GoodPersonEffed
Brevity is my middle name, but my name was TL
- Jan 11, 2020
- 6,727
Mom and Dad,
If you have come across this site seeking answers, then you have found posts which leave no doubt that I was the author.
You will be aware that I struggled with whether or not to email you. I would have told you that you hold no blame in my choice. You know how honest and sincere I am. I'm not going to bullshit you at the end.
I would have advised you to leave my body where it is, to not take on the responsibilities of managing the estate, and to not publish an obituary so that it didn't draw the attention of toxic people. But I would also have left instructions to make the tasks easier in case you chose to take responsibility for my body and my estate.
Ultimately, based on my acceptance of the state of our relationship, I decided the wisest course of action was to allow you to make your own decisions without my input.
You will have read on this forum many criticisms of you. I am sure this was, at the least, uncomfortable. Respectfully, I believe you are aware that you both consistently make it very hard to criticize you, to say to you and to be heard: "Your actions are wrong. Stop them so we can be close."
On this forum, I was heard, and others benefitted from my disclosing.
Mom once told me when a child psychologist attempted to intervene and mediate, "We're not going to change, you are." You have held to that, and I did indeed change, but not to become someone who bent to your wills just to be accepted. I became autonomous and strong. I like myself. I am someone I respect.
I did not share on the forum what instigated my decision to take my life. It is personal, and it is nothing I need to explain or defend. It was a difficult decision to make, and it was the best possible solution out of all undesirable solutions. I will only say that it had nothing to do with finances or with you, and nothing you could think of. Instead of needlessly torturing yourself with guessing, I advise you to accept that I did what was best for myself. It was about me. I am a separate person and you cannot know what goes on inside me or what I experience and choose not to share. Even if you did, you would not have been capable of supporting me. That's not a criticism; it is acceptance.
I don't know if you ever admitted to your friends and other family members that we are estranged, or your motivations for initiating it. You may not yet have admitted my passing, or if you have, the cause. To all of this I say, be vulnerable, be brave, be honest. Allow your friends and loved ones to be closer to you, admit you lied. Know that people genuinely like you and want to be closer to you because your actions often prove you are worthy of others' caring and admiration. If you come clean, and it they forgive you, make efforts to reconcile with them so that they can feel safe to admit you back into their trust and the intimate space of their lives. You will benefit. You will be closer. True friends will accept you, advise you, and comfort you. You need their support.
If you are honest and vulnerable with your friends and loved ones, and they point out that you have been in error, they may be acting as true friends. It takes love and a lot of balls to do that. If it comes with condemnation, it is natural to reject the condemnation and overlook the helpful truth in the message.
The Proverbs and other ancient teachers of wisdom say that a fool hates criticism, a wise man is grateful for it. If it rings true in your heart that you have been in error, then you can work with your heart to accept that truth and move forward having learned and become better for it. This is acting with true strength of character, and it requires great courage to act with such humility. It is rewarded by better relationships with others and with your self.
Ask those you respect and who love you to advise you how best to accept past actions and events, to heal and transform, and how to move forward. Take the advice that rings true in your heart. Find helpful resources. I posted a thread on this site in the Off Topic with books that help with managing boundaries. If you found this letter, you can find the thread.
There is no benefit to anyone if you stay chained to guilt in a prison of the past. I do not wish this on you. I wish you freedom and great happiness. As long as you deny your past actions and what caused you to harm me, you are not free.
No one will ever be perfect, but you will receive great benefits from acting with courage to be the best person you can. You are not too old for this as long as you are still alive. The effort may begin with great discomfort, but it results in better support from yourself and others, which improves vitality and health. Even if you have one day left to live, you can still benefit from any effort to be more aware, to grow, and to improve.
In my own introspection, I regret that I accused Mom of my injury rather than asking you both about it. I was advised that a severe physical trauma had to have caused it, and I do not recall one. Perhaps you do. I have accepted I will never know the cause, and I apologize if my accusation was unmerited; however, I will note that over a decade of spoon-shaped bruises under my clothes and preceded by rages made it a reasonable assumption that Mom may have lost control and somehow caused a severe blunt-force trauma. Further adding cause for suspicion, you did not deny the accusation, but you did deny me. You turned it around and accused me of blame games, and circled the wagons of parents and pets against me. Mom wrote the message, but signed it for both of you, so the action belongs to you both. Such manipulative tactics strongly indicate to me there was merit in my accusation. However, I have benefitted from the estrangement. No contact has been for the best, regardless of who instigated it or how.
Are your filters such that you really cannot see from all I've written how much honesty, sincerity, and love are in action? I have spoken to you in writing many times this way. You were not able to hear me, another reason I didn't send you an email. Perhaps now, because you've gone looking for it, you can hear.
