On December 7, 2020, my brother died of cirrhosis of the liver. He was 53 years old. You don't die of cirrhosis of the liver at 53 unless you've started using at a young age and then kept at it with a vengeance for decades. My brother actually had people around him that loved him when he died, but I wasn't one of them. He'd started to sexually and emotionally abuse me when I was three. He threatened to kill me when I was seventeen. I cut off all contact with him then and only ended up being in his physical presence less than a dozen times until his death; two of those being when our father died.
I came to understand the depth of the attachment issues that drove my brother to be so destructive to himself and to me. I found some compassion in my heart for that hurt little boy. But that didn't change the fact that the grown man he was was a vicious, hateful bastard literally every single time he got a chance to come for me.
When he died I felt the weirdest and most poignant sadness. There was no denying it; there was never going to be any redemption arc for us. He was only ever going to be exactly the one he was and I was only ever going to be able to do exactly what I did to wrest my life out of his hands and make it my own. And yet, I had loved him so long ago. And I had wished at various times that our story had been different. But it wasn't. It would not ever be. And at the same time, I felt released and defiant. The bogeyman of nearly my entire life was dead and I was still standing. And not just standing, but dancing and singing and living, well-loved and safe and fucking formidable.
It is okay, Estranged Daughter, even after all of these years, to feel love for your mom, or yearning for the mom you wished she had been, even as you stand in the midst of your life now and feel how good it is to be separated from her. But let whatever you do now be an expression of the love that you have found for yourself. Hold fast to that, even as all the other feelings wax and wane. It will carry you and protect you, always.
Oh, this letter frightened me, so very much. It felt like watching a horror movie, where the character running from the monster has escaped, finally found safety, and then you watch them decide to maybe go back into the house, really quick, to just grab that thing they forgot, and you shout NO DON'T DO IT but then they do it and the monster devours them after all. This brave woman finally freed herself of the monster. And I get why she wants to just go back into the house, really quick, and wish the monster a happy birthday. Because what every person wants and never ever stops wanting, is to be loved by their parent. No matter who that parent is or what they have done or how old we have grown, we want our parent to love us. So that card, it's that hope, that never-ending deep desire to say, Mom, do you love me?... But she should not go back into the house. The monster isn't going to say, thank you for the card. The monster will try to devour her.
Being an estranged child is hard. I am still in my 20's and trying to figure out how to deal with this.
I have never met my father. His name is not on my birth certificate. I have spent a large part of my teenage years wondering how could I someday find him.
As for my mother, I have decided to shut this metaphorical door between us a couple years ago. She choose to stay married with a man who she knows abused of me and other children years ago. I thought she would change her mind someday, but years have passed and she holds on to her choice.
Being estranged is hard. What to tell people when they ask me about my parents? What to do on mother's day, father's day, Christmas, birthdays...?
Thank you for telling your story, and helping me understand my story and my feelings too.
“ The door is a metaphor we use so we can pretend there’s something solid to crouch behind. But there isn’t. We are the solid.”
I love this letter writer and your response. After watching my father go through a period of estrangement with his mother that only closed slightly when she died, only to be once again expanded, I have often found it difficult in my own life to truly cut people out that were wrong or had hurt me. Until this past year I would feel tremendous guilt. And then I realized that saying no, becoming that solid, was the biggest act of love I could give myself. It makes no sense to continue relationships with those who have hurt and wronged us, narcissists alike. That doesn’t mean I don’t think of them now and again. But I like breathing those thoughts into air, as you said.
My husband is currently separating from his father, at long last. As in, the letter has been mailed, but not yet received. So, it is an interesting in-between time we are living in this weekend. My husband felt the need to say some things and the act of writing it out allowed him some catharsis, as well as time to pare it down and remove unnecessary vitriol, and frankly we expect nothing now. As in, no more calls, no more strained visits, no more MORE. The relief is palpable. I read #9 to him today, and Sugar, I could see his shoulders drop a little, as he realized there are good reasons to stand up for himself, and that others will understand. Thank you.
