Letter about the family

[Gwen67]

So tonight I was really ****ed off by my brother and I wrote out this letter to my mom of stuff that I've been thinking and feeling. I would love for her to know all this stuff, but now that I've cooled down I don't know that I could actually give it to her... I don't know why I'm posting it here since I know that it's not going help anything unless they actually read it, but I sort of feel I must at least do something with it, so what the hell..

So here is the letter... It is really quite exaggerated as it was written in the heat of the moment, so they're not as bad as I've written, but I also kind of feel my mom would respond better to something more dramatic anyway... It's not finished...there's more I could add to it, but I've calmed down now and I'm too tired continue.

Mom, I?m writing this to you because no matter what I say to you, nothing seems to really get through. I am so sick of this ridiculous family. It is ridiculous that NOBODY treats anybody with even a modicum of respect.

I have a brother who just plain doesn?t give a **** about me and is constantly putting me down and making me feel dumb and inadequate. I have a father who can?t treat anybody with respect and who is constantly treating me like I?m a failure and will never amount to anything. And I have a mother who just doesn?t care. I don't like to see you and dad being rude and disrespectful and unloving to each other. I don't like to see [brother] being selfish and unappreciative. I don't like the way that I talk to you either because I really do love you so much.

This family is completely void of any emotion except anger. That?s all that is ever expressed in our house. There is never any love, there is never any laughter. There is never any feeling. When I express any feeling, I am either laughed at to my face or told how stupid/silly I am?.or more often, both. When Dad reads this, which I don?t necessarily want him to because I really don?t like feeling like an idiot, he?ll disregard this as some overly-emotional rant from his overly-emotional daughter. Even though the truth is, if you knew anything about me, you?d know that I?m actually NOT an emotional person. The only people who make me emotional are YOU. It should be exactly the opposite. I shouldn?t have to dread coming home to be yelled at and argued with. I should be glad to come home to a family that makes me feel welcomed and loved.

It makes me really sad that my family is 4 strangers that coexist in a house. It makes me sad that my family doesn?t care to get to know me. It may shock you to know that I am an actual PERSON outside of being your silly daughter. It also makes me really sad that I have to tell you all this and that you haven?t noticed it on your own. I?m 22?and you don?t know a single thing about who I am. I don?t mean what I am doing, I mean who I actually am, what my personality is, what I?m really like. You never make any effort to find out. Hell when you call me, you never ask a single thing about me! You never ask what I?ve been doing, you have no idea what I?m doing in school, you never ask what classes I?m taking, what subjects I like, you never ask what I want to do when I?m done school. You just never ask. You?re completely uninterested in your child. You?re completely neglecting me.

You?ve always tried to make it out to be my fault that you?re not involved in my life, when really you have never let us into yours. I can count on one hand each the amount of things I know about your and Dad?s lives before we were born. What does that say? But you also fail to realize that I am just a private person by nature?so I am not one to just go around telling people personal things, regardless of who they are.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Sometimes this can be an excellent technique for expressing feelings to parents or siblings, especially if you don't think you can say it directly or you don't think it would be heard if you did say it directly.

And often it's the writing of the letter that matters, not whether you ever actually send it.

 

[HA]

I can understand your frustration, Gwen. I would feel the same way. When my parents are arguing...I don't hang around to listen to it.

If you took just one of those issues that you would like to have happen and brain storm ways to make it happen, and try one of your ideas....it just might work.

As a kid, I always enjoyed looking through the family photo album. As I got older my mom would look through it with me and would tell me the stories behind the people and places.

One thought that comes to mind that happened in our family was a Christmas present that my brother made for my parents. He put all of the photos from the albums on CD's and put music to them. We have sat and watched them a couple of times now. Both my parents were there to talk about who people were etc. It was a fun event for all of us!

I seem to never remember some of these photo's.

I plan on tape recording their explanations while we watch the photo CD's one day soon. I think it would be nice to have their own words tell the stories.

Keep writing.

:hug: