An open letter

Dear Mum and Dad,

      I am writing this letter because I don’t feel like we can communicate in any other way. When I took Dad’s call, I was actually listening to what he said, and I was really trying to speak calmly and not get angry. However, it became quickly apparent that it was not about dialogue. Dad just wanted to vent feelings of anger towards me. He kept throwing the question at me: ‘We’re not that bad parents, are we?’ and ‘Tell me, is it cruel to be someone’s well-wisher? Is that a crime?’

     Now, looking at that written down, it’s obvious that those are rhetorical questions. Rhetorical questions do not allow for an answer, because they assume one. It’s like when someone says ‘Who’s the daddy?’ Everyone knows that they’re supposed to say: ‘You are!’  Furthermore, these questions are coming heavily larded in guilt. Who is really going to be able to answer such things honestly? They are not about opening up communication, they are about creating a ‘good guy’ and a ‘bad guy.’ If I say ‘Yes, you are bad parents,’ I become the ‘bad guy.’ If I try to console you, then I am being forced into a rescuer role, treating you as a victim even when I have incredibly overwhelming grief and pain of my own. I try to avoid these questions altogether and ACTUALLY talk, but you don’t want to know. You keep repeating these things. Your need to control dominates everything. Maybe you want a simplistic dynamic that you understand. Maybe you need to assuage your feelings of guilt and bewilderment. Maybe you also genuinely feel so hurt by my behaviour that you are at your wits’ end.

     It is great for you that you can think purely in terms of the recent past and the present in terms of our relationship, but I am not able to forget or forgive all the things that have happened between me and this family. It has caused, and continues to cause me, a great deal of grief and pain. If you then see this as me thinking I’m ‘right’ or ‘better’ than you, then I really don’t want to continue, thanks very much. You do not have a right to make me cry and ruin my entire day just because you are my parents. You make a huge issue of how I have made you cry at certain times over the last 2 years – you have made me cry MY WHOLE LIFE. It doesn’t matter what your culture is that you were raised in, or whatever – that is an excuse. Every time you bring it up, it is a way of saying that you are not responsible for your own behaviour and furthermore, it is another tactic that allows you to veer from, or ignore, what I am actually saying. I would think that when someone has been brought to tears and is crying, you would at least show some compassion, stop talking. No, clearly that is not even enough. It feels like you want me to be completely humiliated and broken, so that I will beg for forgiveness and come crawling back.

     Even what you describe as ‘caring’ frightens me, constantly assuming that I’m not able to look after myself or run my own household properly. Despite my telling you constantly that I will ask if I need your help, and telling you that I am getting on fine, you seem to insist on seeing me as incompetent. Is it that you WANT me to be that way? Or are your lives so empty that you can only get by obsessing about possible imaginary problems in your children’s lives? It strikes a very sour note indeed that while I, living in a happy, supportive, loving relationship with independence and freedom are a cause for concern, you (and I’m looking at you, here, Mum!) were all too happy to sit back and let your other daughters suffer in toxic situations without victimising them this way. You didn’t constantly imply that they couldn’t cook for themselves properly, although you DID impute every failure in their relationships – including abuse – to food and cooking.

     Mum, I think that you are a resentful, fearful, narcissistic shadow of a person whose whole life depends on what other people think of you. If there is some substance within you, it’s very little. You are fundamentally an empty, judgemental, tactless person with no sense of empathy whatsoever and a striking inability to take responsibility for yourself. Your need to be in the right is so powerful that you will twist anything and everything I say to you, simply not listen, or if something does somehow get through to you, make yourself a victim and say that I was rude, disrespectful, etc. etc. and that I should have ‘explained it differently’ to you because you are ‘old’ or whatever enfeebling implication you want to use. I realised the other day that you would probably have left one or all of us girls to be killed by a partner if it wasn’t for my dad. I really wanted to think that I was just being vindictive, but no, the evidence in how you behaved with one of my sisters was plenty. Do you know how it feels to realise that about the person who is supposed to be closest to you in the world? Sometimes I wonder that I’m still alive and here given how much you have criticised me and put me down.

