Letter to my Sister (not to send)

[Hope66]

Letter to my Sister (not to send)

Here I am 43 years since I last saw you, and 1 year since I was able to locate you and communicate with you – and today I'm writing you a letter in a forum, which I don't intend to send to you, because currently I don't feel able to communicate these things to you – for fear of damaging our already fragile relationship.  But at the same time, I want to 'get these feelings out' and 'express them' – so that they don't keep going round in my head.

So this is why I'm writing this today – and I don't intend to send this to you, just use the opportunity to 'offload' my thoughts and feelings, and 'say some things' to you in this letter.

I suspect that Little Hope will probably speak up and tell her feelings on things, more than Adult Hope, because she is the one who felt abandoned when you left and decided to live with our Grandparents.  You'd also fought our parents, and not complied with the things they expected of you, which caused you much pain and distress.  They sent you away to several care homes for much of your childhood, and I know from what you've said to me, that you felt better there than in the family home.  You had a terrible experience at home, and I am so sorry that you had to endure so many awful things.

Whilst you acknowledged that I was kept as a 'caged bird' without freedom and stifled and smothered – you thought I was essentially ok – you didn't look back when you left.  Why would you – we had never been allowed to have a relationship – we weren't allowed to talk to each other very much – just snippets now and then if we were in the car when our mother went into a shop. 

My memories of you are so few – and the ones I have are fragmented – just small segments of a jig-saw puzzle, and it's been helpful to communicate with you, and put some of those pieces together to form a coherent picture.  Thank you for that, and thank you for listening to me – and I hope you have felt similarly listened to in response.

I have been shocked at the experiences you had – and I know you were similarly shocked by some of my experiences, when I told you about them – but essentially whilst we understand and comprehend these things at some levels – we attribute different causes to those things – i.e. you think our parents are 'controlled by the dark side' and that they are 'sadistic' and 'evil'  and I wonder about other 'reasons' – maybe generational trauma – patterns of estrangement across the generations – that has become evident when I've looked in our ancestry.

You don't 'trust' my background – because you see me as 'educated' and you tell me that you think of school as a form of 'brain-washing' – and you've asked me not to use my education against you.  I would never do that, but the very fact you said that to me, makes me think that perhaps you have found my way of thinking to be annoying or in conflict with your own.    I know that I tend to look for causes and reasons, and I do intellectualise things – and think about them in my head – mentally churning things around, and I try to use rational thought when I can – you have studied other ways – and relate to a completely different belief system – I won't go into detail about it, because you know what you believe, and I think that many people would find it hard to comprehend.  I told you that I respect your beliefs, but at the same time, I do not share them.  We fell out about this for a time, but we are writing again.

I think that you've been passive aggressive in some of your recent communications to me – and I've tried to avoid those parts in my replies, as I fear that we will 'fall out' again if we discuss them.  I've even felt as if I want to shut down communication and distance myself from you – for my own preservation, and I wonder if you feel the same way sometimes?  Again, I fear to ask you about this, as I'm not sure how you'll react.

The last thing I want to do is hurt your feelings, or bring you any distress – and at the same time, I want to protect myself too.  Hence I tread carefully in my newly found relationship with you. 

To be honest, I don't really know how to proceed, apart from cautiously.  But maybe that is the best way.

It's helped to write this here, because hopefully I can review my thoughts and feelings about this at a future date, and see how things have progressed and what has happened.

If anyone has read this letter, then thank you – and if you want to comment – I welcome comments – but only if you want to, and just knowing you've read it and taken interest enough to do so, is validating to me.  Thank you.

Hope ☺

[Three Roses]

Really clear expression of the issues as you see them! Way to go!

[Hope66]

Thank you Three Roses - I felt greater clarity for having written it.   

[Sceal]

Dear Hope,
I hope that you and your sister will find ways to communicate better as time pass. Good for you for expressing your thoughts and feelings. 

[Hope66]

Thank you so much, Sceal.  I really appreciate your reply  :-)

[Hope67]

Dear Sister,
Here I am again writing a letter to you (not to send) in the hope that writing out my thoughts and feelings will help me to make sense of them, and to be clearer of a way forward.  I have just re-read the letter I wrote at the top - and at that time we were still in communication, but there were clearly difficulties between us - and of course, you know that our communication broke down, and that we've not communicated for about 9 months now.  Although you forwarded me an E-mail on the weekend from that conspiracy theory guy you admire so much - so this is what I'd like to write to you (although I won't be sending this to you):
"Dear Sister,
I received the E-mail that you forwarded to me, from the Conspiracy theory guy, and I noticed that you didn't write anything yourself, you purely forwarded me information from that guy.  I thought that was quite insensitive, because we fell out about this issue previously, and haven't communicated since.  Yet you just 'out of the blue' forward another communication that is from that guy - and which you must realise would be something I wouldn't wish to receive - as I don't share your views/beliefs, and have expressed my waryness of them. 