I am a huge fan of you ability to write both empathetically and forensically. One hand holds a feather and the other, a scalpel. No word is wasted. Nothing is taboo. The letter, and your response touched me deeply, not because of my history, but my wife's. She is a mature person now and works successfully and happily as child psychologist. Since she was a teenager, she has had to navigate her mother's extreme narcissism and her father's unwillingness to step in and protect their daughter from her controlling nature. 10 years of anorexia followed, and some periods when all communication was withheld by her parents because she wasn't sufficiently supportive of her mother for one reason or another. My wife has striven to look past these behavioral obscenities and try to build a 'normal' relationship. And superficially she has succeeded but at a price She has never raised the subject of what it was like to be their child ,or even their grown up daughter. It's the elephant in the room every time we visit, and even in some of the phone calls she makes to her mother. The problem with anorexia is that because you feel little personal control over your life, you look to exercise it any way you can, even if it's self destructive. Now her father has Alzheimer's and she is trying hard to help him through this awful stage of life. The part of me that I'm not proud of feels like they are getting their just rewards. And then I see that my wife wants autonomy over her wounded psyche and her efforts to support them, while not exactly forgiveness, are her attempts to manage (or even own) their relationship on her terms. She has decided that by treating them with the same disregard that she was subject to would makes her no better than them. I think she realizes that any healing will stem from her own efforts to actively determine the nature of the relationship. I'm not sure I could do this, or be so forgiving, but there is real power in claiming autonomy over the role she wants to play. She is trying hard not to act or think as a victim, and all this is done while her narcissistic mother probably assumes that this attention is her due.
What you said, Dear Ms Sugar, about it being up to the wounded party to determine her response to the situation was smart. My wife wants a relationship with her mother but she accepts its natural limitations. That is her decision and it is what leaves her feeling empowered. That's a new experience for her. And worth feeling. I couldn't, but maybe that's the point.
Thank you so much, Jeremy. I so appreciate your kind words. I'm sorry your wife has had such a painful relationship with her parents. Thank goodness you have each other. And I agree there is true power in the autonomy you describe. Wishing you both my best.
So so powerful. My father, whom I adored, took his own life when I was 22. I'd become like a surrogate wife in our household. Trying to be there for him through psychiatric admissions and speaking to him the day after he almost killed me with his vehicle, running a red light while drunk, as I sat in my car ready to enter that very intersection. My Mother said, "Talk to him when he's sober," Why me? Why not you Mum? And 3 years later when he overdosed on the prescription drugs that the local pharmacist had been supplying liberally- that he had begun after he quit drinking- I felt responsible. About 2 years later in a support group for 'survivors,' of suicide, I heard a woman say that it'd been 13 years since her son took his life. My thought; " Oh good lord woman, get over it." But 30 years later when I finally married, I still had issues with intimacy and trust. It seems that we women often hold onto owning other's bad behavior and the sequelae, far too long. The excavation is indeed painful, but it can erase so much of our lives. Do they deserve that? Dr. Norm Shealy, energy medicine genius, said that a woman came into his clinic in Missouri riddled with cancer and then one day said: "Screw my insane family- they are making me ill!" From that day forward her healing, physical, emotional and spiritual, began. Love your work Cheryl. <3
Dear Sugar, Thank you for the impeccable balance you navigate in your letters. The depth at which you hear and listen to another's struggles and offer your own experience, empathy, and wisdom to connect with them is truly beautiful.
So powerful. You gave me much to ponder. It’s frustrating that difficult parental relationships don’t ever feel entirely and completely resolved despite the work and personal growth.
I am the daughter of a single mother, and I had cut off all communication with her over 10 years before she died. She was dynamic, funny, smart, cruel, abusive, and crazy. She was unable to love me or be the parent I needed, not ever. Like Estranged Daughter and like you, cutting her off was necessary because she could not change her behavior and I could not live my life with her in it.
