I received two letters in the mail, this week, from people I haven't seen in over seventeen years: My elderly mother and my only sister.
Both letters - each consisting of no more than five or six lines - were like daggers thrust into my heart, the blades then twisted to maximise damage. The pain was sharp and physical.
Tears followed the initial shock - after reading the first couple of lines - as the razor words cut deep into my psyche, and the meaning held within their inky scrawls sharpened into hateful focus.
Reading the letters was reminiscent of the last time I received similar correspondence from these two women: Seventeen years ago. That was also the last time I saw either of them.
The earlier letters arrived in February of the year 2000, at a time when I was seven months pregnant with my second child, Ethan. I was then on maternity leave from my job as a senior paediatrics registrar in a large tertiary hospital in Adelaide. The details of those long-ago letters - and my devastating reaction to them (I almost lost my unborn child) - have been long since buried deep within the dark recesses of my memory - under the file-name: ‘HORRIBLE! DON’T LOOK! NOT EVER!’
And I haven’t looked back at them in all the years that have followed. Not until now, when the most recent installation of hateful letters arrived from the two women I trust least in my life.
However, surprisingly, unlike the situation almost two decades ago, my reaction this time was very different; I was far less upset. And this change in my response made me aware of how much I have grown during the intervening years. How much I have learned about life and myself. The passage of time - along with all the problems and dramas that I’ve needed to overcome - have made me stronger, wiser, and more able to cope with adversity.
And that realisation made me smile. It was like I became aware, for the first time, of passing a milestone along life’s journey - and I could clearly see the distance I’ve traveled within my soul … with lessons learned.
Life kicks us around, over and over again - but if we don’t give up, if we persevere and confront the challenges without hiding from them or running away - we grow stronger and acquire wisdom. And that makes the suffering meaningful. That makes life meaningful.
And this was the case for me this week. It is the reason I thought I’d write a blog about the letters I received. Possibly, my situation may resonate with someone else experiencing similar issues: A situation, maybe, where they have serious problems within their family - or with people they think they ‘should’ have a positive relationship with - but they don’t, and they can’t.
And that is OK.
My advice to other people would be, in relation to this issue:
- Only choose to have friendships with people who genuinely want the best for you (and that includes family members).
And
-Treat yourself as if you were someone that you are responsible for helping and taking good care of.
So, here’s my story:
But where to begin?
Maybe I’ll start when I first realised that my childhood had been worse than I initially thought. When I first realised that I hadn’t simply been ‘harshly’ treated by my ‘mean’ parents, but instead my two siblings and I had been abused by them - physically, emotionally, and verbally.
This understanding, seventeen years ago, pushed me from the ‘shadow world,’ of the first act in my story, into the second act where I would learn why it was that I never felt good enough and I endlessly pushed myself academically. The climax of this part of my story came when I received the first two letters from my mother and sister.
So, the beginning of this story coincided with the start of the new millennium, in January of the year 2000. I was then aged in my early 30’s and, for all the world, my life probably appeared near perfect:
I had a high-status job: I was one year short of becoming a medical specialist in paediatrics, with all my exams and post-graduate projects completed. I was married to a handsome and charming doctor, David, also aged in his early 30’s. I had numerous lovely friends, a very nice house, and I was mother to a beautiful, healthy two year old daughter, with another child on the way.
But, in spite of all this, my life was far from perfect. I felt deeply unhappy and completely lost as to how I could ever feel ‘good enough’ or worthy of love or respect - even from myself. My misery was constant and nagging like a toothache. I often wondered whether my children would feel ashamed of me when they grew older and got to see how ‘worthless’ I was.
And, I never questioned that I was completely inadequate. Although, somehow I’d come to believe that my one and only value as a person lay in my ability to pass exams. I couldn’t really believe that this made me in any way intelligent; but, I believed, if I could become a specialist doctor, and then a professor, and then … god only knows ... something ‘good enough' - then I could find peace - and finally rest - and be ‘enough’.
Maybe even happy.
I did feel some happiness as a mother. However, doing a job I hated, in the hospital, meant that the happier parts of my life were mostly overwhelmed by the intense misery I felt at work. Even Sundays were horrible, because I would count down the hours until I had to return to the prison-like hospital. And I couldn’t quit my job - because that was the only way I would ever be able to feel good enough.
