Dear Mum,
Why do you always play the victim? I wish you didn’t pretend you loved me. It’s clear you don’t and haven’t for a long time. If you love someone you don’t emotionally manipulate and blackmail them. You don’t physically hurt them. You don’t make them feel so scared of you that they daren’t cry in front of you. I have never intentionally hurt you. I always seek to please you and make you happy, to my own demise. You have hurt me so much Mum. I want to forgive you and love you like a daughter should love her mother but I’m still so scared of you. I’m scared to be alone in the same room as you in case you hit me. I’m scared to be at home. Why would I want to spend time at home when the situation is like it is? You told me many times that my ‘home’ was your house, not mine. You clearly wanted me out and now you have what you want. Yet you are still trying to manipulate me into feeling guilty for not wanting to spend time with you. I am only staying away to protect myself and to preserve any sense of relationship we have left. I’m so tired of trying to please you. I’m tired of feeling guilty for not getting on with you; for feeling I’m a failure. Because of your emotional abuse towards me as a child my self esteem is shattered and I believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with me. I believe that I am bad and that God can’t forgive me as he would someone else. I live with guilt and flashbacks from the past; from the involvement of social services; from you grabbing hold of my wrists in order to hit me. Every time I think I’ve forgiven you and moved on I get another text from you and that feeling of fear comes over me once again. I have decided that I won’t come home without Paul there beside me anymore. When we get married my commitment will be to him first. I’m scared that if I have children you will hurt them like you hurt me, perhaps to punish me further for being bad? I don’t know what to do. I have made progress, it hurts less to think about the past, but I want you to know that because of you I have struggled with depression, self harm and an eating disorder for 10 years and I have spent the last 5 in therapy trying to make sense of what you did to me. You hurt me Mum. I felt so guilty, but I have learned that you were the adult, I was just a child. It was your responsibility to look after me and you failed to do that. I just wish you could acknowledge what you did.
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