I always wondered how I would react when she died, whether I'd be sad. Like you, I had already grieved the childhood and mother I never had, and had come to terms with it. And yet, it was unsettling, the finality of knowing that it really was over and that no miracle would ever change the sad reality of the situation. It was bittersweet, honestly, and I had as much relief as I did sadness. I offered to pay for a memorial service, and the person who told me of her death, someone I'd never met, said "oh honey, there's no one to go to that." That was kind of validating but also the saddest thing I'd ever heard someone say about someone who'd died. I vowed not to let that be true when I die, and I still think of it.
All that is to say that I agree that Estranged Daughter needs to listen to her own heart, but I also am sad because my own experience tells me that no matter how good a person who she has turned out to be, her mother hasn't changed and that there is no happy ending here except for the life that Estranged Daughter is building for herself. Every Mother's Day is painful because others are celebrating mothers so much more loving and better than mine. But I know that my strength and resilience are the result of my journey and surviving so much early in my life, and I am eternally grateful for the life I have now. Stay strong, Estranged Daughter, whatever that means for you. You got this.
Once again, I am deeply touched by both of your letters. I moved 3,000 miles from my family and like both of you, have never regretted it. The abuse was both violent and subtle at the same time.
So my wife and I raised two beautiful kids sans the life that we both had as kids. We broke the chain. We knew what not to do and we figured out the rest.
Once again, I could have written this letter. I was estranged from my menace of a mother and two brothers and have been for 50 years. When my mother died, I found out about it because the state of Massachusetts requires that a copy of a will must be sent to surviving children. I received it three months after her death. I looked up her obituary online, and true to form, my brothers omitted my name. I was very confused about how I felt, but I felt something. But I think it was a reaction to the finality of it. It was momentary, but I realized there would never be a chance to change the relationship. After processing that (yes, I cried for a little while and felt very strange for a few days). But when I told my beloved father that she had passed, he said, “that’s good honey, because now she can’t hurt you ever again.” I don’t think I could ever have reached a point where she could do no harm to me anymore. Staying away from her was the best thing that I could have done for myself, and my father was right. Her death also stopped me from the very rare thoughts I might have about trying again with her.
"There is no instruction manual for this kind of sorrow, Estranged Daughter. There is no map. There is only the story you lived through, the story you survived, the story you wrote for yourself, the story you will keep writing. It’s the story of the elegant, heartbreaking, brave way you’ve done the limbo for nearly forty years and the story of the way you will continue to do it, even though it hurts."
Seven years ago, I confronted my parents about the sexual abuse memories that had surfaced. I told my father I remembered what he'd done to me; I told my mother I knew that she'd known about it and had done nothing. My father said he "didn't remember" ever having done anything of the sort and my mother got so angry she got up, said, "I think you're wrong, Morgan," and walked out the door.
My life is so much better without them, in easily quantifiable ways and other ways that are harder to pin down. But the pain of the loss is still there. Even worse is the way I have been treated by people from the small community where I grew up who have fallen for my mother's subsequent sob story of how I have broken her heart and abandoned her. One of her friends went so far as to send me a message telling me my mother had "explained the situation" and that I really needed to get in back in touch because my mother needed help caring for my father. I have grieved their loss over and over. I also grieve the loss of the assumed support that went away with them when people chose their side and their story, including parents of my friends, many of my friends, all of my relatives, and my brother.
And yet...and yet...I finished a novel last week that I've been working on for 15 years and couldn't finish before now because of the emotional space my family took up. I am healthier physically and emotionally than I've ever been. And I am actively involved in removing the heavy burden of servitude to my family narrative from my back, one brick at a time. There's no way I could do that with all these people still attached.
This one is so timely for me. I'm 38, and have just taken baby steps towards estrangement with my mother.
