh environment, when you yourself were in the throes of the same sort of process I’m going through now.

In order to be the person I want to be and hold true to my values about how I treat people, I still have a lot of work to do. I know it’s hard to hear. I know you feel alone. I know you may or may not understand why I’m still caught up in the past when we view it so differently. I’ll try to explain, but I don’t mean to imply you don’t know exactly what this is like, because I know you do.

I still stumble into triggers and have to spend hours detangling what just happened in my own body and mind. Even when I know what’s happening and why, I occasionally still can’t stop it. [I tried a new hair product this week. It smelled like your perfume. I wasn’t braced for it the way I would be in a public space, and panicked trying to get it off me.] Sometimes, I don’t realize I’m reacting a certain way because of a trigger. To make sure, I analyze and over-analyze my own emotions, actions, and understanding… which is also a problem. My understanding of reality doesn’t always match others, and when it doesn’t, I have to figure out where and how and why our perceptions differ to figure out whether I am simply a person with my own lens, or if that lens has been warped by the heat and pressure of my past. [I rely on records and written communication, proof I said what I said when and how I said it, because you told me I was lying or wrong or that I had a tone or phrased something in a malicious way so much when I was a kid. I was a *child, and you did not know what was and wasn’t real. When my written record’s integrity is threatened, I spiral.]*

I know you know what this is like. I’m sorry that you also have to endure this.

The point is this: I really, really want to be ready to reconnect. I’m not. I won’t be ready until I can be sure I will not damage people around me in the process. [I won’t be until the sound of your voice doesn’t make me flinch into a fawn and the smell of your perfume doesn’t make me hyperventilate and scrub my scalp to bleeding. I won’t be ready until being told a harmless white lie doesn’t break my trust in someone permanently. I won’t be ready until your pain isn’t jaggedly reflected off the crystalline shards of mine to bounce off everything near me.]
I’m not withholding contact because I want to, or because I am angry or sad. I’m trying as hard as I can to get to a place where we can have healthy contact. I appreciate all the mental and emotional work you’ve done, and I know that it feels gross to do it without knowing when or if it will be fruitful. [Even though he verbally abuses me constantly- he says to you the things he wishes he could tell himself, and the things he wishes he could tell you for himself.]

(As an aside, I also know that (my brother) has been harassing you about contacting me. He told me that very recently, although I don’t know how long that’s been going on for. When he told me, I reminded him that I don’t want to be vocally contacted, nor do I want an apology from you. Please know he does not speak for me. He and I don’t talk about this – or at least I’m very careful about what I share with him – so he would not know. I think it’s wonderful he wants to stand up for me. [Even though he verbally abuses me constantly- he says to you the things he wishes he could tell himself, and the things he wishes he could tell you for himself.] He’s working through his own stuff, and he uses me as a foil sometimes, I think. )

Comments

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