Dead Letter Files

Dad,

 

I have no intentions of going back and forth on it either. I was attempting to give you an opportunity to see things from my perspective and to provide an opportunity for communication to exist.  It isn't hatred or bitterness--it isn't living in the past--it was an attempt to fix things and move forward.

"What you see often depends entirely on what you are looking for."

 

I think that applies to the situation then and it applies to the situation now. I can't meet you half way when you are only committed to your own views. Half way means you would meet me or at least try.  So you are right--this is pointless. I am attempting to explain myself to someone that is committed to misunderstanding me and I respect myself enough to recognize that these communications are toxic to me and that I need to let you go completely.

 

In order for us to quit going back and forth, one of us has to stop the communication.  Clearly, that is going to have to be me. There will be no more attempts on my part.

 

I love you, Dad.  But I have a right to try to find happiness and inner-peace in my life.  I had hoped that I could include you in that picture.  I see that I can't and I will continue to try to accept that, much as it hurts. 

 

I am choosing to walk away not because I hate you, not because you are right and I can't accept it, not because I am incapable of forgiving.  I am walking away because I respect myself enough to know that this is toxic and is not going to change. I am walking away because I have to.

 

I know who I am. I can't force you to see that person. Attempting to show you only hurts me. While I began this with the intention of hitting "Reply" when I finished, I am aware that also means that I will have a response back and more pain...

Acceptance

I attended a wedding, this past Saturday, in which the bride had lost her mother.  After the wedding, as the photos were being taken, she posed with her father and held a picture of her mother.  I had only met the groom twice prior to this and had never met the bride but understood her pain as she was crying, yet trying to smile for the pictures...

 

I always wondered how I would fair, should I ever marry or have children, without my mother.  I realize women do it every day, but it seems impossible to me. Nearly twenty years of being motherless and I still struggle more than anyone in my life realizes.

 

I guess maybe it was the prospect of my own marriage that made me reach out to my father.  We haven't spoken since April 22, 2010 and I truly believed this was the wisest choice for my happiness, sanity and well-being.  Yet the nagging voice fought me (not to mention the voice of my youngest brother whom kept insisting that if I explained things from my prospective, things may be different--that "Dad has mellowed out--he is different--retirement has changed him--he wants a relationship with you...").  So I reached out.

 

I knew that as things stood, he and his wife would be the only people in my family that I would exclude from the wedding.  I guess I wasn't capable of doing that without at least trying to make amends.  There was the part of me that didn't want to hurt him by excluding him--to intentionally hurt another is difficult for me--no matter what they have done to me.

How foolish I am at times.

 

And as things have progressed, I regret the attempts that I made. I did myself more damage for trying and have not only reopened my past wounds but allowed him access to create new ones.  The past months since that first attempt at communication (5/29/12) have been more painful than I would have ever expected.  I thought maybe there was a chance, maybe there was hope.  I am no different than I was in youth, hoping he would notice me and extend love.  Confusion, disappointment, tears--nothing has changed.

 

I realize, now, that at my wedding I will be parentless.  The reality of it is... that it hurts.  My father has never been a good person in my life, but there was a brief period, prior to the PFA/302 incident, where we had some semblance of a relationship--for a few years, we had a civil, "friendly" relationship, in which we had a facade that I was able to almost accept as "normal." I was never "Daddy's Little Princess."  I don't ever remember him "cherishing" me or even liking me. But for a little while in my life, I pretended that it was alright--I had a father.

The past months have been so painful.  The messages he has sent have made me realize that nothing has changed, no matter what he presents to the rest of the world, he is still the same man that I have always known.  There will never be that fairy-tale ending where he realizes that I am an okay person and that he loves me. He will never be proud of me.  He will never see me for me.  I will always be the child that amounted to nothing--a mistake.

So at this wedding, as I watched the bride lean into her father, grasping her mother's photograph and hurting--missing her mother and wanting her there--I felt her pain and struggled with the concept of my own "special day."  I finally realized why I reached out to my father not even a week after the proposal...
 

Oddly enough, the day after the wedding, I received this message from a close friend that had also been a friend of my mother's:

 

"I just wanted to let you know that if you want me to, I would be honored to stand in your mom's place at your wedding.   I would also respond to the minister or official "Who gives this woman to be married?" with "Her mother and I do."  She is so happy for you that you found ______ and I know she would be there if she could.   Just let me know.  Love you very much!"

 

Things may not always turn out the way that we hope or want them to, but somehow, the universe still sees our needs, feels the aching in our hearts and provides an answer.  I have struggled with an answer here for many years--it didn't take this proposal to bring about the questions and struggles I am going through.  But yet, an answer arrived...

Endings

So now my father is not only saying that he saved my life by his actions, but that he also prevented an act similar to the CO theater shooting and the WI Sikh temple shooting.  His latest message stated... Ah, screw it... I can't even begin to summarize.  It is easier to just lay it out:

 

 

"I have no intentions of going back and forth with you on the subject. It is obvious that you don’t want to patch any old hurts and move on and all you want to do is have a fight. I will not participate.

There is an old saying, “those you dwell on and live in the past have no future.” You simply aren’t ever going to find happiness until you lean to move past old hurts. And, you can never make another person happy until you learn to be happy with yourself and who you are.

I do have a few final comments though. The everyone was just that; EVERYONE, both within the family and numerous others. Everyone who had contact with you was concerned about both your physical and emotional health. I know you didn’t and still don’t see it but if your recent communications have done nothing else they have even further convinced me that you blocked out a great deal of what really occurred and somehow came to believe things that did not occur had occurred.

It isn’t required that you have already hurt yourself or others to evoke sufficient concern for vigilant and carrying people to step in and try to avert bad things from happening and that is just what I did.

I went to your house to try to figure out want was going on and you simply shut me out and got mad that I was even asking you questions since you didn’t believe there was anything wrong with you and all of your problems were coming from other people.

I have seen the folly that all to often follows when people miss, ignore or otherwise fail to take action when others are sending warning signs, and you were sending lots of warning signs. A few weeks ago in Colorado over a dozen people died, several dozen more were wounded and hundreds of people had their lives simply torn apart because of a guy sending warning signs, who otherwise appeared perfectly normal, after they failed to act on the warning signs they saw. A little over a week ago a guy in Wisconsin killed several people after his friends and family failed to act on the warning signs he was showing. Those things are happening every day somewhere so people sticking their heads in the sand and hoping it isn’t going to happen in their world of existence is simply foolish.

You see it isn’t, nor should it be, required that you wait until a person has already hurt themselves or others to evoke sufficient concern for vigilant and carrying people to step in and try to avert the potential for bad things happening…. and that is just what I did. Would you have gone over the deep end and hurt yourself? I don’t know, I would like to think not but I am sure the families of the Colorado, Wisconsin and thousands of others that lost loved ones because they or someone else failed to see or act on warning signs sure wish now that it is too late they hadn’t ignored the signs they saw. The real sad part and failure in the system comes when the professionals fail to recognize the warnings and don’t get the person the help they needed even after they end up in front of them because they were displaying such warning signs.

As I have repeatedly said, you are the only one that can decide when your hatred and bitterness has been enough. But, I can tell you that I learned a long, long time ago that hatred and bitterness are both things that hurt the person harboring them and if kept long enough they will destroy ay potential one has for happiness. And, no one is happy with a person who isn’t happy within him or her self. Hate or happiness isn’t something other give you or take from you, they come form within based on what you choose to live with.

Get touch with me if or when you should one day decide you want to forgive and get beyond the past. But, if isn’t doing anyone any good, and is only going to cause more harm, to keep dragging the same old hurts around and beating them back and forth. So, I don’t plan on doing the back and forth of the same old issues over and over and will not respond to them in the future.

So, how have you been and what is going on with your life now?"
 

So what is there to say?  And is there a reason to bother???

