Age: 38

Bulimia

You're not going to like reading this letter, but my therapist and I agree that it's important for me to write it.

That's right. My therapist. I've been in therapy for two years now. Don't get me wrong. I don't consider you bad parents. I recognize that you sacrificed a lot of things you probably would have liked so that you could bring up a big family like ours. But I have also finally allowed myself to accept the fact that besides learning values and other good life lessons from you, I also learned some really unhealthy interpersonal skills.

Dad, it was very difficult for me to admit to myself that I had your temper. I always hated it when you would come home in a bad mood and take it out on everybody. Do you have any idea how ridiculous you looked doing things like the way you used to "clean" out the refrigerator? It's just not normal to sit in front of it and throw dishes of food at the sink. Seeing you do that was hard for me as a kid, but even worse was the feeling of anger, helplessness and unfairness when you informed us that we were to clean up the mess you had made.

And I remember all the times you had the bunch of us working half a day at cleaning up something that you'd noticed when you were tired or pissed off about something else. I realize the house was sometimes a mess, but there would have been better ways to deal with it than to stomp around for a few hours issuing orders and yelling at everybody. And we always knew you were just doing it as a way of letting out your anger. You used to tell us we were lucky you didn't drink or hit us when you were in that mood.

Well, the things you did do were damaging in their own way. I always just wanted to run away at times like that. I really hated you then, and hated myself for hating my father. I felt so controlled, so helpless. And I hated feeling that way. I had to find ways to be in control.

And for some reason, I found my way to have control in the person who was taking control away from me. I learned to be just like you. I always wondered why I couldn't keep a relationship going. It was because I was impossible to live with! Something would get on my nerves and I'd have a temper tantrum. I didn't think about the fact that I'd never wanted to be around you when you had one of yours, why should anyone want to be around me when I was having one of mine? The difference was that I was a kid then. I was trapped in that house and had to just deal with it until it was over. People in relationships can just leave if it gets too bad. And they did.

And Mom, you let him get away with it for far too long. Couldn't you have stood up to him and said, "Joe, you're behaving like a child. Just go to your room until you cool down and can treat the rest of us with some respect."

What you taught me, Mom, was that when one person is having a temper tantrum, the other person's job is to placate. I hated watching you follow Dad around fixing things he was bitching about, making us do what he said, kowtowing to him so that he'd calm down faster. It was demeaning. And couldn't you see that you were allowing him to keep acting like that? You were making it easy for him to be a bully. You were feeding him exactly what he wanted.

When he's like that he needs to feel in control, in charge; he needs to see people doing his bidding, sucking up to him. And we all did. But we at least had an excuse. We were only kids. But you could have stopped it. You could have told him to take a flying leap and come back when he could act like a human being. But you never did; you just made his tantrums work for him.

And while all this was going on, at some point I must have decided that these were the two ways to be, and if I had to be one of them, I'd rather be the one having the fit than the one dealing with the fit. While I was unconsciously learning to be like Dad, I was, also unconsciously, learning to expect the people around me to take your part and do whatever I wanted so that I'd be able to calm down. The problem was that most of the people I dated hadn't learned your part and wouldn't cooperate with my little drama. So as a rule they didn't stick around long.

I feel very fortunate that Becky loves me enough that when she decided she couldn't put up with that treatment, instead of leaving as the others had, she decided to help me get over it, to try to undo what I'd learned. I'm really a lot happier with myself now that I've admitted what I was doing. I used to look at Joe or Vicki and think "How awful that they got Daddy's temper. They'll have a really hard time about that later." I just couldn't see it in myself for a long, long time.

I still feel some anger that learning those behaviors caused me so much pain along the way, but the behaviors are gone now, I'm happy with my life with Becky, and I expect the anger to leave, too. However, a new and far more agonizing problem has cropped up in the past several months.

I've binged, mostly on sugar, or starved myself for a long time – since I was a little kid – because food intake was something I could control in a life where I didn't really feel like I had much control. Eating was something I could do or not do, something that no one else could dictate. (Remember all that weight I lost my Junior year of high school? It was because I was anorexic. All I ever ate was what you saw me eat at dinner and I only ate that because I knew I'd have to fight with you if I didn't.)

Once I started college I went back to binging and have never stopped. Recently, I've gone over the edge into purging. You have no idea how it feels to eat ice cream until you feel sick, then drink syrup of ipecac and spend the next couple of hours on the bathroom floor throwing up. I do know how it feels. I've done it. I spent a long time being mystified as to why this suddenly started happening. What could possibly have triggered it?

Now I've realized what it is. I am under an incredible amount of stress concerning Vicki's wedding. I want to be at my sister's wedding. I'm happy as I could be for her. But every bit of discussion, preparation, anticipation, as well as those two weeks when I'll be home for the wedding – all of it is a constant reminder that my parents refused to even come to my wedding, that they (my father, mostly) refused to even accept that it existed. I am happier than I have ever been in my life, happier than I ever could have dreamed it would be possible to be, and it's not something I can share with my parents. I spent my whole life trying to do everything so that you'd be proud of me. Everything I worked for, everything I accomplished, was because I wanted to be your good girl. And because of something that I have no control over, I've lost that. I did not decide to be a lesbian. I tried not to be because I knew you wouldn't like it and I couldn't bear to have you disapprove of me. But it doesn't work like that.

I am a lesbian. Trying not to be wouldn't be fair to me or to any man I married, or to any children I would have with him. One of the good things I grew up with was the fact that my parents truly cared about each other. I could not have given that gift to my children. I could not have felt about a man the way you two feel about each other. I tried. I really did. I just couldn't.

I don't feel guilty about being a lesbian. I do feel guilty about not being able to be what you wanted me to be. That was all I ever wanted, to have you be proud of me. That night I told you, you were sitting there talking about how friends of yours want their children to live the lives they want for them instead of the lives the children are happy with. That seemed like a perfect opening for something I'd wanted to talk to you about for a long time. I thought you meant it. You really seemed to think that a child's happiness was what mattered. Well, I AM HAPPY. All I want is for you to be happy for me. And the night I told you I was getting married, you turned your back on me. What was supposed to be the best day of my life, one I'd waited for 35 years, had a cloud over it because you wouldn't be there.

And now I'm expected to watch you "getting into" Vicki's wedding, and I just can't do it. It hurts too much. Oh, I'll be there for Vicki. I can't do to her what you did to me. But I'm going to have to avoid the two of you as much as possible. In fact, I feel that I'm growing further and further from you in general. And that hurts, too. I don't like to stay at the house when I visit because I need space to just leave when things get tense. It's hard to be there and have to watch everything I say and do so that I don't remind you that I'm a lesbian. and I definitely can't stay there in July. Sometimes I really don't care if I ever come to visit again except there are people in town who can accept me the way I am, and I wouldn't want to never see them anymore.

It's not easy to spend the first half of your life trying to please someone and the second half knowing you never, ever, will be able to. I thought I'd accepted that, but I guess not. As a result, I feel this loss of control that used to make me try to control the people around me, usually by anger. But because I've recognized that the temper thing is not who I want to be, I guess I had to come up with some other way I could be in control. So I eat, and sometimes I throw up. I don't yet really understand why the two are connected because I sure don't feel in control when I'm stuffing food in my mouth long after I stop being hungry, even after I start to feel sick from being overfull, but I know they are. I just hope I can put it all behind me before I'm as big as a house or completely ruin my health.

Your Daughter,
Becky