It was all a miserable vicious cycle.
The problem was in my head - my beliefs - wherever they came from. I couldn’t work any of it out - or see a solution and an end to it either.
So, early in 2000, I decided to visit a psychologist - during the time I had off for maternity-leave. The solution, I decided, was to ‘force myself’ to like the job I currently hated. I would ask the therapist to hypnotise me - and make me like working as a paediatrician in the hospital 70 hours a week.
It all seemed like a good idea at the time.
So, I found a psychologist in the phone-book, made an appointment, and I explained my situation to her - along with my idea about the hypnotherapy. However, she didn’t seem to understand my request. ‘Maybe you just don’t want to be a paediatrician,’ she said - totally missing the point. ‘You could always leave the job. You could do something else…’
What?! That’s crazy-talk! I thought, worried that I’d found a ‘dud-psychologist’ who didn’t understand simple problems. My thoughts raced: Do you know how much work … how many years of working 70 - 80 hour weeks … and all the study … thousands of pages …. Leaving is not an option!
None of my thoughts were things I could articulate to her. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Maybe I could play it her way - with the talking she wanted, briefly - then we could get on with hypnosis and what I really needed from my visits.
‘Fine’, I said. ‘We can talk for a little while. But, the baby’s due in three months; I’m back at work in five months; so, we don’t have very long.’
We started chatted about this and that and soon she began asking me questions about my childhood and my family. What did that have to do with my career?! How cliche - the whole childhood bit?
‘I’m just like her,’ I said when she asked me about my mother. ‘I love study and learning …’
However, she told me some time later that as I said these words, she noticed that I was digging my thumb nail into my hand, and I was wringing my hands together. This ‘body-language’, she thought, might indicate ‘cognitive dissonance’ - which means that my words did not match my deeper beliefs or memories - resulting in tension within my body - and the whole hand wringing thing. I was completely unaware of the behaviour I was exhibiting.
She continued to turn the focus off my career and work, asking me more questions about my childhood. ‘Maybe,’ she suggested, ‘a high-status job is something your parents want for you - maybe your mother - but it’s not something you want to do with your life. Or maybe,’ she continued with hypothesizing, ‘you want a high-status career to solve another problem - but deep down you know it can’t.’
She then explained to me that we can’t force ourselves to do things we really don’t want to do. Our subconscious continually sabotages our efforts, if this is the situation.
So that’s how we began to talk about my childhood:
‘Sure’, I told the therapist, ‘my mother hit us if we were ‘naughty’. She used a feather-duster handle; it was either a long bamboo stick or a thick wooden one - maybe an inch thick. She would hit our bodies anywhere she could land the stick: our backs, legs, head, face. She broke thick wooden sticks over my head twice. My siblings and I would be covered in welts and bruises for weeks - often’.
‘Other times’, I explained, ‘she would lock us in our bedrooms for days. We were not to get dressed in day clothes, during this time. We had to stay in our pajamas, and if friends dropped by our house to play, she’d tell them we were ill.
I recall leaving for school, when I was five or six years old, and my mother would grab me by the arm and throw me out the back door. “Get out of my sight!” she would spit the words hatefully at me. On these days, I would cry in the classroom. When the teacher would ask me what was wrong, I’d say I had a headache, although I never get headaches now or then.
During my teens, my mother would refuse to speak to me for many months at a time; and she would forbid anyone else in the house from speaking to me. When I walked through the house, she would say softly, “Slut”, “bitch” or just laugh at me - with whomever she was standing next to. Once, when I was 18 - during one of these long silent periods - I spent my birthday in my bedroom crying while she, and the rest of my family, spitefully sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me and laughed at the fact I wasn’t there and I wasn’t invited.
I recall the morning of my final medical exams, when I was 21, my mother stood in the doorway of my bedroom screaming abuse at me - until my father eventually dragged her away, saying “Robyn has exams this morning. Leave her alone.” When I sat at my exams, that morning, I couldn’t read the exam-paper for a full ten minutes, as I couldn’t stop my tears in order to read.
My father was also abusive in a different way to my mother.
Most of the time he simply ignored or avoided the rest of the family, including my mother. He would often eat his meals watching television alone, and, if we spoke to him - while he was reading the paper at the breakfast table - he would slam his fist down and demand, ‘What now?! Do you mind if I read?!
