Hello Mom,
How are you? I suppose I might not hear it but also I'll always be interested in your answer. I'm writing this just after the Couple's Shower in January of 2020. I have a lot of things on my mind that really don't line up with what we're all talking about. Some of those things have to do with our family, some of them have to do with how I'm living, and some of them have to do with religion. Those are some touchy subjects and I suppose that is why I only now am saying something.
Some of those touchy subjects involve a lot of abuse: physical, emotional, financial. So let's start with that last one. Have you ever made a promise you know you can't keep? This comes across as an accusation but you either have made promises you can't keep or you had no foresight at all. I remember going to our homeschooling system where the goal was to strive for different colored stars, blue was a buck, red was for a fiver, and gold was for a twenty. I earned $383 in that system, or at least that's what I was owed. I remember I had been saving money from Fareway in an account you and my father had access to because "We need to manage our risk." It turns out it was I who had to manage my risk. On numerous occasions, you, half of my parental unit, removed money from the account to help with bills without talking to me. One time, you called me at school and asked to take $350 out to help pay the mortgage. That left me with 88 cents. I said yes because you promised to pay it back and of course you're my parents, I didn't feel I could say no. You might say, hey I paid you back for that stuff with gifts and loving things. That's not how agreements work, you say you'll take money to give money back later. I never got money back later and we never arranged any other means of paying it back and at 16 with my first job I would have expected you guys to at least offer some good faith but when have I ever had a reason to trust you on financial affairs. When it came to this wedding I'm having I actually did assume I would get no help from you guys but that you would make all the demands in the world. I was wrong and that made me more reasonable. I had to invite a child rapist to my wedding in return for a paltry contribution of $1,000 and the ability to choose whatever I want for the suits at the wedding. Your contribution of $1,000 was nice to put toward rent, good to have. The threats from father about me not being comfortable with a child rapist being at my wedding were pathetic, unnecessary, and childish. I suppose that brings me to my next issue.
So much emotional abuse. It's hard to talk about it but it is evidenced in all the symptoms and evidenced by my parental unit's structure. I hate cleaning in front my people. I hate the idea that someone will start yelling at me for making a mistake or messing up. I suppose this is another "weakness" that father would point out, why don't I just get over it? Need I cite the thousands of studies on the effects of emotional abuse on children and the implications of constant pressures to do the right thing with no room to learn or understanding? I suppose you don't care either way. When father says it's a weakness to not like being yelled out, or like cleaning in front of people, or that I always listen for footsteps when I'm on my computer I always grin because it really is his issue that I resulted to be like this. Nature never really gets a chance when nurture is completely awful. When a father doesn't know how to love anything other than his legacy it is difficult to see how he doesn't take better care of his kids. When I wet the bed and I wasn't allowed to eat breakfast I realized it was something I couldn't control. In my research, it turns out that stress really encourages nighttime pissing. It decreases the ability to control all body functions, including the bladder's function. So by not letting me eat and making me stress out all the time about my night times you made the problem worse. I remember a recent conversation we had when you said and I quote, "Don't abandon everything just because it was how you were raised." That was hilarious! You mean constantly yell at my wife? You want me to tell my kids I'll pay for their college, car, and pay them back for taking their money previous and then not do any of that? Would you like me to replicate the part where you would yell at us to clean the house as quickly as possible so that my father wouldn't come home and switch us for the slightest thing wrong? Would you like to replicate the homophobia, islamophobia, racism, and sensitivity? Or were you talking about the part where I don't make all of the decisions in my home because I actually work in cooperation with my wife instead of apart from her? Did you want me to hit my kids when things happen that you don't like even if it's not their fault? No, you actually just didn't like that I wanted to live my life spontaneously instead of through "risk management" which is the least living way to live. What blindness.
I live my life as I would prefer. I'm bisexual because that's what I am. I am pretty much agnostic? I mean what good is a God who doesn't write a scientifically accurate book? What good is a God who thinks people need to have faith when faith is just believing something you can't prove? That is just assinine. Religion itself varies by region and people and what good is a God who is region-locked, what value to us is he? Oh and by the way, if you don't believe in him you're going to hell to burn in a lava lake for eternity. What child wrote that story and how you are able to believe in it baffles me.
Many people I tell my childhood to ask how I turned out normal, I turned out normal because I was smart enough to see the abuse for what it was, I read as many books as I could, I watched YouTube, I saved what money I could, and most importantly, I thought you guys were bullshit a lot sooner than my brothers and sisters. Either way, thanks for giving me milk because I was a year old and ruining my kidneys. If this letter comes across as angry, it's because I am angry.
Noah