Pulling Off the Kid Gloves and Hopping Into the Ring

Another response:

It seems to me that you are blatantly refusing to answer the questions that I keep asking, but instead are trying to just get me to accept that what you are saying is the truth.  "I don’t know if that ended up helping or not but I know you are still alive today and I am not so sure you be if I hadn’t intervened when I did." "I believe you were in danger of dying before that change."  What was I doing that was going to lead to my death? What did you do that prevented it? You keep dodging this and refuse to admit that the answer is: I WASN'T DO ANYTHING THAT WAS HARMFUL TO MYSELF OR ANYONE ELSE.  You just keep saying everyone agreed that I needed help.  Who exactly was the "EVERYONE" that thought this was a good idea? Your wife? My ex-sister-in-law? _________?

"Nor did I lie about anything when I talked to the councilors while I was trying to get you help. It appears that you did then and still do block out many of the goofy thing you were both saying and doing at the time." (8.12.12)  So you are telling me that I DID write a letter stating that I was going to kill the entire family? That I did make verbal threats to kill the family and just don't remember?  And are you denying that you stated that I was a danger to others and that I inflicted/attempted to inflict serious bodily harm upon others and that I would attempt it again?  Who did I harm and who else was I planning to harm? You deny stating that I was homicidal and obsessed with death? And where exactly is this letter that I wrote stating that I was going to kill the whole family?  Can you send me a copy? No, in fact, I will believe every word you say when you produce a copy of this letter that I wrote. When did I verbally threaten to kill the family? Who did I make these statements to? 

You deny stating that I was into witchcraft? You deny stating that I obsess over dead people?  And so what? Last time I knew, in American there is something called freedom of religion--pretty sure you couldn't have had me hung, burnt at the stake or committed even if I did decide that I wanted to practice witchcraft.  Or maybe that was how I was harming others? Slaying babies in the name of Satan or something?  And I am pretty sure that missing people that are deceased or being capable of feeling grief are not reasons to spend the rest of one's life locked up in a state mental hospital.

How about my aggressive pets that are harmful to people? Why, because you were the one and only person my dog has ever growled at? Seems to me that says something about your character and actions towards me that day. Or were you afraid of the ferrets? Maybe the frogs? Again, pretty sure they aren't going to lock me up just because one of the most lovable dogs on Earth found the one person that she didn't like. And it was your actions and the way that you were treating me that made her not like you--you caused her to believe that she needed to protect me. Or maybe it was my telepathic connection that I gained from practicing witchcraft causing her to react to you that way?

You deny stating that I "am a liar and have always been a liar?"  Do you deny that you said this was the reason that you knew ________ didn't do any of those things, that I was crazy and doing them myself?  You twisted the problems I tried to talk to you about (the harassment ________ was causing) and turned it into me being paranoid and seeing flashing lights, hearing voices, and hearing people at the door that weren't there...  Twisting the truth is no different than the other lies.

And what about stating that if I went into the hospital _______ would be in charge of my house and pets? She denied knowing anything about that. Are you calling her a liar, too?

It seems to me that your own statements contradict each other:  "When I went to the Courthouse, to act as your support, you tried to keep people between you and me as though I was the villain, when all I have ever done is attempt to be there for you and never once did anything to harm you." (5.30.12)  "I didn’t have any contact with ________ that day and spent all of my time discussing your situation with ________ and the others there on your behalf." (8.9.12)  "Nor did I ever talk to the Judge about you in any matter." (8.12.12) Why were you there, Dad?  I know you said it was to support me, but could you define how you did that, please?  How did you treat me when you came in and talked to me?  If my version of reality is so skewed, I would love for you to share the true reality.  Maybe it will assist me with remembering the truth that I am apparently incapable of producing due to my "delusional" state and "100% fabricated nonsense that never happened." I am sure that you sharing how it all really happened, what was really said, and what really transpired would be a wonderful intervention to bring me back to reality.

It seems to me that perhaps you are the one that is not remembering reality very well...

*I generally struggle and try very hard to be respectful to my elders, especially my father.  But I guess sometimes even I reach that breaking point...

As Much As I Could Do...

