Claudia: What you're about to hear are the key parts of a one time unscripted session with a real person whose name has been changed for confidentiality. Please note, this episode contains references to discriminatory behavior, emotional and physical abuse and strong language, which may not be suitable for everyone.
Hello, this is How Did We Get Here? with me Claudia Winkleman and my very fantastic friend clinical psychologist, professor Tanya Byron. We look at some of the struggles faced by people and their families. I listen in while Tan gets to the heart of the issue and then we discuss what has unfolded in the middle and at the end. We're using a remote video link so there may be some distant background noise from time to time. Sorry about that. 
This time we meet Annie. She's married with a two year old son. Annie’s parents divorced a number of years ago. Annie lost her mother in 2015 and the difficult relationship she has with her eldest brother and younger sister intensified. Annie has always had a challenging relationship with her father. She thinks his cultural expectations of her are at the heart of their rift. 
Annie: Up until this morning, I would probably, if I'm being really honest, I would have classed him just as a bad person, but is he? I don't know. 
C: Let's go and meet Annie.
C: Can you tell me why, why you're here?
A: I lost my mum about five years ago, which obviously is always monumental and hard. So I've got, um, a brother and a sister. Well, we just don't speak like as a family, I feel like she really knitted it together. Obviously it's always hard to lose a parent, particularly for me, my mum and I were very, very, very, very close and then I think on top of that, when an explosion within the family happens, you always hear people say like it can make or break a family death and things like that. And unfortunately, we were like the ultimate break. Particularly with my younger sister. Like you just naturally feel very responsible, don't you?
C: Yeah. 
A: Particularly with your mum gone I just want to kind of be that but, you know. 
C: Can we go back? Tell me about, how, your family makeup when your mum was here?
A: My dad and my mum got divorced when we, I was about 13 maybe and my sister was like maybe 10 and my brother, like 15, 16. She had breast cancer. And my dad obviously felt that was a good time to leave. Um, when she did pass away, things became very complicated.
C: Complicated how?
A: So when my mum and dad got divorced, the bone of contention for my dad was that my mum got the house. So when she passed, I was the one left living in the house and my brother and my sister moved back in and eventually I left and moved in with my now husband but they like changed the locks on the house and wouldn't let any of like me or any of my other mom's family in. And yeah it became really sort of this volatile thing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I am still quite angry with some of that stuff. Right. 
C: I’m not surprised. 
A: And I felt like that move was really led by my dad and I feel like he's got quite a hold on them. My challenge with it, particularly with my little sister is, I feel like if that was just her and my dad wasn't here, would she have ever done that? Probably not. But then in the same breath, she is an adult and she did do it. 
C: Are you asking Tan how to be estranged or how to find a way back? 
A: Every now then I try and like do the text and I've done one fairly recently. Like, I don't want to talk about anything. How are you? But it's not really reciprocated. So I think processing those emotions, like anger upset. But also a way of just like being okay with how we are. 
C: And also you're married and we should say, you've got a little baby. 
A: I do. 
C: Joyful for you. You have now created your own family but also might feel strange that you can't share it with them. 
A: Yeah. Very sad. 
C: You're going to find a way out of this, honestly. Thank you so much. I'm going to leave and Tan will come in and then you and I will talk at the end. Is that alright? 
A: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much. 
C: Thank you.
Tanya: I feel like you haven't really talked about it. Am I right? 
A: Absolutely. And I think I am happy, but I’m also really not. 
T: No, absolutely. You have this complex. Story, which didn't begin with the death of your mother. And I guess the first irony of all of this is she would have been the one that would have been able to find a way for you guys not to have such awful rifts. So this is where your grief for your mother is totally stalled because it is part of a more complicated picture, which is so underpinned by anger. My sense is you and your siblings have been playing out the rift between your parents, since you were all very young, you are all holding anger that doesn't belong to you.
A: God you're right. It's not really because we dislike each other or there's anything wrong with each other. I think we're just victim to a really turbulent 
T: unresolved. 
A: Yeah. 
T: And I think the use of the word victim, I think is a really good, it's a really good choice of word there because children often get caught up, not just in the crossfire of their parents' relationship. You know, discord and break down and the anger and the resentments and everything. But you know, if children carry this, particularly if children become polarized. So you know, your brothers in your dad's camp, you're in your mom's camp. Right. That's kind of, I feel like you and your brother are almost like your mum and dad, you sort of literally…
A: Yeah. Right, right. 
