I have a category on my list to the right of this post called “Impossible Letters.” I wrote such letters for many years, each time making a case for kindness, consideration or decency, once all other appeals for these things failed. I recognized, as I toiled over these pages, trying to get each phrase to ring just right, that the letters were impossible, that the most gently worded, generous, most persuasive, moving case I could present would change nothing. Nonetheless, I continued writing these impossible letters well into the start of old age. I almost never heard a peep in response to any of these letters, but of course, I was complaining, no matter how gently — and now in writing! — about not getting a human response, so the person I was writing to was too defensive to dignify my letter with an acknowledgement.
I’m done writing these letters. If you have to write a letter setting out why you require basic decency, you might as well stick a feather up your ass, dip the end in ink, and write your letter that way. It seems simple beyond needing an explanation, if a doctor, let’s say, treats you carelessly, dismisses your medical questions, claims to have answered them all already (even if you never discussed those concerns with him) NO LETTER IS GOING TO CHANGE THIS. In fact, the letter will make you an avowed enemy to the vain doctor, a threat, if the letter is written well. Plus, nobody is paying the doctor to read your whining prose.
Amazing that it took me so many years to understand this simple concept: if something is emotionally impossible for someone to give, it is emotionally impossible. That doesn’t mean you aren’t raising entirely reasonable concerns, or expressing basic human things that virtually anyone would agree with. It means, if the person you’re writing the letter to has already demonstrated, over and over, that they will not cede any ground to make things better, the best letter anyone could compose will only make matters worse.
Here’s the big discovery. There is a certain personality type that cannot be wrong, must blame others when they are wrong, and will fight to the death if the person they blame refuses to take all responsibility for conflict. This type is immune to persuasion since they are compelled to do these things, by a terror of humiliation based in childhood trauma and shame. Not every traumatized child winds up this way, in some people being abused actually fosters empathy later in life, but people who cannot be wrong or ever admit hurting others are this way because they were damaged as young children. They can’t help themselves. As long as you are always agreeable, avoid anything that makes them uncomfortable, make them laugh when things get tense, are conciliatory at all times, you need never see the implacable side of these relentless motherfuckers. Once they sense you have some kind of issue or problem with them, the game is on and you must either submit to an irrational narrative (like a conflict is caused solely by one party — you) or it is a fight to the death.
Is there any universe where it makes sense to write letters to someone like this? None that I know of. The only use for a letter to one of them is to show that you understand the unwinnable game you are now in, increase their defensiveness, fear, anger and make sure their brittle vanity ensures they will never contact you again. I take pleasure in doing this as politely as possible, on the rare occasion that I need to write one last impossible letter. There is a certain sweetness in crafting a cold ending like this one, to a very old woman, a onetime friend of my mother’s, the mother of a childhood friend I haven’t seen in years, who angrily insists I have to forgive people no matter what I think they’ve done to me:
When you raised your voice to me a few months back, in response to something you didn’t want to hear about your son, and told me to “be quiet and listen! You’re not going to get the last word!” that should have been the last time I talked to you. Like your son, you mistake my good will and calm manner answering questions about my health for some kind of deep friendship.
Then I took a red crayon and drew a small heart, in the matter of an angry Christian, wishing somebody a facetious “have a blessed day”, under which I wrote my name one last time.
gratuitousblahg 