He didn’t hit us nearly as often as our mother did - but he often told me, during my teens, how much he hated me. He would repeated the phrase everyday, for a couple of years when I was at university, “I hate you! Why don’t you get out of the house and get a job because we don’t want you here!”
And if I leaned my bike up against the back wall of the house, he would pick it up and throw it into the rose-garden. ‘IT’S IN MY WAY!’ he’d yell. He occasionally hit me or kicked me across the room. I recall once he chased me up the street to hit me. I ran across the front yard and jumped down a retaining wall, almost losing my balance as I landed. I then ran and ran up the street until he turned and went home. That night I sat out in the dark until about midnight - hoping, by then, he might have calmed down, and it would be safe to go inside again. No-one came looking for me. I just sat in the dark and the cold for hours, waiting.
My father did punch me and bash my head into a wall, when I was 18, after he heard me complain to my mother that he shouldn’t throw my bike across the yard, as it might buckle a wheel and I could have a nasty accident riding to university. On hearing me say this, he stormed out to where I stood speaking to my mother, and punched me in the face, cutting my lip. He then punched me in the chest and the head, and slammed my head into a wall. My mother, on this occasion, was screaming at him to stop. She said she would ring the police. (The police were often at our house when my parents punched into each other - which was often).
That day, I went to university with my face bruised and my lip swollen and cut. I told my friends - even my very close friends - that I’d walked into a cupboard. ‘It was a clumsy accident’ I told them. ‘I’m so stupid’. However, that night, after I returned home, and after I’d had time to think, I decided to make a complaint to the police. I realised that abuse, of any sort, escalates if nothing is done. My mother drove me to the police station where I filed a complaint. The whole thing was taken to court and I was given a ‘restraining order’ against my father.
He never hit me again. He simply continued to tell me every single day - for about the next year or so - that he hated me and wished I would leave.
I did consider leaving home. That ‘horrible house’, as I called it, was a scary place to live. I sometimes wondered whether my father would kill us. In fact I wondered that from when I was very small. I watched murder shows on television and wondered if my father would kill us like that one day.
Sometimes my father stopped the house-keeping money, for a few weeks, and we had to live on weetbix - for all of our meals - while he brought home chicken packs for himself and ate them slowly in front of us.
My older sister (she’s 20 months older than me) continuously ran away from home - from about the age of 15 - sleeping on friend’s couches until one friend’s mother reported the situation to social workers who placed her in foster care. She never returned home to live with us again.
However, I made the conscious decision to stay in the house, unless my father hit me again, in order to finish medical school. I didn't want to become the ‘loser’ my father always said I would become. I reasoned that I could stay out of my parent’s way, as much as possible, and borrow money in my sixth year of medicine to get out of the house for good.
Interestingly, something very strange happened when I was 19 years old. I recall sitting on the carpet, in my bedroom, and crying. I don’t recall what had preceded this moment - but there were many such moments during those years.
I recall thinking, at that moment, “No-one in the world loves me.” I didn’t feel sorry for myself. It was simply a fact. I had almost no extended family: an elderly aunt, whom I rarely saw; a paternal grandmother, who always sided with her son (my father) against everyone; and one lovely friend, Jenny (she is still my closest friend). I had not yet met David. So, in the entire world, it was a fact that while my friend ‘liked’ me, my aunt ‘tolerated’ me - no one in the world ‘loved me’.
At that moment, while I was still sobbing, I felt pressure on my right upper arm - like an arm was wrapped around me. A distinct female voice then spoke. Her voice was loving, strong, and really confident. It was also somehow 'wise'. I will always remember the words. The voice didn’t say the obvious, like “God loves you.”
The voice said something completely unrelated to my thoughts of being unloved. It said, and I will always remember this:
‘It won’t always be like this, it will get better.’
I stopped crying and while I was incredibly surprised and confused, I wasn’t scared. I thought, ‘Well - if there is a God - then maybe God loves me, whatever God is.’
I’m not religious. I’m only recently spiritual. But, I cannot explain or ever forget that experience. Although, the voice was incredibly sweet and kind.