     Other people’s children were always better, even when it meant you contradicting your own sexist beliefs about gender and housework. I was bad because I was ‘lethargic’ and ‘slow’, and ‘slow people are stupid’ – you certainly made sure I never forgot that during my primary school years! Then there was the time you told me that I would grow up to be a serial killer, and the constant denigration of my favoured hobby of reading. Everything I liked was always stupid or inadequate in some way – you even laughed and told me that I would be ‘penniless’ when I said that I wanted to be an artist aged 5. You were also quick to blame me for things being broken or not working, even up to a year or two ago when you did it AUTOMATICALLY and didn’t register it or respond even when my other sister (who’s not exactly my biggest fan) laughed and said ‘It wasn’t her!’ There could NEVER be a reason for any of my feelings, oh no. You had the handy catch-all of ‘jealousy’ for a long time because, hey, why not smear and dismiss the child who’s pointing out reality when you want to fawn over your golden boy? You told me when I was 11 that other family members liked him more because ‘he accepts love’. That’s right – how could I think it was anything but my fault if people didn’t fawn over me the way they did over him?

     Let’s not forget the constant focus on my appearance – my ‘beak’ nose, being too fat for you, my breasts being the ‘wrong’ size and of course, whenever I dressed how I wanted to, it was apparently for your amusement so that you could call me a ‘parrot’, ‘fashion-obsessed,’ laugh at and criticise me with the backup of my sisters. I find it very hard to feel love or respect for you, even though I see that you are intelligent on some level, can be funny and even show human emotion very occasionally. So many times I wanted to hit you, but that would have made me the weaker person. You are not worth it – you would still be awful and pathetic even if I punched you, it would just give you more fuel for your victim pyre. Your whole life is about fear, and like a toxic disease, you instilled it into all of your daughters. I should thank you, in a way, because I have learnt a lot from you and a core aim of my life is not to become like you. Your behaviour is enabled and reflected by the dysfunction of other family members, and I need to be compassionate, self-aware and brave so that I can take responsibility for my own life.

     Dad, I am much more grief-stricken by the relationship breakdown with you than with my mum. This is not some empty idolisation of the ‘absent parent,’ even though you were more distant than absent. I respect you, in that you strive to be honest and speak your mind with people. I know from what you have told us that you have experienced racism because of your looks, and I have seen it happen recently. I am proud of how well-known you are, and I do respect your achievements. We merely have a difference of opinion. You seem to think that anything I do to assert my own identity is some kind of personal insult. If I challenge your bigotry and racism? INSULT! How dare I disrespect you, and apparently responding to what you say directly is ‘imitating’ you... more disrespect... I don’t understand why your ego is so weak that a teenage girl disagreeing you would make you lose it like you did (and still do).

     You always say, these days, that I should have come and spoken to you whenever I fight with my mum, yet when I try to point out that I have done this in the past and it went disastrously, you harrumph that that was ’10 years ago.’ Well, sorry, but based on the way you continue to talk to me, I don’t see how anything’s changed! When I tried to talk to you as a teenager about the fact that I felt you had abandoned me to my mother’s hatefulness, you made it all about you and claimed I had said that you 'didn’t love your children’... ! Then, just to really add that touch of showmanship, you asked my mum (who was looking on smirking) to go get a knife to cut your wrists! What a classy way to behave before your fragile, vulnerable youngest daughter when she was trying to broach a very difficult and painful topic with you honestly. Things like this really detracted from the respect I had for you. It is painfully ironic, you were so obsessed with the ‘respect’ (read: total unquestioning hero-worship) that I apparently owed you, that bit by bit, I began to trust you and admire you less. DESPITE you constantly playing verbal Whac-a-mole with me for having the temerity to think for myself, I still respected you more than my mum because you are at least direct and upfront about what you feel. Your life doesn’t revolve quite so much around the opinions of others – you have your own opinions on things. You’re surprisingly less sexist than my mum.