I've spent such a long time thinking and believing she was a great mom, but that there was something wrong with me that I didn't like spending time with her, that I felt exhausted after every visit and interaction, that I never felt like I could do enough or be enough for her without drowning in her black hole of never ending need. I thought that my deeply-ingrained reflex to immediately discount my own emotional experiences and not set boundaries was just part of me being broken, not that it had been trained into me by decades of gaslighting and manipulation. That getting into an emotionally abusive marriage was something where I just didn't see the red flags in time, rather than behavior I had been conditioned to expect.
I wrote this recently: "There's a very real and painful grief that comes with finally seeing and acknowledging that deep harm was done to you, because it always begs the question of 'Why? Why did this happen? Why was this done to me?'. And it's so much more comforting, even if painful and incorrect, to imagine that the answer is 'Because you did something wrong, or because you ARE wrong' because then maybe it can be fixed, or at least explained. You might build a sense of reality around that explanation. Maybe even a sense of self.
"But the real answer, the deeper answer, is so unsatisfying and gut-wrenching - that there's no answer at all. It didn't have to happen. It never had to happen. It is so deeply unfair that it happened. And with the acknowledgment of how senseless it all was, down comes all that scaffolding you built up about how the world works and who you are within it. You built those defenses to protect yourself, and they did their job while you were trying to survive what was done to you, but healing can't begin until you see them for what they are, and grieve that you had to ever build them at all."
I know all too well that we are the solid, because the door isn't something I'm shutting, it's something I'm still building, and I am very much building it out of my own flesh. As excruciating as it is to build, the glimpses I get of the peace on the other side of it feel necessary for my very survival.
On December 7, 2020, my brother died of cirrhosis of the liver. He was 53 years old. You don't die of cirrhosis of the liver at 53 unless you've started using at a young age and then kept at it with a vengeance for decades. My brother actually had people around him that loved him when he died, but I wasn't one of them. He'd started to sexually and emotionally abuse me when I was three. He threatened to kill me when I was seventeen. I cut off all contact with him then and only ended up being in his physical presence less than a dozen times until his death; two of those being when our father died.
I came to understand the depth of the attachment issues that drove my brother to be so destructive to himself and to me. I found some compassion in my heart for that hurt little boy. But that didn't change the fact that the grown man he was was a vicious, hateful bastard literally every single time he got a chance to come for me.
When he died I felt the weirdest and most poignant sadness. There was no denying it; there was never going to be any redemption arc for us. He was only ever going to be exactly the one he was and I was only ever going to be able to do exactly what I did to wrest my life out of his hands and make it my own. And yet, I had loved him so long ago. And I had wished at various times that our story had been different. But it wasn't. It would not ever be. And at the same time, I felt released and defiant. The bogeyman of nearly my entire life was dead and I was still standing. And not just standing, but dancing and singing and living, well-loved and safe and fucking formidable.
It is okay, Estranged Daughter, even after all of these years, to feel love for your mom, or yearning for the mom you wished she had been, even as you stand in the midst of your life now and feel how good it is to be separated from her. But let whatever you do now be an expression of the love that you have found for yourself. Hold fast to that, even as all the other feelings wax and wane. It will carry you and protect you, always.
What beautiful, painful, true words, Asha. Thank you.
Oh, this letter frightened me, so very much. It felt like watching a horror movie, where the character running from the monster has escaped, finally found safety, and then you watch them decide to maybe go back into the house, really quick, to just grab that thing they forgot, and you shout NO DON'T DO IT but then they do it and the monster devours them after all. This brave woman finally freed herself of the monster. And I get why she wants to just go back into the house, really quick, and wish the monster a happy birthday. Because what every person wants and never ever stops wanting, is to be loved by their parent. No matter who that parent is or what they have done or how old we have grown, we want our parent to love us. So that card, it's that hope, that never-ending deep desire to say, Mom, do you love me?... But she should not go back into the house. The monster isn't going to say, thank you for the card. The monster will try to devour her.