Dad,

I tried repeatedly to talk to you and you kept telling me it was between __________ and me.  You refused to listen--insisting I was on meth and needed to go to a rehab.  You don't remember how your "hug" turned into you shaking me and yelling that I needed to tell you what I was on?  Or sending other family members to my house with the message that if I didn't go to rehab, you would arrange it? Or how at the PFA hearing you stood over me, shaking your finger in my face, stating that you would get me put away, if I didn't commit myself?  That is not being supportive. That was bordering on harassment.

As the hospital tests indicated, I never was on drugs. Not only was I NOT starving myself, but my BMI was in the NORMAL range--not even underweight.  Your 302 report went from me being a witch, to talking to God, to "seeing demons and bad angels."  You claimed I was homicidal, suicidal and a bunch of other crap.  Clearly they would have kept me at the hospital if any of what you said in your 302 report had even a grain of truth--as soon as all of the tests I requested came back clean and I found a ride home, I was discharged. Somehow I fooled them? Somehow I had clean blood and urine on my person that I was able to trick them with? I wasn't on drugs. I wasn't starving myself.  What exactly was I dying from? Hasn't it occurred to you that maybe you were wrong? Why isn't that possible?

Whether you believe it or not, what you did added to my problems in ways you probably don't even realize.

Did you help by having two police officers come and rough me up? I already had a bulging disc in my back before that--I have very serious neck and back issues now because of you convincing the police that I was homicidal and needed thrown around and handcuffed like a criminal. That has cost me a small fortune over the past two years and has significantly decreased my quality of life. So I don't see how that helped me.

While we are on that one--being led into the hospital in handcuffs and being evaluated by my peers. How was that helpful? It was damaging to my career--so I really am missing how that helped me? What about your calls to my employer prior to that? In many positions, that could have cost me my job. Thankfully my employer knows me well (he was even the one that came and gave me a ride home from the hospital after you had the police deliver me there), knew the situation in full and ignored your attempts to cause problems. You say you want me to have a solid direction in life--how were any of these actions supposed to contribute to such? I could have lost my job--eight years of college down the drain. Exactly what type of solid direction is it that you had in mind as a result of that?

Let me tell you what you DID cause to happen...

Physically, the police did a lot of damage to me. I wasn't able to drive for quite some time because of that.  No driving also meant no work.  The back problems that I had have increased tenfold and I have neck problems now, too.  Two and a half years later and I am still paying for two police officers coming and throwing me around like a criminal.

You told family members that I was "a liar, have always been a liar, and that's how you knew that ________ didn't do any of those things." How can you expect me to feel all warm and fuzzy about you when these are the things that you say and believe about me? You don't think that hurt me deeply? It broke my heart and still does. I went into a horrible depression for most of the year after that and still have depression caused by that.

You violated my rights. You lied all through that 302 form and I am not sure if you are aware that if I had pressed charges, you could have gotten in serious trouble for that. Not to mention that I am lucky the judge even still granted me a PFA with my own parent trying to convince him that I was on drugs, needed locked up in Warren and that I was insane. If you had truly been concerned for my safety or was supporting me--you certainly would not have done that during my PFA hearing.

So now I have to ask, again, how exactly did you save my life? What exactly do you think you did that helped me?

I did need your support--I BEGGED you for it.  You could only see what you believed to be the issues--you couldn't then and apparently can't see, even now, what the issues were.  Yes, I got better.  But it was because of what _________ and Judge ____________ did for me.  They made ___________ leave me alone. 

I wanted your help. You refused me, not the other way around and I think if you really look inside yourself, you know that too. I realize you responded how you thought it needed to be--with guns blazing and as if I were a criminal. But I needed help, not added harassment. That was horrible and not how you treat an adult. Not how you treat someone you love, someone that was trying to escape a domestic violence issue.  Having the police come and take me away added to my already significant issues of not feeling safe on my own property; to my feelings of not feeling safe anywhere.

I realize that I can't force you to see things from my perspective. I tried explaining it to you when I was in the middle of the situation and you refused to listen then. I did not shut you out--you refused to hear any of what I said and formulated your own opinions revolving around me being on drugs, starving myself, and being insane.  You came onto my property, insisted that I was on meth and demanded that I go to rehab.  You sent other family members with the same demand.  From there it was that if I didn't sign myself into the state mental hospital--you would put me there.  You showed up at my PFA hearing demanding that Judge ___________ commit me! I tried over and over again to tell you what was going on--YOU were shutting ME out by refusing to listen to me.  Surely you can see this??? 

Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but just because it is your opinion does not make it truth. 

I had sincerely hoped that after two years, you would see where maybe you were wrong. Yet clearly you still aren't hearing me. You said that you were "willing to make amends but I would have to meet you half way with it."  Why is your halfway still 100% your way?

I love you, Dad, but I respect myself enough to know that none of that was healthy for me and that it is never going to change.  I have always been a bad person in your eyes and I can't change that.  You admitted that "I have no regrets about taking the actions I took and would do the same again under the same circumstances, not because I don’t love you but because I do and always will." 

It hurts me that for as much as you say you can meet me halfway, you still aren't capable of seeing me for who I am, still not capable of hearing me--that isn't a loving relationship. That is you telling me that you know my life inside and out better than I do. It is you, telling me, that as an outsider to my life during that entire situation, that only YOU know the truth. A loving relationship entails two people willing to share and listen to each other. I don't know that you realize how hard you have always made this relationship. I do love you. I do realize that you love me--but your way of love seems to keep hurting me more than helping me. I wish you could understand that and just be supportive. That is all I have ever wanted.

I can't force you to see things from my perspective. I accept that. I realize that you will always have your opinions about me and my life and that I cannot change that.  I realize that you will continue to see the relationship as you having always done what was best for me--I even acknowledge that it is your sincere belief. That's fine. But I think in all fairness, that part of that meeting halfway is you at least pondering the possibility that it wasn't for the best--that maybe you were wrong.

The reality of it is, I can't change your mind and I am done trying. I am the person that lives my life. I am the expert on my life--not you.  I said it before: UNTIL YOU ARE WILLING TO SEE ME, UNTIL YOU ARE WILLING TO HEAR ME, YOU CANNOT BE A PART OF MY LIFE.  This is too emotionally damaging for me to keep doing. I shouldn't have to beg for you to try to understand me and be a healthy part of my life. I love you, Dad, but I am not willing to allow you to continue hurting me. I don't believe that you intentionally try to hurt me, but in all reality, that seems to always be what happens... Me forgiving, me allowing you back in my life and it happening over and over.

Even if you don't mean to hurt me, even if you think you are acting in my best interest--it isn't.  I recognize also that you keep playing this out as "me not being able to accept that you love me"--that isn't the issue either.  The issue is that you did make the wrong choice, you did make a mistake, you did hurt me deeply, and that instead of admitting it--you are trying to tell me that I don't understand my life; that you are the expert. 

The issue is, I am done trying to reason with you, when you are not capable of looking beyond yourself.  It isn't fair to me and I am very sorry that you don't understand. I have tried forwards and backwards. I shouldn't have to go to such great levels just for you to be a part of my life.  If you can't truly do it with love, if you can't truly be a healthy piece of my life, then I really can't have you as a part of it.  I hope some day you will understand this.

A Reminder

"When you live in complete acceptance of what is,

that is the end of all drama in your life."
 ~Eckhart Tolle~

Returned

I have to admit, I have been bothered by my father's message since May and not a day has gone by that I didn't contemplate my response. The anger has finally passed (for the most part) and the situation just makes me sad, overall.  My boyfriend feels that this is progress and shows that I am moving through the grief cycles--his opinion is that I am better off without my father and shouldn't respond to the email.  I am sure he is right, but I don't know what I want. 

I guess I want my father to recognize that he was wrong and apologize. The bigger part of me understands that my father is not capable of ever admitting he is wrong.  I may regret it, but today, I finally responded--short, sweet, to the point... Most of my practice runs are saved as drafts here--they were all too lengthy and still unfinished. Granted my return message still contained more fire and anger than I wanted, but without rereading his message or torturing myself with it again, this seemed to sum it up best... 

"Really? This is what you believe? That you were supportive of me at the PFA hearing and through the entire situation? And you really give yourself credit with saving my life? What did you do that helped? Nothing in this message makes a bit of sense..."