Dear Mom

Dear mom,

My confession is that I will never hate you. I want to. I think it would be easier to hate you for all you have done and said to me and around me. But I can't. I don't know that I love you or miss you anymore, I just know that hating you is something I can never do. But I can thank you for letting me go and letting me down.

From the time I was a small child, I knew the relationship with you was, for lack of a better word, different. We weren't close like other kids and their moms. I didn't feel comfortable sharing most things with you and what I did share, you made it out to be a problem. I really blamed you for a lot of my problems and issues for a long time. I don't blame you anymore. I now see that you had a lot of things you never worked through and that generational trauma came for all of us. You took your problems out on your kids and you treated us exactly the way you had been treated.

It has taken me a lot of therapy, many years and a lot of learning to get to a place where I don't hate or blame you. I know it may seem like I do since I don't talk to you anymore but that is something different. To hate or blame you, I would have to hold so much hate in my heart and I can't do that. I want to miss you, I want to love you but I can't do that either. You are a person that was a big part of my life and now you aren't. That's all there is to it.

I still remember when I cut you off, so vividly. I had just finally had enough of your abuse. You were not physically abusing me for much of my life but you were so emotionally abusive and you allowed my brother to continue to abuse me. You treated me so poorly and I would bend over backwards for you and it was just never enough. You brought so much unnecessary stress and worry into my life. I had to talk to you again but then I cut you off again. That time where I was talking to you again was so stressful. I never knew if what I said would upset you or what you would say about me to others. Then I realized.. it didn't matter. You have your story and I have mine. And I am going to share my story.

I guess it is wrong to say I don't miss you. Because I do. I miss having what I thought was a mom. I miss not having to explain that I don't speak to you. I miss not feeling like a horrible person. I miss those things, but that doesn't mean I miss you. I know you have trauma and you have things you haven't worked on so that is why I don't blame you. But I will hold you accountable for the hurt you caused and the misery you caused. I thought I was the problem for so long. I have come to realize I wasn't. I can't miss you because then I would have to miss who I was and I don't miss that person.

I refuse to keep holding onto you and holding onto my story. This is the first step of many that I will take to let go of what they all so lovingly call "the mom wound". I won't blast you or say anything that isn't true. But as Anne Lamott said "You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should've behaved better." I have always loved that quote.. because, well it is true. I am starting to claim my story and share it. I wanted to write you this letter to thank you for letting me go and as a bit of a warning. I will not be quiet.

Sincerely,

The Child You Left Behind