I had the same reaction, Elissa. Sending love.
Being an estranged child is hard. I am still in my 20's and trying to figure out how to deal with this.
I have never met my father. His name is not on my birth certificate. I have spent a large part of my teenage years wondering how could I someday find him.
As for my mother, I have decided to shut this metaphorical door between us a couple years ago. She choose to stay married with a man who she knows abused of me and other children years ago. I thought she would change her mind someday, but years have passed and she holds on to her choice.
Being estranged is hard. What to tell people when they ask me about my parents? What to do on mother's day, father's day, Christmas, birthdays...?
Thank you for telling your story, and helping me understand my story and my feelings too.
“ The door is a metaphor we use so we can pretend there’s something solid to crouch behind. But there isn’t. We are the solid.”
I love this letter writer and your response. After watching my father go through a period of estrangement with his mother that only closed slightly when she died, only to be once again expanded, I have often found it difficult in my own life to truly cut people out that were wrong or had hurt me. Until this past year I would feel tremendous guilt. And then I realized that saying no, becoming that solid, was the biggest act of love I could give myself. It makes no sense to continue relationships with those who have hurt and wronged us, narcissists alike. That doesn’t mean I don’t think of them now and again. But I like breathing those thoughts into air, as you said.
My husband is currently separating from his father, at long last. As in, the letter has been mailed, but not yet received. So, it is an interesting in-between time we are living in this weekend. My husband felt the need to say some things and the act of writing it out allowed him some catharsis, as well as time to pare it down and remove unnecessary vitriol, and frankly we expect nothing now. As in, no more calls, no more strained visits, no more MORE. The relief is palpable. I read #9 to him today, and Sugar, I could see his shoulders drop a little, as he realized there are good reasons to stand up for himself, and that others will understand. Thank you.
I am a huge fan of you ability to write both empathetically and forensically. One hand holds a feather and the other, a scalpel. No word is wasted. Nothing is taboo. The letter, and your response touched me deeply, not because of my history, but my wife's. She is a mature person now and works successfully and happily as child psychologist. Since she was a teenager, she has had to navigate her mother's extreme narcissism and her father's unwillingness to step in and protect their daughter from her controlling nature. 10 years of anorexia followed, and some periods when all communication was withheld by her parents because she wasn't sufficiently supportive of her mother for one reason or another. My wife has striven to look past these behavioral obscenities and try to build a 'normal' relationship. And superficially she has succeeded but at a price She has never raised the subject of what it was like to be their child ,or even their grown up daughter. It's the elephant in the room every time we visit, and even in some of the phone calls she makes to her mother. The problem with anorexia is that because you feel little personal control over your life, you look to exercise it any way you can, even if it's self destructive. Now her father has Alzheimer's and she is trying hard to help him through this awful stage of life. The part of me that I'm not proud of feels like they are getting their just rewards. And then I see that my wife wants autonomy over her wounded psyche and her efforts to support them, while not exactly forgiveness, are her attempts to manage (or even own) their relationship on her terms. She has decided that by treating them with the same disregard that she was subject to would makes her no better than them. I think she realizes that any healing will stem from her own efforts to actively determine the nature of the relationship. I'm not sure I could do this, or be so forgiving, but there is real power in claiming autonomy over the role she wants to play. She is trying hard not to act or think as a victim, and all this is done while her narcissistic mother probably assumes that this attention is her due.
What you said, Dear Ms Sugar, about it being up to the wounded party to determine her response to the situation was smart. My wife wants a relationship with her mother but she accepts its natural limitations. That is her decision and it is what leaves her feeling empowered. That's a new experience for her. And worth feeling. I couldn't, but maybe that's the point.
