I wrote this to my mother a while back, but won't ever give her the satisfaction of reading it.
Hi,
I am curious about whether you reflect on the fact you have three very mentally damaged daughters that you chose to disown on the same day via email. Do you feel you have any part to play in how damaged we are, or do you feel we brought it all on ourselves?
You spoke about having nightmares about me - I have them about you too. The photo you took of me when I was seven, you burst into my bedroom while I was naked and photographed me fully frontal nude. I begged you to destroy that photo but you refused, said it was your right and not up to me. You put it in the family album which you would take to your friends houses when we went to visit.
I would dread arriving all throughout the long drive knowing you'd soon be passing that photograph around. I'd watch you carefully and as soon as you pulled that red photo album out I would ask politely to go for a walk around a strange neighbourhood because I felt ashamed of all those adults looking at my naked body and couldn't bear to be in the same room. I dreaded having to eventually come back and knock on the door, knowing all those adults had seen me without clothes. I still have nightmares about that. Why would anyone show a photo of their naked child to other adults? You would be arrested for that now and put on a register, so at least the world has changed a little for the better.
You knew how ashamed I was (I begged and pleaded for you to stop) so why did you insist on keeping and showing that photograph to people? I used to remove it from the album, rip it into tiny pieces and flush it down the loo. You would then get the negative re-developed and place it back in the book. Again and again.
I know you well enough to know that you will deny this - say that I imagined it "because of the drugs". Sadly heroin does not dull the memory. All medical information will tell you that opiates do not affect cognitive ability or memory.
You didn't even stay to comfort my dad (your husband!) as he was dying. You left him to die with strangers. Your daughters - we dropped everything to immediately try to get to dad before he died. You were right with him, but you chose to go home. Do you remember what you said to me on the day of dad's funeral? That I didn't need support when my husband died because I was having sex with other men and "bragging and boasting"(!?) to you about it. I'd telephoned you in tears to say I'd done a terrible thing, that a man had had sex with me while I was unconscious, and what had I done. You told me I was disgusting. Believe me, I felt disgusting, most women do when they've had unwanted sex. You then threw that in my face the day we'd just buried dad. It's quite shocking how you twist reality to suit yourself.
Good luck with the reality you have constructed for yourself. Maintaining it must take up a great deal of energy. At the end of the day though, I think life is easier if you can hold yourself accountable for the things you've done. I do not envy you, life must be hard when you have to keep cutting off the people close to you in order to maintain your version of reality. You cut off your own siblings. How often do you see your sister who lives nearby? Do you really and truly believe that the fault always lies with other people and that you had no part to play at all. Below is a list of disorders that I share with my siblings. Can you honestly, hand on heart, tell yourself that you had no part to play in that at all?
Self-harm
Addictions
Mental illness
Attempted suicide
Eating disorders
Personality disorders
Inability to form relationships
The reason none of us "gave you grandchildren" was because we share your traits (learned from you) and know that it would be unfair and selfish to subject a child to that. We were well aware of how miserable childhood is if a mother doesn't love her children because we lived through it.