My love is supportive, not draining. My love does not beat you up, but you have often beaten yourselves up and then pushed me away as if I'd done the beating. There is no need for self-flagellation and condemnation; how can one grow and heal in such a prison? I believe you learned that from your families and the culture of your childhoods that cared so much what the neighbors think, that encouraged false fronts, lies, and looking away.
Mom, I think you learned to deny yourself, and instead try to control others with verbal and physical aggression in order to feel you have some power. At times some assertive aggression is valuable in putting others' harmful behaviors in check. If you value your relationship with them and respect them, it would be good to approach the person some time after and tell them why their actions bothered you and try to reach mutual understanding. It would also be good to find resources to teach you how to manage your violent tendencies. You need to be in check. I believe you know this.
Dad, I think you learned to deny others your true self to keep it safe from those who would try to destroy it. I believe it needs safe interaction with you and with others who have your best interests at heart, safe people who genuinely like you. I can also see how it served you, such as not joining the FOP and getting involved in a corrupt fraternity. I think at some point, in the Marines or perhaps before, you took on messages that authority is always right, should not be challenged, and no one should be protected from it. Whenever I stood up for myself and denied authority's assertions of punitive and abusive rights over me, you seemed blindly compelled to deny me and punish me. Doctors, leaders, judges, and parents can be wrong, and they do not always serve the best interests of, or protect, those over whom they have power, the people they are responsible to, not for. You are responsible to yourself to protect yourself, and you are responsible to your family to protect them. Step up. Recognize I am trying to make you more of a man, not less.
Now that I am gone, you each can choose to continue your pattern of maintaining false fronts. You can choose to use my love and advice to serve you to heal. You can choose something else. I do not and cannot control you, nor do I want to, nor do I seek retaliation. That's why I didn't expose you after the Facebook debacle. I have had much more power than you realize. You did not know that I have actively withheld when I could have easily weakened your entire support system because much of it rests on false fronts.
I don't consider my love wasted, it is still active if you ever decide to accept and use it. I benefitted from the act of giving it. Seeing it here in words reinforces how much I love and respect myself, and it validates the hard work I did to accomplish that, and to be able to perform actions like this that kept my self-love and self-respect active and healthy.
I don't know how to end this letter. There is no real closure, and that's a norm in life that is always hard to accept.
This is the closure I offer to you and to myself:
I love you.
I hope you experience my love.
I experienced your love, but I am aware it often took rather than gave.
I apologize if ever in my own unawareness, my thoughtless self-regard or acts of love took from you.
I accept you were not capable of the effort of reconciling with me.
I forgive you, but as you have made no efforts toward reconciliation, frustration and hurt remain, which I have actively worked with up to the end to serve me to grow, rather than provoke me to unwise and harmful actions.
Wherever I have failed to restrain myself and stung you back, know that I was pushed past the point of respectful restraint and needed to give teeth to the boundaries and autonomy you were attempting to override. I did not get pleasure from doing it, though I enjoyed feeling my power, and I grew from using it and achieving beneficial results. Having gained that needed power, in deep introspection I've realized there are more effective methods that require much restraint and patience to achieve what I consider to be the highest goals: self-determination, mutual acceptance of each other's autonomy, and mutual respect. Marches, protests, and wars have occurred in pursuit of these aspirations.
Violence does not cure violence; patient love and acceptance do. I've offered you that here as much as I am capable. I've also been direct without varnishing, and speak again to you in this way one last time: If you use my death to further manipulate others' perceptions, you are gaslighting them. It is abusive to them, and I am not your action figure. Knock it the fuck off.
I hope you move forward, and that you enjoy life and mutually supportive, rich relationships. The more honest you are, the more likely that will happen.
I accept that your hopes and desires for yourselves take precedence over what I hope for you.
I accept your autonomy and your right to manage your own lives as you choose, whether I agree or not.
I have many good memories of you. There is much in each of your characters that I admire, even have felt inspired to emulate in my own fashion. You provided many good things for me. Your efforts are not unnoticed. I gained great appreciation for, and insight about, your efforts and sacrifices for our family. Thank you.
My god, how we laughed.
Our senses of humor together were such a gift throughout my life.
When and if you are ready, forgive me for this choice I've made, because I did not do this to you. It is not about you. It is about me. I acknowledge it is painful for you, but I cannot own your feelings and mine.
I offered to you here the salves of my love, my assurance of your blamelessness, my wisdom, and my advice. It is up to you whether or not to accept them. I accept your right to choose.