Thank you so much, Jeremy. I so appreciate your kind words. I'm sorry your wife has had such a painful relationship with her parents. Thank goodness you have each other. And I agree there is true power in the autonomy you describe. Wishing you both my best.
So so powerful. My father, whom I adored, took his own life when I was 22. I'd become like a surrogate wife in our household. Trying to be there for him through psychiatric admissions and speaking to him the day after he almost killed me with his vehicle, running a red light while drunk, as I sat in my car ready to enter that very intersection. My Mother said, "Talk to him when he's sober," Why me? Why not you Mum? And 3 years later when he overdosed on the prescription drugs that the local pharmacist had been supplying liberally- that he had begun after he quit drinking- I felt responsible. About 2 years later in a support group for 'survivors,' of suicide, I heard a woman say that it'd been 13 years since her son took his life. My thought; " Oh good lord woman, get over it." But 30 years later when I finally married, I still had issues with intimacy and trust. It seems that we women often hold onto owning other's bad behavior and the sequelae, far too long. The excavation is indeed painful, but it can erase so much of our lives. Do they deserve that? Dr. Norm Shealy, energy medicine genius, said that a woman came into his clinic in Missouri riddled with cancer and then one day said: "Screw my insane family- they are making me ill!" From that day forward her healing, physical, emotional and spiritual, began. Love your work Cheryl. <3
Thank you, Mary. I'm so sorry you lost your dad. Your ability to see your experience so clearly is testament to your strength. Sending you love.
Love your comment, "It seems that we women often hold onto owning other's bad behaviour and the sequelae, for far too long." Thank you, Julie
Dear Sugar, Thank you for the impeccable balance you navigate in your letters. The depth at which you hear and listen to another's struggles and offer your own experience, empathy, and wisdom to connect with them is truly beautiful.
So powerful. You gave me much to ponder. It’s frustrating that difficult parental relationships don’t ever feel entirely and completely resolved despite the work and personal growth.
I am the daughter of a single mother, and I had cut off all communication with her over 10 years before she died. She was dynamic, funny, smart, cruel, abusive, and crazy. She was unable to love me or be the parent I needed, not ever. Like Estranged Daughter and like you, cutting her off was necessary because she could not change her behavior and I could not live my life with her in it.
I always wondered how I would react when she died, whether I'd be sad. Like you, I had already grieved the childhood and mother I never had, and had come to terms with it. And yet, it was unsettling, the finality of knowing that it really was over and that no miracle would ever change the sad reality of the situation. It was bittersweet, honestly, and I had as much relief as I did sadness. I offered to pay for a memorial service, and the person who told me of her death, someone I'd never met, said "oh honey, there's no one to go to that." That was kind of validating but also the saddest thing I'd ever heard someone say about someone who'd died. I vowed not to let that be true when I die, and I still think of it.
All that is to say that I agree that Estranged Daughter needs to listen to her own heart, but I also am sad because my own experience tells me that no matter how good a person who she has turned out to be, her mother hasn't changed and that there is no happy ending here except for the life that Estranged Daughter is building for herself. Every Mother's Day is painful because others are celebrating mothers so much more loving and better than mine. But I know that my strength and resilience are the result of my journey and surviving so much early in my life, and I am eternally grateful for the life I have now. Stay strong, Estranged Daughter, whatever that means for you. You got this.
Once again, I am deeply touched by both of your letters. I moved 3,000 miles from my family and like both of you, have never regretted it. The abuse was both violent and subtle at the same time.
So my wife and I raised two beautiful kids sans the life that we both had as kids. We broke the chain. We knew what not to do and we figured out the rest.