T: So it's just because it was never fully resolved between them enough for them to be able to co-parent even if they didn't want to be together as a couple, because that part of the really important process of separation and divorce, when you’ve still got children who are dependent, just didn't happen.
A: No, not at all.
T: Their fight. Became your fight. And it continues on to this day, 
A: A hundred percent
T: In order to be able to have a relationship with your siblings. It's about being able to understand how the anger that fuels the dysfunction in your sibling relationships does not belong to any of you. It’s not yours.
A: I worry that it's like so far gone now. Like this has been years like. Years. 
T: That's a very, very good point because in order to change a situation, you've also got to be really aware of what you can't change and what you can't change is others only others can change themselves. But what you can change is you.
A: You can change your emotional processing so that you can move further towards acceptance.
T: Mm. 
A: Because arguments can only happen. Between people. And of course, everybody holds their vulnerable, I'm being attacked position. 
T: Yeah. 
A: But of course you're part of this. So you may not be the one throwing the bricks first. You may not, but there, there is something about how you are in this dynamic, which will be enabling the dynamic to continue. And I'm not, I'm not blaming you.
A: From their perspective. Like how they're looking at this. I can 100% see how that perhaps fueled the fire. Let's put it that way. 
T: Give me some examples.
A: Not intentionally, with the whole house thing that happened. When my mum passed a particular family member who was involved in my parents divorce from a legal standpoint let’s say. They advised that I reach out to like solicitors to manage it that way with my siblings. Not because they perhaps distrust my brother and sister to like, you know, do anything untoward, but they did my dad. So if I had received a letter from. From them from a solicitor. Can you imagine? But I absolutely stand by that because there was such a need to do that with the vulnerability of the estate. Let's put it that way. I mean, to be fair, they'd changed the locks on the house.
T: But yeah, that's really honest of you. You see, this is where I see that with the right support you'll be able to safely process this. I can just see that you have. The self-awareness and the honesty to be able to say, yeah, I can see where things I've done. Things I've said have also contributed to the gloves off bare knuckle fighting. That's now going on between us. We can all chase till the moment we take our last breath a narrative that says it was never my fault. It was always what everyone else did. I'm only reacting to everyone else. 
A: Yeah. 
T: Life's just much more complicated than that. 
A: Yeah. And I think as well, like I was particularly close to mum. That's amazing. That's lovely. But I actually think that's part of the fuel of the fire, right.
T: Because why just tell me?
A: Like, from like 13, she was very, very ill and dad had left and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, and like all this stuff had happened. So like, I just naturally became her protecter and I'm going to sort everything out for everyone and dah dah dah and I think that became like suffocating for them and it became a bit like, well, where do we then fit in? And then when mum was in her like sort of later stage of life, my sister was at university. My brother had moved away. That's just like the natural course like that's just how life was. That's not their fault. I was the one that happened to be living at home. I looked after her like I was her carer, like in a lot of senses. Right. You know what I mean? I feel a bit weird saying that word, but I suppose that's technically what it was. Maybe they feel a bit of guilt.
T: But can you imagine then what that leaves them with perhaps, which is guilt, as you say. Maybe they felt you took over too much. Maybe they felt that you got in the way of them being close to mum because you were the one that kind of managed the process. Maybe they felt that you became the mini mum when mum became unwell. So it was difficult for them to see you as a sibling. Maybe then when the house thing came along, it was finally a moment where they could take a bit of control back and say, right enough already again, I'm not saying you're wrong and they're right and I'm not saying they're right and you're wrong it’s bloody painful for everybody but what I'm saying is you can kind of see how all this gets played out. 
C: Sorry, can I just stop you there and ask a question? What was interesting to me is almost the legacy of the arguments and the relationship her parents had, has now been inherited by the children. Can you expand on that? Have you seen it many times before? 
T: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is one of the things that I always find truly distressing when working with families where, you know, there is a breakdown in the relationship and there is a separation and a divorce. Um, if they're married, you know, obviously people separate because they recognize they can't function well as a couple and you know, they don't make each other happy and et cetera. I mean, it sounds quite judgmental, but I just find it really hard. Not to feel so angry when I can see. How children are caught up in, I mean, in the crossfire. And you can often see in these fractured relationships between a couple, the fractures, just kind of running deeply through all the relationships in the family, including amongst the siblings. It's it's so, so tragic. And then of course, when, uh, when one dies as, you know, Annie's mother died, then the whole thing explodes. It explodes in the most horrendously traumatic way. 