I love you, which is about both me and you. I hope my love and my sincere honesty ultimately enrich your lives.
If you have come across this site seeking answers, then you have found posts which leave no doubt that I was the author.
You will be aware that I struggled with whether or not to email you. I would have told you that you hold no blame in my choice. You know how honest and sincere I am. I'm not going to bullshit you at the end.
I would have advised you to leave my body where it is, to not take on the responsibilities of managing the estate, and to not publish an obituary so that it didn't draw the attention of toxic people. But I would also have left instructions to make the tasks easier in case you chose to take responsibility for my body and my estate.
Ultimately, based on my acceptance of the state of our relationship, I decided the wisest course of action was to allow you to make your own decisions without my input.
You will have read on this forum many criticisms of you. I am sure this was, at the least, uncomfortable. Respectfully, I believe you are aware that you both consistently make it very hard to criticize you, to say to you and to be heard: "Your actions are wrong. Stop them so we can be close."
On this forum, I was heard, and others benefitted from my disclosing.
Mom once told me when a child psychologist attempted to intervene and mediate, "We're not going to change, you are." You have held to that, and I did indeed change, but not to become someone who bent to your wills just to be accepted. I became autonomous and strong. I like myself. I am someone I respect.
I did not share on the forum what instigated my decision to take my life. It is personal, and it is nothing I need to explain or defend. It was a difficult decision to make, and it was the best possible solution out of all undesirable solutions. I will only say that it had nothing to do with finances or with you, and nothing you could think of. Instead of needlessly torturing yourself with guessing, I advise you to accept that I did what was best for myself. It was about me. I am a separate person and you cannot know what goes on inside me or what I experience and choose not to share. Even if you did, you would not have been capable of supporting me. That's not a criticism; it is acceptance.
I don't know if you ever admitted to your friends and other family members that we are estranged, or your motivations for initiating it. You may not yet have admitted my passing, or if you have, the cause. To all of this I say, be vulnerable, be brave, be honest. Allow your friends and loved ones to be closer to you, admit you lied. Know that people genuinely like you and want to be closer to you because your actions often prove you are worthy of others' caring and admiration. If you come clean, and it they forgive you, make efforts to reconcile with them so that they can feel safe to admit you back into their trust and the intimate space of their lives. You will benefit. You will be closer. True friends will accept you, advise you, and comfort you. You need their support.
If you are honest and vulnerable with your friends and loved ones, and they point out that you have been in error, they may be acting as true friends. It takes love and a lot of balls to do that. If it comes with condemnation, it is natural to reject the condemnation and overlook the helpful truth in the message.
The Proverbs and other ancient teachers of wisdom say that a fool hates criticism, a wise man is grateful for it. If it rings true in your heart that you have been in error, then you can work with your heart to accept that truth and move forward having learned and become better for it. This is acting with true strength of character, and it requires great courage to act with such humility. It is rewarded by better relationships with others and with your self.
Ask those you respect and who love you to advise you how best to accept past actions and events, to heal and transform, and how to move forward. Take the advice that rings true in your heart. Find helpful resources. I posted a thread on this site in the Off Topic with books that help with managing boundaries. If you found this letter, you can find the thread.
There is no benefit to anyone if you stay chained to guilt in a prison of the past. I do not wish this on you. I wish you freedom and great happiness. As long as you deny your past actions and what caused you to harm me, you are not free.
No one will ever be perfect, but you will receive great benefits from acting with courage to be the best person you can. You are not too old for this as long as you are still alive. The effort may begin with great discomfort, but it results in better support from yourself and others, which improves vitality and health. Even if you have one day left to live, you can still benefit from any effort to be more aware, to grow, and to improve.
In my own introspection, I regret that I accused Mom of my injury rather than asking you both about it. I was advised that a severe physical trauma had to have caused it, and I do not recall one. Perhaps you do. I have accepted I will never know the cause, and I apologize if my accusation was unmerited; however, I will note that over a decade of spoon-shaped bruises under my clothes and preceded by rages made it a reasonable assumption that Mom may have lost control and somehow caused a severe blunt-force trauma. Further adding cause for suspicion, you did not deny the accusation, but you did deny me. You turned it around and accused me of blame games, and circled the wagons of parents and pets against me. Mom wrote the message, but signed it for both of you, so the action belongs to you both. Such manipulative tactics strongly indicate to me there was merit in my accusation. However, I have benefitted from the estrangement. No contact has been for the best, regardless of who instigated it or how.
Are your filters such that you really cannot see from all I've written how much honesty, sincerity, and love are in action? I have spoken to you in writing many times this way. You were not able to hear me, another reason I didn't send you an email. Perhaps now, because you've gone looking for it, you can hear.
