Dear Mom & Dad:

Mom and Dad, the reason you are receiving this letter is that I prefer to get out all that I have to say at once.

It seems that I have been going through some changes internally. They feel like healthy changes. I need some space from you both for a while. I don't know for how long, but this is necessary for me. I don't feel good about myself when I am around you. I don't feel good about you when I am around you.

Mom, to me, it feels as though you think I am still a child, even though I am nearly forty years old. Although you tend to have good days and bad, you are still not stable or predictable enough for me to feel like I can relax around you.

The minute I open up my feelings about something, or about my life troubles, instead of offering some encouraging words or a hug, I am deluged with unsolicited advice. I'm not completely broken, I can fix things myself: you would do me some credit if you could see that.

It also bothers me that I cannot disagree with you, or if I don't take your advice you take it personally. I feel invaded sometimes, because you come swooping in, even when I don't need rescuing. My belief is that it is because of things that happened to you in your childhood. Then you don't seem to understand that you have over-stepped boundaries or behaved inappropriately.

You can't seem admit to yourself to reality that you are in the wrong: instead you only feel the hurt of rejection. You don't tell dad what you did to solicit a negative reaction, you only tell him how you felt when that person reacted negatively to your unwanted behaviour. And he always takes your side: this has always felt like a kind of betrayal, at least to me. Some things you hide so deeply that you do not see them in yourself anymore. Instead you seem to see them in everyone else. If you'd listen, you'd hear a voice within yourself wanting so badly to help yourself, but you don't. You ignore yourself, but see in yourself what needs fixing in everyone else's life instead of your own. This drives people away. I think you would benefit from therapy, as I have done.

It opens up some old wounds, but it's part of the cleansing. It's so much healthier than ignoring it, pretending that you are invincible and nothing can hurt you. I was like you. I never admitted to myself that I was worthy of standing up for. People would treat me terribly, and I would take it and take it. Like I did so well when I was a child, I buried the feeling of hurt and pain so deeply.

Now I am feeling everything a lot more. I let myself feel when you tell me things that upset me. I still don't let on when you act inappropriately, because I have learned from the past that you won't listen. I have tried to tell you so many times before, but again, you are blind to your own issues and always the finger points back onto me - I was tired, or I was menstruating, or you misunderstood what I meant. However, this unshielding of my real feelings, paradoxically, allows me to protect myself.

I feel a lot of anger that I have to deal with. Some of it, fairly or unfairly, is directed at you. Some of it is directed at Dad. Some at Ward. Some of it is at Everything that led up to what happened with Ward... That is to say, the whole Chain Reaction: alcohol, hiding mental illness/pedophilia in our family. It's a bit overwhelming, but yet at the same time it feels really really freeing, because I'm FEELING something. I may be flawed, but I'm not fake. I'm leaving my safe nest. I feel a bit awkward, and a bit panicky sometimes, but there always seems to be a branch below me upon which to rest if I can't keep my altitude.

Dad, although you perhaps didn't mean to, you have been engulfed by mom's strong personality. You have strength, somewhere deep inside, but you don't seem to want to use it. I think you fear losing mom. This passiveness doesn't help you, nor does it help mom or me. I really needed someone to stand up for me. Instead you took her side. I really needed you. Instead you ran away.

So, for now, I would like you both to mull what I have written over. Talk to each other about it. Remember that I say this in the most loving way you can imagine. Mom, I'm your daughter, but I don't know if I've ever had a mother-daughter relationship with you. But your idea of what a mother/daughter should be seems to differ so far from what my vision is.

A mother, to me, is someone who mentors, who encourages. Mother may judge what her daughter looks like, who she's married to or hangs out with, what she wears or what she eats: but Mother doesn't comment on these things directly to her daughter or to her other family members. If you can't say something nice, or think something nice, no one is really going to benefit from hurtful or arbitrary comments. A mother respects her daughter's space and doesn't give unsolicited advice. A mother respects her daughter and lets her make her own decisions.

A landlord is not a mother. If we had a normal Landlord relationship, there were several times I would have reported you to the Rentalsman in the last few years. You, on the other hand, would have made speedy repairs and not told us to pay for minor repairs, nor would you have asked us to spy on your other renters, or contact them for you. You also would not tell someone you are renting from on how they should shower. You do not honour contracts with us. Yet you offer us 'gifts' that turn out to be more of a contractual/conditional cage. You also are know to change your mind and change the rules to your own advantage later on.

This type of relationship needs to stop. It's enmeshment. David and I need a break from this. Wait until (specified date) and we will call you. If you attempt to contact us first, we will extend the date by another (specified time). We don't want you calling us every week or every month. We need a clean break: an alotted time where we can sort out everything emotionally without any interference, no matter how well-meaning, from you or dad.