You've made my day brighter. xo
Once again, I could have written this letter. I was estranged from my menace of a mother and two brothers and have been for 50 years. When my mother died, I found out about it because the state of Massachusetts requires that a copy of a will must be sent to surviving children. I received it three months after her death. I looked up her obituary online, and true to form, my brothers omitted my name. I was very confused about how I felt, but I felt something. But I think it was a reaction to the finality of it. It was momentary, but I realized there would never be a chance to change the relationship. After processing that (yes, I cried for a little while and felt very strange for a few days). But when I told my beloved father that she had passed, he said, “that’s good honey, because now she can’t hurt you ever again.” I don’t think I could ever have reached a point where she could do no harm to me anymore. Staying away from her was the best thing that I could have done for myself, and my father was right. Her death also stopped me from the very rare thoughts I might have about trying again with her.
"There is no instruction manual for this kind of sorrow, Estranged Daughter. There is no map. There is only the story you lived through, the story you survived, the story you wrote for yourself, the story you will keep writing. It’s the story of the elegant, heartbreaking, brave way you’ve done the limbo for nearly forty years and the story of the way you will continue to do it, even though it hurts."
Seven years ago, I confronted my parents about the sexual abuse memories that had surfaced. I told my father I remembered what he'd done to me; I told my mother I knew that she'd known about it and had done nothing. My father said he "didn't remember" ever having done anything of the sort and my mother got so angry she got up, said, "I think you're wrong, Morgan," and walked out the door.
My life is so much better without them, in easily quantifiable ways and other ways that are harder to pin down. But the pain of the loss is still there. Even worse is the way I have been treated by people from the small community where I grew up who have fallen for my mother's subsequent sob story of how I have broken her heart and abandoned her. One of her friends went so far as to send me a message telling me my mother had "explained the situation" and that I really needed to get in back in touch because my mother needed help caring for my father. I have grieved their loss over and over. I also grieve the loss of the assumed support that went away with them when people chose their side and their story, including parents of my friends, many of my friends, all of my relatives, and my brother.
And yet...and yet...I finished a novel last week that I've been working on for 15 years and couldn't finish before now because of the emotional space my family took up. I am healthier physically and emotionally than I've ever been. And I am actively involved in removing the heavy burden of servitude to my family narrative from my back, one brick at a time. There's no way I could do that with all these people still attached.
Thank you for this. Julie
Wow. This one hit me right between the eyes.
What a beautiful answer. I'm very sorry for your loss, now and then. 💙
This one is so timely for me. I'm 38, and have just taken baby steps towards estrangement with my mother.
I've spent such a long time thinking and believing she was a great mom, but that there was something wrong with me that I didn't like spending time with her, that I felt exhausted after every visit and interaction, that I never felt like I could do enough or be enough for her without drowning in her black hole of never ending need. I thought that my deeply-ingrained reflex to immediately discount my own emotional experiences and not set boundaries was just part of me being broken, not that it had been trained into me by decades of gaslighting and manipulation. That getting into an emotionally abusive marriage was something where I just didn't see the red flags in time, rather than behavior I had been conditioned to expect.
I wrote this recently: "There's a very real and painful grief that comes with finally seeing and acknowledging that deep harm was done to you, because it always begs the question of 'Why? Why did this happen? Why was this done to me?'. And it's so much more comforting, even if painful and incorrect, to imagine that the answer is 'Because you did something wrong, or because you ARE wrong' because then maybe it can be fixed, or at least explained. You might build a sense of reality around that explanation. Maybe even a sense of self.
"But the real answer, the deeper answer, is so unsatisfying and gut-wrenching - that there's no answer at all. It didn't have to happen. It never had to happen. It is so deeply unfair that it happened. And with the acknowledgment of how senseless it all was, down comes all that scaffolding you built up about how the world works and who you are within it. You built those defenses to protect yourself, and they did their job while you were trying to survive what was done to you, but healing can't begin until you see them for what they are, and grieve that you had to ever build them at all."
I know all too well that we are the solid, because the door isn't something I'm shutting, it's something I'm still building, and I am very much building it out of my own flesh. As excruciating as it is to build, the glimpses I get of the peace on the other side of it feel necessary for my very survival.
This moved me so deeply. I relate so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you.