My love is supportive, not draining. My love does not beat you up, but you have often beaten yourselves up and then pushed me away as if I'd done the beating. There is no need for self-flagellation and condemnation; how can one grow and heal in such a prison? I believe you learned that from your families and the culture of your childhoods that cared so much what the neighbors think, that encouraged false fronts, lies, and looking away.
Mom, I think you learned to deny yourself, and instead try to control others with verbal and physical aggression in order to feel you have some power. At times some assertive aggression is valuable in putting others' harmful behaviors in check. If you value your relationship with them and respect them, it would be good to approach the person some time after and tell them why their actions bothered you and try to reach mutual understanding. It would also be good to find resources to teach you how to manage your violent tendencies. You need to be in check. I believe you know this.
Dad, I think you learned to deny others your true self to keep it safe from those who would try to destroy it. I believe it needs safe interaction with you and with others who have your best interests at heart, safe people who genuinely like you. I can also see how it served you, such as not joining the FOP and getting involved in a corrupt fraternity. I think at some point, in the Marines or perhaps before, you took on messages that authority is always right, should not be challenged, and no one should be protected from it. Whenever I stood up for myself and denied authority's assertions of punitive and abusive rights over me, you seemed blindly compelled to deny me and punish me. Doctors, leaders, judges, and parents can be wrong, and they do not always serve the best interests of, or protect, those over whom they have power, the people they are responsible to, not for. You are responsible to yourself to protect yourself, and you are responsible to your family to protect them. Step up. Recognize I am trying to make you more of a man, not less.
Now that I am gone, you each can choose to continue your pattern of maintaining false fronts. You can choose to use my love and advice to serve you to heal. You can choose something else. I do not and cannot control you, nor do I want to, nor do I seek retaliation. That's why I didn't expose you after the Facebook debacle. I have had much more power than you realize. You did not know that I have actively withheld when I could have easily weakened your entire support system because much of it rests on false fronts.
I don't consider my love wasted, it is still active if you ever decide to accept and use it. I benefitted from the act of giving it. Seeing it here in words reinforces how much I love and respect myself, and it validates the hard work I did to accomplish that, and to be able to perform actions like this that kept my self-love and self-respect active and healthy.
I don't know how to end this letter. There is no real closure, and that's a norm in life that is always hard to accept.
This is the closure I offer to you and to myself:
I love you.
I hope you experience my love.
I experienced your love, but I am aware it often took rather than gave.
I apologize if ever in my own unawareness, my thoughtless self-regard or acts of love took from you.
I accept you were not capable of the effort of reconciling with me.
I forgive you, but as you have made no efforts toward reconciliation, frustration and hurt remain, which I have actively worked with up to the end to serve me to grow, rather than provoke me to unwise and harmful actions.
Wherever I have failed to restrain myself and stung you back, know that I was pushed past the point of respectful restraint and needed to give teeth to the boundaries and autonomy you were attempting to override. I did not get pleasure from doing it, though I enjoyed feeling my power, and I grew from using it and achieving beneficial results. Having gained that needed power, in deep introspection I've realized there are more effective methods that require much restraint and patience to achieve what I consider to be the highest goals: self-determination, mutual acceptance of each other's autonomy, and mutual respect. Marches, protests, and wars have occurred in pursuit of these aspirations.
Violence does not cure violence; patient love and acceptance do. I've offered you that here as much as I am capable. I've also been direct without varnishing, and speak again to you in this way one last time: If you use my death to further manipulate others' perceptions, you are gaslighting them. It is abusive to them, and I am not your action figure. Knock it the fuck off.
I hope you move forward, and that you enjoy life and mutually supportive, rich relationships. The more honest you are, the more likely that will happen.
I accept that your hopes and desires for yourselves take precedence over what I hope for you.
I accept your autonomy and your right to manage your own lives as you choose, whether I agree or not.
I have many good memories of you. There is much in each of your characters that I admire, even have felt inspired to emulate in my own fashion. You provided many good things for me. Your efforts are not unnoticed. I gained great appreciation for, and insight about, your efforts and sacrifices for our family. Thank you.
My god, how we laughed.
Our senses of humor together were such a gift throughout my life.
When and if you are ready, forgive me for this choice I've made, because I did not do this to you. It is not about you. It is about me. I acknowledge it is painful for you, but I cannot own your feelings and mine.
I offered to you here the salves of my love, my assurance of your blamelessness, my wisdom, and my advice. It is up to you whether or not to accept them. I accept your right to choose.
I love you, which is about both me and you. I hope my love and my sincere honesty ultimately enrich your lives.
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