Yet at another level, I think that maybe you believe the things he says at such a level that you just thought it was so important to pass the information onto me - but even then, I think it shows a lack of consideration of my thoughts and my feelings. 

You know that our FOO didn't consider our thoughts and feelings, and the last thing I want to do is end up with a sister who does the same thing.

It's going to be your Birthday soon, and I remember how thrilled you seemed when I sent you a Birthday card previously - afterall it was the only one I've ever been able to send you.  I was happy to be in contact with you at the time, and to learn about your life and why you had chosen to live with our Grand-parents all those years ago.  You escaped - and although your life has been tough and challenging, you are currently happy - with your new family - and I am pleased for you.

I wish that I could be more accepting of your beliefs, but the thing is that although I tried to accept them as part of you, I felt that you were becoming passive-aggressive towards me, and that you continually wanted me to get involved with what you believe in - and there's no way I want to do that.  I actually think it's like a cult - and I feel like I've escaped my own cult - having lived for decades under the control of my FOO - you said yourself that you wanted to escape from them at the first opportunity you could - and that you felt I was left like a caged bird.  I did feel like a caged bird, unable to express my own stuff.  Always treading on egg-shells to appease my FOO.

I'm hoping that writing this letter here today will give me some sense of clarity about whether to contact you again.  To be honest, if I think about what I 'want' to do - I think that most of me is concerned - and as I write this, I can feel different parts of me are telling me - whatever you do, don't communicate with her again.  You won't be able to cope.

That's interesting - I hadn't expected to feel that quite so strongly during the process of writing this - but it is there - loud and clear in my head.  I will listen to those views - but I will also re-read this letter again in a couple of days to see how I feel.

There is still plenty of time till your Birthday - so I can think about it some more."

Hope 

[Hope67]

Dear Sister,
Another letter to you (not to send) - although it surprises me that I'm deciding to write this right now, as I hadn't intended to - but now I've noticed this post and feel I want to write to you here.
Your Birthday has been and gone, and I didn't acknowledge it - even though there were parts of me that wanted to - there were other parts which felt it wasn't healthy for me - and so Adult Hope didn't send anything, and I've not had contact with you for many months now.  I took a break from the internet for much of September - and that was good for me not to check your Facebook posts - but I must admit that I did pop by to see if you'd acknowledged your own Birthday there - and you hadn't.  That was a surprise - but at the same time, I don't really know you.  So maybe you don't acknowledge it normally.
I feel completely non-emotional as I write this to you now - and that's characteristic of times when I write - at least sometimes - it's not always the same, and I wonder which part of me is driving me to write this here and now. 
I used to be unable to even say the word 'sister' without crying - but that was because I didn't utter that word for decades - and had to deny your existence, and infact you were never mentioned - most of the time by my FOO. 
I feel some emotion coming through now - because part of me is upset at not being able to acknowledge you and your Birthday - that part does feel upset - she wanted to reach out to you, to love you as a sister, and to have you as a special part of my life.  She brings a large lump to my throat, and tears to my eyes - I feel her strongly now.  But then the feeling gets 'pushed down' - and fades, and the emotionless side once again takes over.  That's what it feels like - a rush/wave of emotion, and then it's gone...
Sometimes I re-read the letters that we wrote to each other during the year we were in contact - I know they were E-mails, but I think of them as 'letters' as somehow that feels more personal and special.  I found it really challenging to write to you - but I also felt a compulsion to do so - and you wanted to write daily - and it was exhausting in the end.  It was like we had been apart so long, and then finally communicated, and we both just splurged our feelings and thoughts to each other - but then I felt as if you were trying to control me, and pull me into the side of your world which is so unlike my own - which felt cult-like and weird. 
I did try to be open-minded and accepting, but you weren't accepting of my wish to stay separate and not get drawn in - you wanted to draw me in - that's why I didn't stay - why I couldn't maintain the communication - I also felt there were parallels with other dysfunctional things - and it felt like it was getting toxic, and I felt like I'd get swallowed up.
My language here is fascinating me - because it's themes of lumps in my throat, swallowing - and I don't know what that means.  But I want to notice it, and just note it here in this letter.
I hope to re-read this at a later time, as I feel sure some more emotional connection will come - I am finding that I process things better when I have some distance - some time - and so that is what I'll do.
Hope