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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 11 of 11. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by JLynn on March 21, 2005, at 22:33:39
My T suggested I write a letter
to my mother
who died almost a year agowhat do I say
how do I begin
what is the purpose
how will this help
I don't understand it
And the words wont come
I'm so angry
So many things she didn't do
Things she didn't see
Or chose not to
I love her
And I hate her
Then I feel guilty
This is torture
I want to scream
I want to break something
Hit someone
Be held
That's what I really want
I long for it
I crave it
I don't know that feeling
Never had it
But I push people away
when they get close
I fear rejection
while I long to be close to someone
what is wrong with me
why can't I be normal
I see all that I longed for
as a child
and even now
and I promise
to try to give my daughter what I never had
to let her know I love her
by my words
my actions
hug her
kiss her
hold her
and let her know it's okay to cry
to talk to her
and make her feel comfortable talking to me
so she will be happy
safe and secure
So that she will be able to express her feelings
Unlike her mother
and her mother before her
So now maybe I can write the letter
Tell her about all I missed
And all I am still searching for
the love I didn't feel as a child
just to be held
Posted by Damos on March 21, 2005, at 23:14:49
In reply to letter writing therapy?, posted by JLynn on March 21, 2005, at 22:33:39
Hi JLynn,
Don't know if this'll help but I wrote a letter a while back and I've attached the link below. Took 17 years to do it, and I didn't know how much I'd needed to do it until it was done.
http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/write/20050211/msgs/461407.html
Good luck
Posted by alexandra_k on March 22, 2005, at 4:24:05
In reply to letter writing therapy?, posted by JLynn on March 21, 2005, at 22:33:39
Yeah. I think that writing can be really theraputic.
You could write to her. Tell her all the things you would like to tell her if she was alive.
I don't know whether this helps...
But I like to think that when people die they understand everything. They aren't limited by their bodies and their bodies experiences anymore. So when they have died they understand.
I dunno.
But maybe you could tell her about how things were from your point of view.
How hard it was.
And maybe eventually you can come to understand it from her point of view too.
And eventually...
Peace
?
Posted by AdaGrace on March 22, 2005, at 16:28:03
In reply to letter writing therapy?, posted by JLynn on March 21, 2005, at 22:33:39
Your post has a very personal meaning to me. I feel as if my life turned south and spiralled to hell when my Mother died 6 years ago. Everything changed. Everything. Everyone's life was altered by her sudden death..... I too was advised to write a letter a few months ago when I finally went to therapy (one of the three actual visits I went to). But I didn't do it, I told the T that I had had many many conversations over the past 5 years with her, and I felt I had said everything there was to say, the only thing left for me to do was to carry on.
However, your loss is still fresh. Writing a letter might just be the thing for you. Try it.....see how it feels to say what you said here....
AdaGrace
Posted by rayww on March 22, 2005, at 22:19:35
In reply to letter writing therapy?, posted by JLynn on March 21, 2005, at 22:33:39
Writing is theraputic
but for the wrong reason.
My writing provides a conduit
through which pent up emotion
can run through
an escapeMy father is dead.
Why should I waste my emotion
on dead?
the block.So I skip over the block
Emote on projects
swing with ideas
immerse myself in work
feel passion about things
ignore the dead block
like it doesn't exist
the only real thing in my life
does not live
it is DEAD.
it will always be DEAD
and there is no way I am going to trust my emotion to DEAD.
take out the E and what does DEAD spell?
DADS are DEADA young girl's husband takes the place of her dead father
takes the place of DEAD?
so he is DEAD
In her mind, a DEAD block to emotion
Yet he feels passion for her
She discovers a bridge
and uses fantasy to skirt over the dead
and he is satisfied for a moment.but DEAD is DEAD and nothing can penetrate.
A passionate and emotional person
with no place to spill
except the first passerby.
she trusts the living
but not the DEAD.
and writing is not therapy.
it only opens the conduit.
Why can't she trust the DEAD?
How can DEAD live again
when it has not died yet?