Finally, I moved out when I was 22 years old, in the sixth year of medical school. Like someone leaving a domestic violence situation (I’ve written blogs about this event in the past), I had everything arranged: Money - $10,000 in my bank-account (a bank loan - which I would pay off the following year - during my intern year), a safe place to live (I would stay with my elderly aunt - and pay her rent, food, and utilities, and keep out of her way as much as possible. I knew I’d be a nuisance to her - but I didn’t want to live alone), and David helping me to pack my things into garbage bags and get out as fast as possible, before my parents came home from work.
I was so scared they’d confront me while I was getting out of there.
My aunt told me years later that I had nightmares for a year after I moved in with her. I would call out and cry in my sleep, she said. My bed would rock on the floorboards as I tossed and turned during the night. I knew that I relived some scary experiences, during these dreams; however, during my dreams the experiences involved my parents carrying weapons, like guns, and I was fearful of being killed.
I didn’t see my parents for a number of years after that. I invited them to my wedding with David, two years after I moved out, but they didn’t speak to me during the ceremony, and I walked down the aisle by myself. My mother could also be heard, on the wedding video, running me down to guests at the wedding; and my best-friend and bridesmaid, Jenny, told me many years later that my father was telling guest, including her parents, that he ‘gave my marriage only a year or two.’ Her parents were shocked that he could say something so nasty. I’m not.
I attempted to reconcile with my parents - later in my twenties - and we did meet and talk and visit for a few years. Although, it was an unspoken condition of our meetings that we must never ever discussed the past.
And that is where things were when I came to visit the psychologist. That is what she got me to discuss at our sessions. I’d never discussed those events with anyone. Not even my siblings. It was the elephant in the room - with our family - to be ignored at all cost!
The psychologist never did ‘hypnotise me so that I could like the job I hated.’ She didn’t need to. I came to agree with her that I could just leave the job - because I could be ‘good enough’ even if my career was not so high in status. That had been the only reason I endlessly strived for academic accolades. But, status and accolades would never solve my problems.
My problems would be solved when I confronted the elephant in my life: my past.
I read a book, while I saw the psychologist, called ‘Toxic Parents.’ The author of the book suggested that part of resolving past conflicts with ‘toxic parents’ was to speak with them, and tell them how events from the past affected you then and now; and how you would like to work through the situation with them as adults.
The idea of speaking face-to-face with my ‘terrifying’ parents was out of the question. I knew they would never listen and they would likely throw me out of the house, call me a ‘liar’, say I was ‘exaggerating’, or say it was ‘all my fault’ anyway. The Toxic Parents book warned this was a common response to this type of discussion. I knew that I’d never get to say more than a sentence or two. Plus, I was seven months pregnant and it could be dangerous - emotionally and physically.
So, I wrote to my parents about what happened in my childhood, how it made me feel, and I suggested that I needed time to think and heal, and we could resolve our problems with time and talking.
And, that is when all hell broke loose!
That is when my mother and my sister sent me the most horrible letters telling me it was all lies, it never happened, and even if it happened it was my fault. They told me that they would ALL - the whole family - never speak to me again. It was just like all the times no-one spoke to me when I was a teenager. Although, this time they promised that no-one would ever speak to me again for the rest of my life: No more Christmases together. No more visits or any form of communication. My children would have no grandparents or aunts or uncles on my side of the family.
I was cut off.
Even though I was somewhat prepared for a hostile response to my bringing the past - the elephant - out into the open, it was all worse and more upsetting than I imagined.
I was so upset that, when I received my sister’s hateful e-mail, I felt contractions starting along with my sobbing tears. The emotional pain and shock was bringing on a premature labour … which I couldn't stop.
David was busy at work and I was alone with my two year old … crying and going into labour. I was a senior paediatric registrar - I’d worked in neonatal departments with premature babies - so I knew my unborn child would be in grave danger if he was born this early. I had to calm myself down - for my baby's sake. I needed to stop crying.
So, I phoned my elderly aunt. I could hardly get my words together - between my fits of tears. She spoke to me gently and kindly and she managed to calm me down. My tears stopped and I felt myself relax again. The contractions eased and finally stopped.
And, after that, I never saw my family again.
I cried for months. I would wake in the middle of the night, get out of bed, and cry as I looked at old photographs of my family, and as I realised that they would never become the loving family I had always hoped for. My dreams and hopes for loving parents who were kind to me - and I was ‘good enough’ for them - died at that time. My parents were never going to change. I grieved the loss of my family.
