A Letter I Can’t Send: Mum

We all have letters we’d like to send, but know that we can’t. A letter to someone we no longer have a relationship with, a letter to a family member or friend who has died, a letter to reclaim our power or our voice from an abuser. Letters where actual contact is just not possible for whatever reason.

Do you have a letter you’d like to send but can’t? If so, send it to us.

Please, The Band, keep in mind the mission of Band Back Together and the Guidelines for Submissions are very clear in that we are not a rant site - the purpose of our posts and our mission is to be able to share our stories in a safe manner while encouraging healing.

Every time you text me, I wish you would understand I don’t want to hear your dry way of telling me you love me. I wish you could understand that I don’t want to respond to you not because I am a rebellious child, or because I have been a bad daughter, but because you failed me as a parent and you can’t accept that.

Maybe your current situation has made you temporarily soft, but I don’t fall into that sick pattern of yours. Now you love me…now you don’t. Well, I don’t love you. And you certainly don’t love me. If I could, I would push you out of my life for good.

Stop calling people and bitching that I don’t call you. Specifically, stop calling my grandma (you know, my father’s mom, the one you so hated back then and talked shit about) to complain that I don’t call you or victimize yourself. 

Everything you did to me - the things you don’t want to hear and define as ‘our differences’ likethe psychological abuse, locking me up, choking me, punching me, dragging me across the floor while my son screamed - you said I deserved it.

Well this is what you deserve for all of that.

Sometimes I stop and think, then feel pity for your situation; you’re all alone with a life to carry on your own, having to carry all that guilt without me there to take it every day. Then I realize I don’t feel anything anymore. Especially when I remember that I’m far away from you becausemy husband made the bigger effort, how you tried to separate us, and how when that didn’t work, you tried to take my son from me. 

I realize it’s no use telling you the truth because you can’t accept - you will not accept - anything that I say. I’m always wrong. And that sole reason is why I don’t talk to you, or call you, or anything. Maybe I send pictures of my son, but not because I feel pity for you, or because I wanna get along; it’s to show you he’s doing great. 

Remember when you said I couldn’t handle being a mom and being married at the same time? Or remember when you said you understood my son better than I did? Or when you said I am not a good mother? Remember all those things every time you look at his picture. 

You are lonely because you only see the flaws in people. You talked badly about my father because you only saw the flaws. He’s a much better person without you. And you hate that, don’t you? Because you can’t be a better person with anyone, you only seem to bring the worst out of everyone. 

Give up - we’re never having a relationship. I’m never giving you that advantage over me, or giving you the chance to twist my life again. The first time in my life that I push you away, and guess what!? I’m doing better than ever. 

I remember your dark and heavy words that day: I hate you so much I can’t stand to look at you. 

Do you know how long it’s taken for my son to heal from watching you do all of that to me? You pretended in public that I was the bad one and you were a victim trying to carry the weight of my past. 

Well, fuck that! Wake up and realize no one is buying into your bullshit anymore and that’s why NOBODY calls me after you call them to bitch that I don’t give a fuck about you. 

I am not letting you back into our lives to destroy it. Get help, learn to construct a better life around you, but don’t worry. I am still, STILL, not letting you near us. 

And no, you certainly don’t love me. Because I am not the same person you used to abuse.