C: Okay. Let's get back to the chat.
T: But there is one person we haven't mentioned, and I really just want to try and understand a bit about your father because, and you've just put your hands on your face and I can see you're taking a breath, but the reason I'm asking you is 
A: yeah.
T: In order to be able to maybe build bridges, maybe have a relationship with both your siblings. What isn't being said makes me wonder how, how bad it was. 
A: It's a bit weird. He was a bit of a split personality depending on who, in the family he was liaising with. So with my sister, he was like the apple of her eye, the youngest he's north African. And in those cultures, the eldest boy is like…
T: The King
A: Yeah, absolutely. So that was who my brother was.
T: right. 
A: Not a place I'm jealous of. Let me put that very clearly. So then I was the middle and I'm the eldest girl, obviously. So I think with that came complications for my dad. I think with me, it was really like, obviously I was the first one to be a bit older. I was the first one to want to go out with friends. I was the first one to. Even as, even younger than that. I mean, I remember being like seven and it'd been quite difficult. So he was, um, he was very controlling and he's extremely manipulative. I dunno what came first, me being close to mum and having that perspective, or my dad been very different with me and my mum sort of seeing that cause I remember when I was about seven or eight, my mum said to me, Me and her were in the car on our own. And she said, I want to be very clear with you that you’re not like my favorite and I don't love you any more than your brother and sister, but I can see, and I do compensate for, for your dad. 
T: He was a bully with you.
A: A hundred percent. Me and my mum, but probably more. So me actually, probably my mum before us 
T: And so your mum. Is white is she is she British
A: Yeah
T: And your dad’s from North Africa. So I'm just wondering, was there also a sort of clash of cultures in terms of expectations around the behavior of daughters, the behavior of sons and, and you were the first daughter. So obviously that, as you said earlier, that he was sort of. It was being played out through you much more. 
A: Like my mum was brought up Catholic. My dad obviously is Muslim. 
T: How did they meet? 
A: They met at university. So my dad came to the UK to go to university. And then after university, they went to North Africa for about 10 years. And then after having me, maybe my sister can't remember anyway, that's when they eventually decided to come back to the UK, there was actually a civil war happening as well. That sort of started to escalate over there. So it just made the most sense for them to come back. 
T: So your father came to the UK fully almost as a displaced adult. I mean, he, he had to leave where he was living because of a civil war. 
A: Oh my gosh. I never thought of that. Yeah. 
T: So we're talking what, 30 years ago. Ish. I'm not saying that racism isn't rife now, but blimey racism would have been full on in your face. And we're also talking about a North African man and a white British woman so, I mean, I can't imagine some of what they also, had to deal with. 
A: Tolerated a hundred percent. 
T: I just wonder is that sort of, I mean, he was like a first-generation immigrant really so in that position, I wonder. Do you think it potentially entrenched him more in his culture? And his cultural beliefs. Cause he, you know, he defensively wanted to hold on to that a bit.
A: To prove a point, yeah. Skin tone wise. I was the darkest girl in my year hair color skin. And I don't think I'm, you know, I'm not particularly. So I think that gives you an idea of the area we grew up, it was very small. Everyone knows everyone. I remember friends coming around to like the dinners would be different. Cause my dad would cook. You want your, your culture to be influenced in your home. He would be maybe more relaxed with some things, but with how I dress, that was a massive deal. 
T: It won't surprise you to know that I've worked with lots of people over the years who have your experience of parents who come from different cultural backgrounds. You know, if they are living in the culture of one parent, the parent whose culture is not the indigenous culture that they're living in is the parent that will struggle more. And that struggle can be played out in a number of ways, including in my house we do it my way. 
A: Oh my gosh yeah.
T: Based on my rules, because outside of the front door, he must've felt quite vulnerable, different, looked at, racially abused and so where do you get a sense of control? You get a sense of control in a very overtly patriarchal manner. Which culturally may have sat quite comfortably with him in his house, with his wife and his children. 
A: I mean I’ve sort of touched on that in my own mind, but never in that way. 
