The Letter

My therapist asked me to write a letter to my mother. I did. It wasn't easy. I'm sure it wasn't easy for her to read, she did ask for it.

It wasn't a wasted effort. In writing the letter, I realized certain things that I want to give a great deal more consideration. I think it's important that I decide how I really want to handle these things as I continue living. 

I think it's important to remind people of something that I addressed in the letter. I didn't come up with this, of course, but I do feel people need to hear it often. 

What someone else has gone through does not negate your pain. The fact that my mother was neglected by her parents and abused by her grandmother does not negate or excuse the ways she neglected and abused me. What she went through should have informed her choice to not have me or to at the very least give me to someone more capable of raising me. It did not. And while her suffering does explain what happened with her children, it doesn't alter the fact that it happened. 

So yeah, keep that in mind. If someone hurts you and then says "oh but I was hurting too" well, okay. Yeah. They're hurting. That does not give them the right to harm you. If they're hurting, they should find ways to heal. If they can't, then they should stay away from situations where they may hurt someone else. 

Don't go spread the damage just because you're lonely.