I never told my family to stay away from me. I never told them that they couldn't visit me - or even send a card to the new baby, when he arrived in April of that year. The decision to cut me off, and completely ignore my young family, was made unilaterally by them. I simply refused to grovel back and once again play the ‘ignore-the-elephant-in-the-room’ game.
Over the years, my children sometimes commented that other children had grandparents, so why didn’t they (David’s family live overseas).
‘You just don’t’, I would say. ‘But you have a mum and dad who love you more than all the stars and all of time!’ That would cheer them up completely. ‘And,’ I would add, ‘you have a lovely, calm, peaceful family - which many children don’t have. Be thankful for that.’
*
Then, last week, I did something which resulted in the situation where I received the second round of hateful letters from the same two women as seventeen years ago: my mother and sister.
The baby I was expecting, all those years ago, Ethan, is now 17 years old and completing his final year of high-school. For an English assignment he recently made a lovely DVD film telling the story of his uncle Ronny (I’ve been telling that story on this blog - in the journal of my grandmother) who died in WWII: He was a navigator in a plane which was lost at sea.
I thought my mother might like to see that her brother, Ronny, would not be forgotten in the family. Her grandson did a wonderful job making a five minute film about his great uncle which I thought my mother might enjoy as a respectful tribute to the brother she loved; in spite of all that’s happened, I thought it might make her smile.
I posted the DVD about Ronny to my mother, about a week ago, along with a short note to say that Ethan had made it in memory of his great-uncle.
Two days later, the CD was returned to me in another post-box and the letter attached said words to the effect:
‘Your father and I didn’t not look at this DVD. We don’t know this person, Ethan. We have no interest in seeing anything he has made. We don’t want you to ever contact us again. We will never read another letter of yours, it will be put directly into the bin.’
Then, last Saturday morning - when I arrived in my office, at the medical clinic I share with David - a second letter was waiting for me, along with all my work correspondence. I didn’t recognise the writing and there was no return address on the back of the envelope. The note inside was similar to the one my mother posted to me, although it was from my older sister. It said words to the effect of:
‘Robyn, How vindictive of you to post that DVD to your elderly mother. How dare you. Never post anything …’
I ripped up both letters and threw them into a bin. That’s why I don’t recall the exact words of those poisonous notes. They were so hateful. Like last time, seventeen years ago, I was shocked. I had simply tried to do something kind - and it was like I was stabbed in the heart. It felt like that.
I was upset and in tears, for a short time, after reading both letters. But, in that I had a long list of patients waiting to be seen (I was at work), I had to dry my eyes and just get on with the day.
I remained a little upset for a couple of days, but nothing like the last time - all those years ago - when I felt so overwhelmed and distraught for months.
And from this experience, I realised that while I’ve forgiven my family (although I'm glad they are no longer in my life), my family have not forgiven me. The life lesson of 'forgiveness' is one they seem not to have learned.
I also realised how much stronger I have become. I am not so vulnerable to their cruel behaviour. I can now ride over the stormy waves, of this incident, as if I’m in a large, stable ship cruising easily through life's ocean. Which reminds me of a saying I often told myself during my traumatic teens:
‘Smooth seas never made a skilled sailor.’
I realised - on receiving the letters - that I have learned enough of life’s lessons to be far more skilled than I was. I have grown spiritually, and for that I’m glad.
*
One last little story similar to my own:
I had a patient, once, who had an abusive mother from whom she was estranged as an adult. She told me that, related to this, she spent much of her free time volunteering for numerous charitable organisations so that she could give to other people the love that she never received from her own mother.
Then a couple of years ago, my patient got word that her dying mother wanted to see her before she passed away. She rushed to her mother’s side and sat by her bed, in the hospice, holding her dying mother’s hand. Her mother then uttered her final words to my patient:
‘I have one regret in my life,’ she whispered, ‘and that is that I ever had you!’
My patient was shocked and speechless on hearing these last hateful words from her mother. She stood in my office with tears running down her cheeks as she told me this story. I stood up, from where I sat at my desk, and I wrapped my arm around her shoulders - similar to the invisible arm I felt around my own shoulder so many years ago. ‘You deserve better than that,’ I told her. ‘You’re a lovely person.’
She smiled and silently nodded her head.
*
"Go where you are celebrated, not tolerated"
- Unknown
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