This is an imaginary letter that came to me after some of my work with sensitive children recently.
I wrote it but it represents what I’ve been seeing and sensing in them. ♥️
Dear Mum
I know you have high standards for me for a reason. I know and see you and dad want the best for me but sometimes I just need to stop, to take a break.
I see you trying and loving me, you and everyone. I see you trying but sometimes this pressure and expectation to be nice, good, well behaved (superhuman, it feels like) brings me down.
I get tired and I start to wonder what this living is about. I want to please you, really I do, but what about my joy and choices? What about my heart, my wishes for my day, my breakfast or life?
I am wanting to be here , I am. It just feels hard at times. Only hard. Only pressure.
Only trying to succeed, to please and to guess what others may be thinking, feeling, needing from me.
It’s ok to be me, I think and feel sometimes. Other times I wonder if you really see and feel me and what I think and feel.
I’m wanting to explore that and discover who I am and maybe what I can be but I can’t do that – or at least it feels harder to – if you try to hold and mold me so much and so often.
Could we just have a chat? A play? A walk? Could we just hang out, with no pressure?
Where I can speak freely and talk about what I’m interested in or wondering about (even if you don’t find it interesting). That actually helps me to hear myself, understand and know me at a deeper level too.
I’m growing. I’m changing – sometimes too fast for you, I know.
And I want to grow up, I do. It’s just sometimes all I want to do is just chill without pressure, without demands. Just being me. Being moody, silly, playful, tired, hungry, whatever…without correction or advice. To just hang out. To just do me.
You, you’re doing great. A bit bossy sometimes but I do mostly think you love me.
But could we or I just hang out sometime this week? Just you and me or me alone and just be, chat, play, whatever, please?
Nowhere to go, no-thing to be or achieve.
I could just kind of do with a break. Some fun, love, shouty or silly, whatever.
Just now. Just hear me. Please?
I’m not going anywhere. Not yet anyway. But I do need some independence. I want to explore the world (and that’s normal). And I do want to spend time with you (that’s probably normal too).
But when we clash – you trying to guide me and me trying to work out who I am without you, as a separate person – it can feel horrible. So I leave or, if that doesn’t feel like an option, I push you away with mean words.
I’m just trying to work out who I am and what, maybe, I could be. And it’s hard to do that with you leading.
I do love you, just give me a break, and some space. I’ll almost certainly come back even stronger, even freer, happier and more myself.
Of course, if you see I’m really low or getting lower instead please do get some extra support, probably from the outside. Maybe for you to while we navigate this journey together. It can be hard to see what’s happening or really useful when we’re in it.
I love you. Thank you.
Speak soon,
Your child.