T: I am not wanting you to think that I am negating your experiences because it sounds as if what you experienced as the daughter of your father, the eldest girl was was tough. Was brutal. Emotionally, psychologically, maybe physically. I don't know. Yes. You're nodding. So he was a heavy handed patriarchal father of daughters, particularly you. Zero tolerance from me around any kind of abuse, coercion, manipulation control. Violence, anything like that towards children from adults, zero tolerance, however, maybe the cultural impacts influences on you frightened him you know, maybe he, he, he welcomed a lot of the culture, but he also feared it because it took you into a place as a young female that he was not comfortable with. 
A: Yeah. Oh yeah. 
T: He has done some very bad things, right? There's no, I'm not sitting here in a sort of bleeding heart way saying, oh, you know, we have to, uh, you know, we have to feel sorry for him and therefore we have to say, well, you know, of course he did what he did, you know who wouldn't in his position, you know? I mean, absolutely no. There are very, very bad people in this world. I've been doing my job for 30 years. A lot of work I do is child protection. I have heard awful things, but there are also good people who do bad things and I suppose I'm wondering about your dad and the significant anger you hold towards him and by extension towards your brother. You just raised your eyebrows and took a breath. Do you not agree with me? 
A: No. I really agree with you. And I think it's the siblings holding onto the parents. 
T: Yeah. Yeah. And it is understandable you feel angry towards your father because he was, it sounds to me like as a parent controlling, abusive, aggressive, probably very frightening sometimes.
A: Up until this morning, I would have probably, if I'm being really honest, I would have classed him just as a bad person, but is he? I don't know.
T: If you have a better chance of finding a relationship with your siblings, but if the best chance of that comes from finding a way to make some peace with your father. And I'm not saying you should, you might say he doesn't deserve it. And I would respect all of that. My job is not to tell you what to do. I'm just setting out various scenarios. Or even if you don't have a relationship with your father, but you can accept whatever they're holding on to again, I'm not saying that's the truth, but it may be it's could be their truth. Right? Everybody's truth is different. We're all standing in our position, looking at the same thing, but it experiencing it from our perspective. Then maybe there is a piece of work to do around how you view your father. Just so that you are able to, to let go of some of that, because otherwise you are going to continue to feud the three of you as you are, because you are still feuding on behalf of your parents. So I think that's something for you to think about in the break. And I want to be clear. I'm not saying you have to find a way to love your dad again, and to have a relationship with him in order for things to be better with your siblings. It's about this anger. 
A: Hmm
T: Because fundamentally you and your siblings, although you're all, you know, in your, your sister's in her late twenties, you and your brother are in your early to mid thirties. You're adults. You are still fighting like children. 
A: Oh, a hundred percent. 
T: So the question is how do we resolve difficulties as adults? Well we think about them, we rationalize them. We try and take emotion out of it and we try and find a path that enables everybody to feel heard, to feel listened to for people's positions to be respected so that we can move forward together rather than split. I often ask people to write letters because sometimes sitting and writing about stuff that feels very painful is a really helpful process because you're actually moving it from the limbic anxious. Areas of the brain where those memories are held as anxious, sad, angry, emotional memories. You're moving it through your frontal cortex while you're thinking about it in order to write it down. So it just helps with the process of rationalization. 
A: Okay. 
T: If you were to write things down one, you could try and think about your father's narrative in a way that we've opened up. What, what was his struggle? Cause he was clearly struggling because he acted it out on you. Right. 
A: Hugely 
T: Right. You could do that. Or you could attempt to write a letter to your sister, but a letter that's different. It comes from a place of you being an open-minded compassionate, thoughtful adult who wants to take a different approach to this very entrenched situation you find yourself in. I mean, did, did she come to your wedding? How in contact have you been with her?
A: I invited them both. Of course.
T: But not your father?
A: No. 
T: Right. Okay. Yeah. 
A: Which I’m almost certain was a bone of contention for them. They came and they like sat right at the back of the church. And then didn't attend anything else.
T: So your brother and sister both came and sat at the back of the church. 
A: Yeah.
T: So they, they came, they sat on the periphery. They showed that they were very ambivalent about it, but they came. 
A: Mm. 
T: Um, and was there a story about a veil. 
