Saturday, July 21, 2007

Paralyzed by Hate Mail

Some letters should never be mailed. Our bi-polar daughter sent He Who Must Be Obeyed a 16 page letter detailing my parenting faults. A lot of hate for me was spewed out in it. Apparently she spent days on it as it was dated on various pages. "You sure picked a winner!" she told him.

She and her daughter agree on one thing; I am a mean, selfish, hateful woman. My working was among my wrongs. Apparently both of them would love to drum me right out of the family.

Have you, dear reader, ever experienced real hatred? It is difficult to get through day to day knowing that if you were not alive, it would make some people happy. I wonder if every person experiences this? If they do, I have never been told about it; if they don't, that must make me as horrible as the letters indicate. Am I the only hated person on the earth?

I wonder if I am being delusional and my perception is skewed. I was told to 'forget it.' Some insults are seared into ones brain and are not easily forgotten. I see that HWMBO burned the letter in a trash can. I dove in for the scraps of it this morning reading through and around the scorched and blackened uneven edges of the few pages that were left. I just wanted to see if what I had read a few days ago was real or my imagination. It was real. It was damning. How dare I set foot in church, sinner that I am, I was told by both of them.

4 comments:

Cordelia said...

Oh, Willo. In short, yes, that has happened to me and it is devastating: in spite of oneself, the words keep going round and round in one's head, and all the logic and reasonable things one would say in reply have nowhere to go, and bang against their cage in dreams and sleepless nights. It must be especially awful that this is your own flesh and blood. Likely it is her illness talking (the bipolar can seem so logical and articulate), and you should hold firm to the fact that, as intertwined with her being as it is, bipolar disorder is an entity apart from her and apart from truth. My advice would be to try not to find evidence of reality lurking in what you may mistake for mere hyperbole of "the facts." Your husband was right to burn the letter--- a strong show of support for you in its own way. I am sorry for the grief you must feel; it may not be the hatred that actually stings, but the loss of the child/person she was or could be. They say that some with bipolar disorder stabilize later in life, and this was the case for one relative of mine. I can only hope that this will be true for your daughter and/or that new meds become available. A prayer for you tonight. Hang in there.

Willo said...

Cordelia, your sweet words are appreciated and just what I needed to hear at this time. Thank you for your comment and prayer. W

Two Dishes said...

As a school teacher I am paid to recieve some hatred. Comments about personal appearance, ineptitude, meanness all come in. Some of it is hard to put out of my mind. It really tests my religion to the core sometimes and for that I am glad. It is like Paul's thorn in the side.

Anonymous said...

Grandma - I am requesting a revise of this blog. Not only have I never said or felt hatred for you, but in fact I love you very much. Just because we have our disagreements does not mean that I would ever think any of the terrible things you have implied. Quite the contrary, I feel that I have also showed love, true love, which is not always about "agreeing" and "caterring to another persepctive". I also would appreciate the retraction of the statment "Her and her daughter" which you and I know full well is an inaccurate reflection of my mother's relationship with me. I am, and have been YOUR daughter since I was five, something I have been always felt proud about. I fully understand that a "blog" is an opportunity to express our feelings - I am a blogger as well. However, when you are publically blogging and making false statements about people that could be hurt by your words, it is different. I love you. I am not trying to sound angry or anything of that nature. I just am hurt that you would put me and my mom in the same category. If you don't recall, I also got a 13 page hate letter...only I got four of them over a month period. I am not an enemy, we are not victims, we are family and we go forth as family and deal with things as they come. It is not always a bad thing to have people around you that love you, but have different persepctives. There is a quote about that, making refrence to the fact that if we all wanted friends that agreed with us then we could talk to our reflection in the water. Embrace the diversity in your family and please don't confuse individuality for hatred.
love YOUR daughter