     However, you have been perfectly fine to let things be as they are. You’ve never stopped twice to think about how your own need to feed your ego might harm others – whether as a result of your absence doing ‘community work’ or your constant slagging off and cutting down of anyone who disagrees with you, even your best friend. Ironic isn’t it, that you would constantly call me (and my siblings) ungrateful and disrespectful and guilt-trip us, when your behaviour is the same towards your so-called friends and your family? Maybe we needed our father more involved in our lives growing up. Changing a nappy here and there doesn’t make you a hero. Likewise, though my relationship with Mum is toxic, she has had to sacrifice so much of her personality and dignity to keep you happy. Anyone would be bitter in such a position. You were always fine to stroll in and join in with a telling-off or slagging session without stopping to think twice about whether it was justified. I was surprised and impressed when you rescued my sister from abuse, but really, do you not ever wonder whether it could all have been avoided if you’d just been more involved sooner? Your favoured child in our family, for a long time, seems to have been the TV.

     J- – I hate you the least of the siblings and probably least overall. You actually apologised for some of your behaviour growing up. I think that you are a coward and need to face reality over whether you will be a mother or not, so that you can stop trying to be Mother Teresa all the time (or go into it fully – one or the other would be nice). Your inability to decide riles others, who snap at you, and you snap back, which created a lot of unwelcome conflict for me growing up. I got to be the target for your displaced anger a lot (as well as everyone else’s!) and while you seemed to see that sometimes back then, you still do it now. I am not going to be your bullying victim. I am also not interested in your zealotry. Somewhat like Dad, you can’t handle it at all if people challenge what you think or even dare to exist near you whilst failing to comply with your private ‘rules’. It’s pathetic and you can be a total bitch, like when you are policing my gender/race/culture, as if my body, clothes or life in general is anything to do with you. NEWSFLASH – it’s not. If you can’t be kind and respectful, then I’m going to push you out. It makes me sad, because I really do care about you, and I fought the tide of Mum’s victim-blaming so long to stop you going under when you were vulnerable. Yet you show, time and time again, that you are so desperately enslaved by your need for Mum and Dad’s approval that you cannot, or will not, challenge their prejudices even when they creak under the weight of their own logical inconsistencies.

     Perhaps you are their original scapegoat victim; I know that Mum’s obsession with our bodies has left you with lifetime hang-ups and low self-esteem. I know that they blamed you for your beauty attracting weirdoes and I know that they probably came down on you really hard as the eldest, and one of the children born when they were younger and had more energy to interfere. However, I don’t see why I should forgive you for being a bitch to me. I didn’t do anything to deserve it when you and N- would get together and make comments about my body. Also, you like to throw your weight about and be the boss, but you were happy to be screwed over by Mum and Dad’s sexism without offering me any support whenever I fought with my brother. MAYBE, if you had sat down with me and let me know that you at least knew where I was coming from in my rage, things might have been different. Still, what can I expect from you? You have so little self-awareness that you’ve buried your head in the sand over major life decisions for nearly a decade despite how well you come across to others. I feel sorry for you, but you have destroyed any warmth or trust I felt towards you by constantly closing ranks against me. Keep chasing Mum and Dad’s approval for the rest of your life like the good little police dog you are!

