Should I send this letter to my transphobic mum?
For context, two years ago I came out to my mum and it went horribly, she told my dad, he gathered the family in the dining table and said some pretty messed up things about me being trans, to be honest I don't know wich one of them was worse. My mum was especially concerned about me not being close enough to god so they both agreed to send me to a private catholic school (and they have the balls to complain about the cost), after that we've never mentioned the coming out incident. The letter probably needs a lot more context, but I don't want to make this too long. I also want to clarify that english is not our first language so I tried my best to translate.
The letter:
Mum, these past two years you have been avoiding the truth, I wonder if you do it on purpose or your ability to deceive yourself is so good that you can erase certain events from your memory completely. I honestly don't think you really don’t remember it, I remember it perfectly, how could I forget the first time I saw my father really cry, how could I forget the first time my heart broke.
I write this letter to clarify that your plans have not worked. Seriously, what did you think would happen? Because spending two years suffering so much doesn't make me want to suffer like this for the rest of my life. You may be strong enough to ignore your pain and dedicate your life to what you believe will take you to heaven, but I'm not, I actually choose to believe that if God truly loves me, he wouldn't let me go to hell just for trying to be happy, for wanting to be myself, after all he is almighty, so if I go to hell it is because he wants to, and I don't know if I want to pray for a God who would let people who don't hurt anyone fall.
I want you to understand that I love you, I love you both, I love you so much and I will always love you, believe me, I have tried to change that, I have tried to hate you, but it is impossible, that is why I know that leaving will be painful, but staying would hurt a lifetime. The reason I’m writing this letter is to make an offer, an offer to stay in my life, because mum, if I can't be your son, you can't be my mother.
I also want to tell you that I am sorry, I am very sorry because I know all the damage I have caused and it hurts me more that the reason for this damage are things that I cannot control. I'm so sorry that something like me showing up for who I really am is so painful to you, and I'm so sorry that I'm not able to put it aside for you. This time I’m putting myself first, but don't think that it doesn't hurt me, and don't believe that lie you tell me that it hurts you more, that's simply not true. How could something that shouldn't hurt you at all be so painful? What should hurt you is the discrimination that I suffer, the dysphoria that I suffer, the pain that I suffer, but instead you cry for the “loss of your daughter.” Where do you think I'm going, mum? I'm still here, but if you tell me the same things you told me two years ago then you will actually lose me.
I am also sorry that you have spent so much money with the intention of “normalizing” me and getting me closer to God, I just hope that you tell the truth to all that people that think that coming to this school was my whim, I hope that you tell them that you couldn't accept the circumstances and resorted to desperate measures regardless of how could that affect me, don't worry, I know you remember that at first coming here seemed like a good option to me, and when I say at first I mean the first hour of that idea being exposed, I want to remind you that that was before everything exploded and that afterwards I told you all my fears about coming here, you ignored them, and I was right, in the end what I feared most ended up happening. But hey, at least she’s not talking about being a boy anymore, right?
You forced me back into the closet, that place I wanted to get out of so much. Why else do you think I came out to you despite having everything against me? The months I spent without saying anything to anyone were spent with my soul on fire, my true self was eager to get out and now that I had finally discovered it, now that I finally had the answers to so many questions and everything finally made sense, I had to go back to that dark place. My original plan was to keep quiet and pretend to be a girl until I could leave, but that plan included not talking to you again, so I scrapped it, I'm not capable of doing something like that, but then I had to go back to that plan, except for one change, This time I’m giving you a chance, as many as you want in fact, all I need to hear is that you are willing to understand me.
Of all the things you said to me that horrible week when I came out, the one that stuck with me the most was probably this: “this way you will never be happy.” You always believed that you knew more about what was good for me, about what would make me happy. I wrote a text about this phrase shortly after:
“I put God as my witness that I will be happy. Don't worry about me, because I will make it, I will manage to survive in a house where I am not accepted, I will manage to pass two entire school years in which I don't think things will be easy, I will reach 18 and I will be able to leave home Immediately, I will be able to have a job, start projects and even begin my medical transition, I will return home a man, with my adult job, my shared apartment, my promising future and my beard, I will look my mother straight in the eyes and I will say: “I didn't know one could be this happy.”
Every time I read this I can't help but cry, my two years ago self had much more hope than me, he was prepared to face everything, he wasn't afraid of anything. Where did all that go? When did I lose him? But there is one thing I agree on, and that is that I know that this is the right path, that I know better than you what is going to make me happy.
I'm sorry for wasting these two years, I know it seems like I haven't tried, many times I think so too, but it's not true, I haven't been able to do anything else. I'm tired of hearing phrases that imply that my life will be ruined if I don't graduate from high school, because my life has already been ruined. I never saw myself capable of graduating, I knew I was going to collapse, I accumulated more and more weight on my back and the tension grew until I exploded. Now I'm recovering from that, or at least I'm trying, but it's going to take a long time. I don't know why you thought two years ago that I could recover in one summer and come back the next year as if nothing had happened. Every day I went to class on time, studied and went to sleep early, but inside I was dying little by little, thinking about the impossible of what I was doing, knowing that one day I would fall and not be able to get up. And on top of all this was the thought that I couldn't be myself, the hopelessness of having to live a lie my whole life, that no matter what I did I would always be unhappy inside.
I wonder if you will also “delete” this letter from your memory, I wouldn't be surprised, that seems to be your defense mechanism, which in vital situations is very impractical. Don't think you're the only one, almost everyone I've told has used that method, sometimes I think they really have been abducted and brainwashed like you say they did with me, if not they should seriously consider entering the world of acting.
Now that I'm 18, you could stop paying for me, it would probably be good for me to learn to be independent. I will find a way to survive and pursue my dreams, I also hope to find the courage that you took from me.
Love from your potential son,
my name,
P.S. I could have been named *name she would have given me if I had been born a boy* if you had wanted, I still didn’t have a name when I came out to you.
This is my first ever post on reddit and I have so many doubts about it, idek if it's the right subreddit to post this in, but I really want advice on this, should I send it? If yes, shoud I change something about it? Should I try a different aproach? Please help.
Posted Jun 23, 2024, 2:14 AM UTC