If you could change anything about your childhood....

[jnmorrow]

If you could write an anonymous letter to your parents what would you
say?

[TayMae27]

Dear Elizabeth (not real name),

I miss my childhood, and as a teenager, I shouldn't. I should want to
grow up faster. Why would someone like me miss their childhood? Maybe
because the one they did have was simply a confusing series of jagged
twists and turns. A childhood that didn't last for long. Age seven,
you divorced my father. I lost all relationship with him for the next
four years. Yes, I saw him every other weekend, but that's not enough
for a father and daughter. I needed a parental gaurdian. All I had was
an adult. An adult who didn't know how corrupted she was. How,
everything she did had an effect on her children. I saw you kiss a man
you'd know for a week in the garage. I saw Dino come over late at
night, when I was supposed to be sound asleep. I saw you violently
fight your sister late at night, and then joke about it at the next
family gathering. I saw the empty glass bottles. My eyes burned with
fear and angst. I hated what you did. I hated that I saw it. Somewhere
within me, I knew you were the cause of the divorce. It was your
fault, and no one else's. You blame my father, but he didn't drink
every night, he didn't get violent.

I always wondered why your hand only conflicted with my flesh, not my
brother's. I wondered why it was my head you chose to hit against the
mantle. I wondered why it was my hair you chose to grab, and pull out
of the bathtub late at night. I hated myself, and I hated you.

The day of the divorce, my father cried, not you. The day you hit me,
I cried, not you. The day you pulled me from the bath, I cried, not
you. I think it's your time to cry.

What you did to me, I will never forget. I will never forget that my
mother hurt me, in every way you can hurt a person. She erased my idea
of a mother-figure. She sent me erratically spinning into an abyss of
confusion.

Yet, I'm supposed to forgive you. As you stand there, eyes drooping, a
tear dripping down your cheek. You're crying now, but is it because
you want my forgiveness? Or because you feel sorry for yourself? Or
are you just avoiding conflict once again mother? Your tears won't
help you now. You really have to try. No more faking. I'm not going to
enable you anymore.

I want you to know something. I have no true intention of hurting you.
What's been said here, should've been said in the beginning.

I feel this way, and I've tried to change it, but it's too hard for me
right now. Everytime I walk into your house, my teeth clench and my
body tenses. I tried to be close to you, but everything you are as a
parent, is wrong to me. You don't discipline when you need to, you
discipline when you want to.

What you did, put me, and many other people in hell on Earth. And no
way am I ready to forgive you. You represented the root of evil.

You took my father from me, you erased my mother, you killed my
childhood, spirit, and sense of reality. You forced me to mature
faster than any child should. And I resent you for these things.

If you're willing to stop playing your games, putting on a show, and
pretending everything's okay, then I'm willing to forgive you.

The first thing you need to do: Stop blaming everyone else.

I want to say that I love you, and end this letter on something
positive, but I can't. And I'm sorry for that.

Sincerely,
Epiphanous Me

[jnmorrow]

Okay, what would I change most about my childhood? Well, recently I
decided I wanted more quality attention from them. I remember feeling
as a teenager that my mother in particularly did not want me to be
really me, but an extension of herself. And they both seemed so
unhappy with their marriage and their lot, but NOTHING was ever done
about it. The misery and resentment and dissatisfaction went ON and
ON. I think that if they had behaved better as adults, if they had
been more adult-like, me being an adult later would have been easier.
Relationships would have been easier. I think I would have picked
better boyfriends and not stayed with the bad ones. Basically what I
inherited from them was an overwhelming sense of powerlessness and
hopelessness, So I will start with my Dad cause that's a little easier
to do,

Basically, I never understood why you get married and stayed married.
Alls you seemed to want to do was watch tv, as you read too. You never
paid attention. You were never really listening. You put little effort
into our lives. You ran from every conflict. You either sat there and
said nothing, or you exploded. You talked to us about Mom, You
understood how erratic her behavior was, but you were no one's hero in
trying to solve them. You were the one she was so angry at and
disappointed with and resentful of, and that got deflected onto us,
the children. You're a good man, but in some ways I have always
thought of you a little bit of as an emotional coward.

I mean do you ever think even now, maybe to give me a call, see how I
am? No you wait for me to call or visit and hear about my life through
my mother's calls and visits. And when I do visit. You watch TV. You
do not pay attention. You dont listen. You always looked distracted,
not interested. You hardly ever listen. I think that is what I will
remember most, how you always seemed so uninterested in my company.

And God knows she is not an easy personality: opinionated,
argumentative, highly defensive (she can not take a suggestion about
housework never mind criticism!) , overly sensitive, narrow minded,
judgmental,.. But I dont think she started out that way. I remember,
her being patient, nurturing, and kind, when I was little. But she was
unhappy and she would not own up to her own unhappiness, and DO
something. And in your own way you enabled her to stay in her misery.

You are a good man and I love you. But what I will always think is the
most regretful and the most sad is that you keep yourself somehow
closed off, emotionally closed off. You're hidden. In your own little
world.

If you had put the effort you did in to watching television into the
people you loved,...

But I think you were a victim too of your childhood, and you are the
way you were because of your childhood. I think you do love us. Maybe
in your own way you love Mom too. But I wish I had saw some of that
love, if you did love her, (and I am not sure if you do or did)
because if I saw that love, I think I would of had a better sense of
how love should be. It should not be surrounded in sadness and denial
and anger and resentment.

With the exception of my younger brother, who is very private, I dont
think any of my siblings know how to have a healthy romantic
relationships with a spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend. I think my
younger brother just got lucky. Because he is not exactly comfortable
with emotional stuff either. He seems very uncomfortable actually.

and as brothers and sister, sadly we are not very close. We do not
call each other or hangout. None of us seemed to know how to be or
feel comfortable being emotionally close.

I wanted more from you and still do sometimes.

You know I just realized that many times I have tried to talk to my
mother about what I wanted differently from her, but I dont think I
have ever said anything to my Dad like what I wrote in this.

But that's kind of the point of what I have written here. You dont
have that type of conversation with my Dad. He is not approachable and
not comfortable doing so. Which is why sometimes as much as I love
him. I do think of him as an emotional coward. Which incidentally, I
think of my current boyfriend in the same way, Hhhmm...