I am writing this not to berate you or even to try and explain what I know is, to you, unexplainable.
I know you tell your friends your heart is broken, that your children break your heart and, bravely, strongly, with a little catch in your voice, that all you can do is hope that I grow up a bit some day and realise that you are actually a good person, that it's not 'all' your fault.
I know because you used to say these things about one of my brothers. I know because a different brother sent me a message saying 'he had never been more disappointed in anyone and that I was the source and author of my own misfortune.'
I can hear those words being spoken about me in my head, I heard them before I went non contact with you all. I knew exactly how you would react, and you did, exactly as I had predicted.
Strangely, for me at least, I am writing because I want share what is, for me, good news. News that you will never hear and that, if I could tell you, you would reject totally because it's based on my reality, not yours.
I want to tell you that I have confidence in my version of reality now. I no longer feel the need to convince you or anyone else that my childhood was not only emotionally abusive but extremely so, because it was.
As I have gained that confidence the struggle has turned from believing it to trying to deal with its impact. I am on anti depressants and am struggling to leave the house at the moment due to my high levels of anxiety.
But, as I did say there would be, there is good news.
I saw your picture on Facebook recently, saw one on my SIL's Facebook feed and and looked through her photo album, something I have avoided doing since we last spoke.
I saw the family that I always thought functioned without me there and saw you all apparently functioning. In a cafe, holding your other grandson, at the holiday cottage my children will never visit.
And I was glad. A very calm but very real gladness that has endured ever since.
I am so glad that I never have to sit in a cafe with you or your husband again, I never have to spend Christmas with you or see your number flash up on my phone.
I am really glad that when I told you I wanted to go no contact but offered to facilitate your relationship with your grandchildren, you said no.
Glad (and yes I am over using the word, but it's a very calm emotion I am feeling, maybe a sense of peace is also a good way to describe it) that they are not exposed to you or the wider family and despite what I am going through at the moment, they don't have to deal with their mother in a state for days, weeks on end, after a phone call from you.
I have managed to separate my ongoing and desperate desire for a mother from you, so they are two separate issues. I long for a mother but have finally, in middle age, stopped longing for you to be that person.
I don't feel the need to tell you about my children, that is for the mother figure I long for but will never have.
I have a really good circle of friends, they don't replace but by god they compensate.
I will never have that mother figure, I will always in some ways have my emotionally abandoned child inside me.
But, nearing 40, I can finally, despite all my ongoing issues, the impact they are still having, and the work I am having to do on them, let go of you, in the present.
And that is good news, very good news indeed.