     N- – You said I had ‘this coldness’ because of how I’ve distanced myself from the family... Well, sorry, but when you sold out and gave up being the one in the family with guts, I had to step in! I respect that you seem to have your own mind more than anyone else, but you’re basically a younger version of Mum – a bitchy martyr, deferring to your man even though he clearly DOESN’T need an ego boost. Unlike Mum, you ACTUALLY think you know it all. Congratulations, I guess on your assimilation. You like to bitch about everything all the time (just like Mum!) but you’ve adapted to your in-laws to the point that you expect us to dress to impress them even as you criticise them! Yeah, that makes so much sense! You have beautiful little children, who I love very much, but I worry about the superiority complex that you and your smug-ass husband will most likely give them, and that makes it easier to step away. I don’t know, or care, what you think of me because you forfeited that right to be considered by constantly criticising me growing up and dumping on me when I worshipped you and thought you were so brave and different. Like hell! I’ll miss your little ones, but I’ve enjoyed barely interacting with you – it’s so freeing. Your bitch energy has lessened of late, thanks to your children, but you’d better find another outlet to distract you from your often-unfulfilling marriage because you can’t stay knocked up forever. That is, unless you have four kids and then go back to becoming Mum, mk. II... Maybe you will, but you know what? I don’t care, you made your choice and you know it, which is why you complain all the time!

     G- – I don’t really feel like we know each other in any real sense. We just sort of drift past each other like ships in the night. To some extent, I know I was a bitch to you and (not that it excuses it), I was simply modelling what I’d seen and what was being done to me. Maybe that was why you relished joining in family gang-ups on me so much? You liked to call me ‘fat’ and ‘stupid’ and cyberstalk me and report back to the parents. I really genuinely hated your guts for a long time, because you were the Golden Boy. When I was little, it was because I was jealous – which Mum and Dad left me in the garden for, until I started crying and saying ‘Nobody loves me, nobody loves me.’ Later, it was because you were a spoilt, selfish, shallow little brat with no respect for ANYONE. I found it impossible to swallow how rules that were apparently stone-clad for everyone else could be flouted with impunity by you, and NOBODY DID ANYTHING.

     I kind of owe you, because it really laid bare my parents’ hypocrisy in full, and the disingenuousness of their ongoing claims that they ‘treated their children equally.’ Yeah, no. We all knew that you were the child that Mum wanted, and that my parents were hoping I would be (as she once told me!). They came down hard on us and guilt-tripped us, but you had the Teflon coating of entitlement, being the all-important Boy that Indian culture worships. You were an investment and they seemed desperate to show how much they wanted to invest in you at every opportunity. I think what really stunned me was that you could challenge them and you would more or less get your way – it was almost like they couldn’t really be bothered to get angry at you. You could make them listen, and you didn’t obsess about guilt and keeping them happy, whereas we couldn’t and we did. You could make them happy just by EXISTING, which is more than I could do. Ultimately, it’s more their fault than yours that we have not much of a relationship now.

     This open letter to all of you has been very useful as a way of underlining the issues I have with you which have destroyed my relationships with each and every one of you. You all toe a narrow party line, then seem surprised that I don’t want to speak to any of you. Well, gee, why would I be interested in people who:

          a)      Lack self-awareness

          b)      Lack empathy

          c)       Run their lives largely or entirely in accordance with the opinions of others

          d)      Constantly judge and bitch about other people while being nice to their faces?

These imply certain attributes, chiefly cowardice, lack of imagination, dishonesty and deceitfulness. Given everything I’ve detailed, why should I let you all live in my head, rent-free, as the saying goes? Why should you take credit for adhering to a minimum standard, i.e. feeding and educating me? Last I checked, education was a legal requirement in the UK, and frankly, expressing regret for having been ‘too liberal’ or whatever, is pathetic. You were lazy, not liberal – I pushed against your boundaries and worked to make the few gains that I have made. Other people would be so proud of having a child like me, and the fact that others that I have talked to have agreed with and supported me is proof that a) I am NOT making it up, exaggerating or oversensitive and b) YOU are the ones with the problem. Shocking though it is, many people manage to do what you did and give their children love, respect and nurturing. Also, asking to be treated like a human being rather than your whipping girl DOES NOT mean that ‘I think I’m right’ or ‘I think I’m better than you.’ Don’t project your inferiority complexes onto me, just because I can live without obsessing over other people’s opinions of me!

You are the ones who need to grow up, get over yourselves and get real.

No love,

KJB