Has anyone ever written to their abusive parents, telling them how they feel?

[discotequewreck]

Is it ever wise to put your feelings to paper?

[comedycentral]

I did but I never posted it. It was therapeutic.

[discotequewreck]

Do you have contact with them comedycentral?

I did send the letter, four years ago. Now they have cut me out of their will. I have written another but doubt I will send it.

I just want to move on now and cease all contact but I worry about the stigma and my children.

[EllaFitzgerald]

I think if you've reached adulthood without having received any kind of acknowledgement that they treated you badly, then they're unlikely to start now. If they don't react the way you want them to, would that make you feel worse?

Write it all down, then tear it up and go on to make your life happy.

[nipersvest]

i wrote to my dad. all it did was upset him, and things became all about how unreasonable i was being making him feel that way in place of the actual reason for my letter in the first place which was the violence he had subjected us all to before he left.

it was a case of it's ok for him to act like a git but not ok for me to point it out.

[thepixiefrog]

I wrote a long letter to my DM last July. It wasn't an accusing letter, more of a therapeutic 'this is what my childhood felt like'. I also asked why my child hood was the way it was, what was going on for DM that lead to the choices she made etc.

She apologised, but will never offer an explanation as to why she never left abusive df and dsf. She is adamant that she simply does not know.

Also, along with the apology was a lot of 'well it wasn't bad all the time' type of comments.

Before the letter i felt grief and anguish for the childhood I didn't have, but after the letter it transformed into anger and proper teeth clenching rage due to the fact that DM will never get it. She sees herself as the victim of 2 abusive men, and that her 4 DC were extensions of herself. She thinks that she did a great job bringing us up under very challenging circumstances, and the notion that she could have chosen to take us away from the abusive men is a bit beyond her.

I really couldn't say if it was worth doing or not.

[onepieceoflollipop]

Dh and I have to pils, out of desperation really when all else failed. She is a narcissist, if it was my parents there would be no contact by now. However this is pils and therefore dh's decision.
My gut feeling is that if someone treats someone abusively, they are not going to magically see the light if they get sent a letter.
In our case the first letter was 'lost in the post' very mysterious actually as it was enclosed in a greetings card which was safely received and displayed on the mantelpiece
Mil was 'astonished' to receive another letter, she was most dismissive and sneery about it.

[Elvensong]

I did the same as comedycentral a few years ago. Sat down alone one evening with an A4 pad of paper and a bottle of wine & poured all my feelings out on paper. I think the resulting letter came to about 20 pages & there were a lot of tears as I wrote it.

Next day, I read it through, tore it into pieces and burned it.

The process was incredibly therapeutic & helped me to come to terms with everything that had happened over the years. I had no intention of posting it as I knew it would cause more harm than good.

Since then I have been able to have a civil, though not at all close, relationship with my parents. I know I can't change them, but I just don't let them get to me any more.

[discotequewreck]

I thought we were reconciling a little bit, but I travelled hundreds of miles to see my adoptive mother only to be handed a cheque for a few grand and find out I have been disinherited.

I just want peace. I have two young children to raise.

[Hissy]

Well, I'd say they made it clear. You're conscience is clear.

There is no stigma in turning your back on people who weren't ever there for you. If anyone is to be tarred with any brush it'll be your 'mother' as you're not supposed to driver your DC away.

Come by the Stately Homes thread. There's lots of people who have contemplated and written 'The Letter'

[GlitteryShitandDanglyBaubles]

Wrote it and then posted the fucker.

Got a nasty letter back - I was 3 months pg at the time! It showed me, once and for all, my mother's true colours, and let me keep them for posterity. She took the piss out of my anorexia when I was a teen, my former drug addiction and denied all knowledge of the activities of her paedo husband. Which I know she knew all about cos I told her.

Anyhow it blew the lid of the idea that somehow my mother is a poor misunderstood lady and I am, somehow, all to blame, and very unreasonable. Of course I felt guilty (my poor, poor mother!!!) but I got over it. I had lots of psychotherapy and counselling. I probably wrote a lot more letters too, over the years. But it was beneficial, eventually, to know that I told her exactly my side of everything, what I felt and thought. And to know that she didn't really give a damn.

Never seen her again, my choice.

Amazingly, apparently she hasn't cut me out of the will, although she is welcome to, and I fully expected it. We'll see.

[WafflyVersatile]

What is the stigma you're worried about?

[hiddenhome]

Yes, I wrote a letter to my mother about five years ago after I accessed my social services records and found out the real reason why I'd been taken into care

There was flames coming off the paper it was so full of vitriol home truths, but it felt good to finally tell her what was what.

