Today, my dad, Dan Hogan, sent me a short email that illustrates many of things he does wrong.
Over the last four years, my dad would sometimes write mean things in emails, and I would warn him that if he persisted, then I would create an email rule to automatically delete his emails. Each time I warned him, he would back off. A few months ago, I created a rule to automatically archive his emails, so I would not see them unless I wanted to see them. Then we had a lovely discussion (sarcasm), and I finally created a rule to auto delete his emails, and I told him I created the rule.
He sent me an email today, and I received it because he purposely used an alternate email address so that my email rule would not automatically delete his email.
Some ways that his email is completely inappropriate:
- What was the purpose of the email? It could not have been to make me feel better because I already made it very clear that he was bad for me. He sent the email to make himself feel better. I am going through a very difficult period, but he brags about being in the top 2% of income in the US and he claims that he I am not well enough to make my own decisions but he is well enough to make my decisions for me. Despite that I have very little and am struggling while he is wealthy and not struggling, he is trying to make me help him to feel better about himself. I am not in a position to help him, but he is demanding that I do it.
- He has a successful business that teaches people about boundaries, but he completely ignored the boundary I had set. I am trying to build a life, to avoid sleeping on the streets, and I do not have even have enough money for medicine. I set a boundary–no communication with him–but he disregarded it.
- He claims that he loves me, but his actions and words are abusive–not loving. The last few years have been confusing to me because a few people, including my dad, have told me that they love me but then they watch me suffer even though they could help me. It is sick to say to someone, “I love you, but I will not help you. I will violate your boundaries and demand you give me support even when you have nothing.”
- There are real consequences to his actions. I have been saving my last one-half dose of diazepam for an emergency. His email arrived during the middles of a couple of other stressful events and it took all my strength to not crawl under the bed and instead take the last of my anti-anxiety medicine. What little safety-net I had is now gone because he intentionally violated a boundary I had set so that I could try to heal.