Why won't she build a conduit
to her husband?
Because it is north north
and south south.
So, turn it around.
that simple.
Rein the galloping horse around
and love the man
not the project
or the position
or the thing.
love the man.
It's oK to love the man
He is not dead
He is not dad
He is not dead
He is not dad
Dad is DEAD
even though he lives on.
Denial won't work
he is actually dead
face it.
dad is dead.
dad is dead
dad is dead
dad dad dad
dad dad dad
not husband.
Posted by Damos on March 22, 2005, at 23:09:48
In reply to OK, here goes, hang on, posted by rayww on March 22, 2005, at 22:19:35
Posted by rayww on March 23, 2005, at 8:04:16
In reply to Re: I did it was worth it - thank you (nm) » rayww, posted by Damos on March 22, 2005, at 23:09:48
what was worth it? i thought it was horrible.
Posted by sunny10 on March 23, 2005, at 12:44:39
In reply to letter writing therapy?, posted by JLynn on March 21, 2005, at 22:33:39
do what you just did, except give yourself permission to let out all of that emotion DIRECTED AT/TO HER. Addresses to her. Give yourself permission to yell at her for "not seeing what YOU should have seen"- the YOU instead of SHE gives more power to your statement. It makes your writing a declaration of your rights instead of "talking it out"
That is the point. That is the only thing that separates the "venting writing" that you just did from the "letter writing therapy".
Try it again with "you" replacing "she" and post it again....
I think you'll be amazed at how you feel (good and bad) about the difference... More good than bad is usual- if you feel more "bad", take that feeling to your next T appt... That usually signifies to me that I feel guilty that I can't let go of the anger, and takes different work...
Can you tell I've done this, too????!
Posted by PM80 on March 28, 2005, at 16:38:52
In reply to letter writing therapy?, posted by JLynn on March 21, 2005, at 22:33:39
Wow. There are some really truthful thoughts here. JLynn and rayww, your words spoke to me. My mother has been dead for 8 years (to the month) and I feel some of what you each wrote deep down in my gut. I hurt too much sometimes when I think of it and I wonder how it is that I go about my life as if the day-to-day things hold any importance at all. It's a great big DEAD block that I cover with logic and fact so that I am not lost within. How can we make sense of the senseless? How can this be truth? What is existence if it ceases to exist? JLynn, do what you need to do now to be a whole person for yourself and your daughter.
"So that she will be able to express her feelings
Unlike her mother
and her mother before her"
Your opening up here and with your daughter IS the break from the cycle of silence of your past.
Posted by rayww on March 28, 2005, at 17:01:25
In reply to Re: letter writing therapy?, posted by PM80 on March 28, 2005, at 16:38:52
PM80 you write very poetically, and your message spoke to me too. Sometimes I wonder if my DEAD block is a scapegoat that keeps me from trying to do things I don't want to do. I guess I'll never know the truth of some things. The world needs people like us because we are more sensitive, so it tends to keep us really busy. So busy sometimes we don't have time to think about our loss. Maybe there is purpose in that too.
Posted by PM80 on March 29, 2005, at 6:50:32
In reply to Re: letter writing therapy? » PM80, posted by rayww on March 28, 2005, at 17:01:25
> PM80 you write very poetically, and your message spoke to me too. Sometimes I wonder if my DEAD block is a scapegoat that keeps me from trying to do things I don't want to do. I guess I'll never know the truth of some things. The world needs people like us because we are more sensitive, so it tends to keep us really busy. So busy sometimes we don't have time to think about our loss. Maybe there is purpose in that too.
Thanks. I don't have any good response for you or anyone on death. It does not seem to fit with the perspective we (most of us, anyway) have been raised to believe. Americans always think that we can do anything, overcome any odds. But that is not truth. Sometimes life is what it is and no amount of striving can alter the facts. I am always searching for a world/reality in which all pieces fit.Anyway, I've rambled away from the point of this thread. Sincere condolences to you JLynn. You will get through this, and you will not ever lose what you do have of your mom(memories, good character traits, etc.)
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