[MsIngaFewmarbles]

I did. Apparently I am hysterical and delusional. My DH has been filling my head with lies and is abusive, trying to isolate me.

Funnily enough he hasn't 'isolated' me from anyone else and all my friends who had met my father think it was the best decision I ever made

[MsIngaFewmarbles]

The thing is, you should only do it if it will make you feel better and you don't care or have much invested in the response you may get. If they were reasonable human beings they wouldn't have been abusive in the first place.

[iclaudius]

I did - no reply
Ended in the courts

[montmartre]

I told them on the phone. There was lots of bluster, denial, and the conversation was swiftly switched to their life and their problems

No contact since, it's been 4 years now, and it's been fine. (almost nil contact for 10 or more years previously)

[iclaudius]

Montmartre do you cope ok with it? Mines maybe 15 years one parent 12 the other and no regrets

[montmartre]

Tbh, most days I don't even think about them. From things you've said previously, I think our childhoods had many similarities, but I decided quite a long time ago that having destroyed my childhood they would not ruin my adult life, so it's locked away, in a box that I don't open other than on rare occasions.

It's a little difficult when my children ask questions, as I've no desire to lie to them, but cannot share the harsh realities. It would be so much easier if my parents were dead, there'd be no reason for protecting my children so much then. They don't actually know about the existence of the youngest mind you...

I would never be able to bring a case to prosecution though; I have nowhere near enough strength for that. Well done for making such a lovely family, and wonderful life - a truly great achievement.

[ThatVikRinA22]

i did.
not a long letter. just a paragraph. very succinct and to the point.

she claims she never got it. they had emigrated without telling me. while abroad Step father died.

i briefly had some contact with half brother who said she didnt get it. ive not sent another. ive not seen her for 13 years. no wish to begin a dialogue now.
tbh - i had imagined them soaking up the sun in sunny climes with money stolen from my late grandmother (who brought me up)

reality was that he decided to buy a shack in the mountains and started to beat her. he had heart attack while there. she upped and left back to blighty. she now lives in a council flat and plays computer games.

i call it karma. poetic justice. ive no need to tell her how i feel anymore. she got a taste of what her husband really was.

[iclaudius]

Montmartre you've made me bulb

It's never going to be ideal and I miss grandparents for my bairns as I had but its preferable. Mine haven't met four of mine and not the others since they were children and now they're adults

They don't deserve them and yy to would be easier if they just were not here x

[discotequewreck]

Thanks for your replies. I am on the brink of no contact, to be honest I haven't had much contact anyway and had largely moved on and found peace.

However found out 'mother' is ill and travelled with kids to do the right thing. Only to find out I have been disinherited . Oh well time to move on properly I think.

[Midwife99]

I have repeatedly written over the last year to explain why I have reduced & now stopped contact. They ignored the real issues in these emails (such as me being raped whilst in their neglectful care aged 13) & kept referring only to the straw that broke the camel's back last year (increasingly demanding behaviour to do things for them such as shampoo their carpets while I was going through a separation with 4 DCs while my childless brother is never bothered "because he works so hard") They are "hurt & shocked" but feel no responsibility. They only thing I can do is give up & stop contact. Letters are therapeutic for us to write & send but fall on deaf ears I think.

[Binkyridesagain]

I did write a letter to my dad 3 years ago, when he had suffered a stroke. I wrote it because i needed to understand my feelings towards his illness. I felt guilt because i didn't care about him being ill or the fact he might have died. I had trouble sleeping and couldn't function so, on the advice of DH, I wrote a letter, giving myself permission to explore the reasons why.

I posted it on here, but never sent it to him, the act of posting helped to bring an end to the guilt. I knew that sending it to him would serve no purpose, he would never accept what he did and the effect it had on me.

I have confronted him before, face to face, about his treatment towards my mother and his daughters, he could accept that he did things wrong but excused it with 'i did the best I could'. Even that minor victory of acceptance was washed away when he said that most of the kicks and punches my mother received were justified and making my sister and I watch was fine.

[GetOeuf]

Yes. My mother wasn't abusive but completely left me to rot with my grandmother )who was abusive) and never, ever admitted that she was ever at fault. She is a professional victim.

I just wanted her to realise how I felt.

It was a complete waste of time. She just used it as another reason to weep and wail at how hard done by she was. Made up a load of stuff in the letter and bad mouthed me to my brother. It made me feel a lot worse for a time as it was just another example of her rejection and lack of feeling or care for me.

If I could go back two years I would absolutely not send it. Write it, yes, as it was very cathartic to do so, but never send it. By sending it she knew how much I cared and how hurt I have been. Gave her some more power I think.

I just don't think of her existing now. I will never speak to her again anyway.