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Dear Tiffany

Open Letter from your Warrior Daughter

By M. Jade Glock Published 2 years ago 7 min read
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Why?

Dear Tiffany,

I am writing to you knowing I’ll never get a response back, but I finally have the courage to say some things that have been on my mind for a long time, but first:

Why?

Why did you treat me the way that you did? I believed for all 28 years of my life that every act of kindness or generosity was transactional, nothing was a gift, but a debt to be used as fuel later, an exploitation of my willingness to believe that people can love me simply because I exist and not because of what I can provide for them.

I believed that in order to be loved I had to be the perfect child, one that wanted for nothing, completely independent, always did the right thing, never embarrassed you, always excelled at anything I set out to do with no mistakes, but I never could reach that bar, those expectations were entirely too high for a baby that was just learning to navigate the world yet you expected me to be born with a super computer in my brain and all of the cheat codes to life so that you didn't have to parent me….Why? What was so wrong with me that you couldn’t take joy in the fact that you had a child who strived to do anything to please you.

You know, I beat myself up over it...All 28 years my self confidence and self esteem were so low, constantly being told that I was an ungrateful brat, a slut, selfish, a whore, dreams were too big, unrealistic, hard to love, the list goes on. Why did you want to hurt me? Why did you try to beat me into submission and why did you consistently cut me with your words?

I know that it’s difficult for you to love, impossible even, and I know that your life was filled with misery, but why then did you pass that same misery onto your children? Why did you want us to hurt as much as you did when you were a child? Why did you not look at your childhood and decide that you were going to be better than the adults who raised you and abused you? Why did you not decide to break the generational curse that you told me so much about? Why did you not try to be better and seek help?

You always told me that God is capable of fixing you and that you pray for that constantly, but you do know that God also requires action, He doesn’t hand us our wants and deepest desires to us on a silver platter, it requires work, hard work, and a lot of it.

I’ve been told my entire life that God doesn’t hand us struggles and obstacles that we can’t navigate, but you never took those struggles onto yourself and worked through them, instead you took them and let them bog you down that every time you were handed another burden you just carried it with the rest and let yourself fall deeper and deeper into depression. Instead you decided to stay comfortable in the toxicity that you created and now have come to know and love it in a sick and twisted way; that is the saddest situation I have ever been able to witness.

I almost fell for it too, I almost went down the same path that you did, but I woke up one day and said that enough was enough and life had to be more than misery and abuse.

I prayed a lot, to be saved from your abuse, for you to be proud of me, for you not to hate that I existed and that one day that if I was a good enough little girl that you would grow to love me. I hurt for that little girl that you so unabashedly squashed. She had dreams you know, she wanted to be a writer and doctor and all you could say was that women are only meant to have a husband and children, cook and clean, and that women were nothing more than procreating machines to be used and abused. I know now that you were projecting onto your minor child your own adult insecurities and I wish that I could feel more angry about it, but I can't help but have compassion for your own hurt and sad little girl inside of you.

I didn’t get married to spite you, or abandon you, or get away from you, even though you so desperately want to believe that. You never saw me as a living breathing human did you? I was always property in your eyes, a child that wasn’t allowed to have any thoughts or opinions of their own, and I allowed myself to believe that because, after all, mother knows best.

I’m getting divorced now, it took me seven years to realize that I married a watered down version of you and I’m still coming to the slow understanding that how was I supposed to know any better? My only example of a model relationship was what you and dad provided, after all, you two have been married for 29 years so you must be doing something right, right? What I know now is that you two are only together because you have nothing else outside of each other, no identity, no ambitions, no goals. You will stay together for the rest of your mortal lives and that honestly makes me pity the both of you, you two could have been so much more if you actually believed in yourselves.

But I digress…

I have a son now, one that you won’t watch grow up because you couldn’t respect me as a mother and couldn’t respect him as a person. It’s unfortunate because he’s a joy to be around, but I couldn’t risk you tarnishing his spirit like you tried so desperately to do to mine.

I look at my son, the life I created, and I become increasingly perplexed at how you could treat your children the way you did. Did your heart not bleed every time we cried? Why didn’t you stop at one spank, or two? Why did you have to be so blinded by rage that you had to hit us to the point of breaking things? Why did you have to go on two hour long tirades about how terrible of a child I was and how you must have been the worst mother on earth if I treated you the way that I did.

You were right about one thing in those long winded rants, you are a bad mom. Your greedy thirst to have control over me so that I would always depend on you has made me realize that you never wanted me to be a thriving adult, and that was your plan from the beginning. In your head, once your children don't need you anymore then you no longer have a will to live, not that you had much of one in the first place. How small you keep your point of view that you could never realize that you are a person outside of your kids, and that it's possible to have a happy and healthy relationship with your children while also continuing to further yourself.

I blocked you 15 months ago and I deeply regretted it at first, did you know that I had a mental breakdown to the point that my husband came home from work early and my sibling called out of work altogether so that I wouldn't be alone? I couldn't stop drinking and I became severely depressed, I couldn't cope with the loss of my mother and several times I almost went back to you, but I had to be confident that this was the healthiest thing for me to do. That's how heartbreaking it was for me to take that step and finally say that enough was enough, but I know that you won't see it that way and that's something that I have to eventually come to terms with in therapy.

Maybe you won't care, but I'm doing better. I have a partner now who loves and adores me more than I could think imaginable. My son is thriving even though his parents are divorced and I'm taking my first steps into being the writer I always dreamed to be.

There’s so much more that I want to say to you, but at this point it would require an entire book, maybe one that I’ll write one day. Lastly, I don't hate you.

Anyway, Happy Mother’s Day

Your Warrior Daughter

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About the Creator

M. Jade Glock

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