A: Oh, yeah. Obviously the locks were changed on the house and in that was obviously all my mom's stuff. Like my mum had always said to us, when you girls get married, I'd love for you to have used my veil or like use a piece of it. Obviously I wasn't allowed in the house. So I was sort of saying like, can I come and look through the loft and get this stuff? So I tried via my sister. Cause obviously that's probably the easier, more approachable way to do it. She just ignored me. So then my, my other family members tried, even my girlfriends tried that were my bridesmaids, I didn't ever…
T: You didn't have your mum’s veil.
A: No, I never got it. 
T: That's really sad. 
A: That was just so nasty on her front like, we all just lost mum. I don't know, whatever her thinking was like, oh, maybe she'll never give it back or whatever. Like, I would never do that. 
T: I’m wondering whether that veil represents something, which is, you had mum closest to you for all these years, you had her at the end, you were there, I'm holding onto her now. It's, there's something very symbolic about that because in the way that you can see that your brother and sister got a much better part of your father. I wonder if they felt you got a much better, closer part of your mother and you know, your mom said, I put more into you because you get less from your dad. So it's, I wonder whether there's that, that veil was very symbolic  wasn't, it. I'm keeping it. You can't have her, you can't have that.
Claudia: I want to ask you about anger because I don't even feel I might be completely wrong, but I'm going to say it out loud. I don't feel like she's angry about what her father did to her. I feel like she's angry about something unsaid about what her, how her father was with her mother. 
Tanya: I think she is angry about what he did to her. And it sounds like what he did to her was incredibly inappropriate, unacceptable and abusive. So, you know, I, I can see that she doesn't have any respect for her father at all. Um, and feels a lot of pain at the memory of how controlling he was and so on and so forth. But I think the leaving her mom, when her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and that sort of abandonment, I don't know whether she has even thought about it in a way that I'm going to say it, but I don't think she's forgiven him for that.
C: Yeah. I'd like to know what else he did to her. 
T: Yeah. And it's interesting because I sense maybe that it feels a bit frustrating to listen into me talking to Annie because there is so much I could ask and I'm not asking. So for example, I don't want to ask what the specifics of what happened between Annie and her father, because I'm so mindful that this is the first time she's looking at these things in the way that she is. As a clinician, my job isn't just to ask the questions, but it's also to manage the process in a way that doesn't feel so exposing and unsafe that I leave her in an incredibly vulnerable position afterwards. So you may wonder why I'm not going, oh, what happened and why and how do you feel about this?
C: I’m not but just as a listener. I'm fascinated. She hates him. I mean, everybody's got their own. Their own story, their own truth
T: But everybody's truth is different. And sometimes we forget that. And so when we get locked into these arguments with the people we're closest to, we argue because we're trying to get them to see it from our perspective and the only way things can change is if we can find a shared way forward, it gets harder. When you start to think about a father who was abusive and you say, Was he controlling a, because of his cultural upbringing, but B, because he maybe felt out of control as an immigrant in Britain, 30 years ago, displaced from his own culture. It's harder because his display of what he might have been experiencing was so aversive, a lot of people were like, why do we even give him the benefit of the doubt I get that. Okay, but it's still helpful sometimes to have those thoughts because they could lead to just a bit of relief and a bit of understanding.
C: And also you said once and another thing, and it was so brilliant is you can't just don't hold on to anger. And if that is released in some way, by understanding, like you say, then it's been this, then I'm very pleased that Annie's talked to you.
T: I've done this before. There are some quotes that kind of float into my head. Then you go away and find them and you can say them at the end with me, but I think it was Nelson Mandela. Let's go there. That's where you can start your search. 
C: I will
T: Holding onto resentment for another is like drinking poison and hoping it will kill your enemy. 
C: Oh my goodness. That's good. 
T: Will you try and find it?
C: Yes. Here's yours. Resentment is like drinking poison and hoping it will kill your enemies. There you go. Should we get Annie back in? 
T: All right, thanks for the chat Claud.
C: Thanks darling
T: What would you like us to focus on for this second part of our chat? 
A: I started with like, oh, I'll just write down like little sentences, but actually it's turned into, I suppose a letter
T: Who’s it to?
A: So my dad, but then I've also done one to my sister, so I've done both. 
T: Wow. It did it come really easily 
A: With my sister it just was like…… 
T: So, who do you want to start with?
A: I mean, we could start with my dad because that's what I wrote first. 
T:Okay.
A: This feels really awkward to read out
T: Well, tell me what you're feeling.
A: It's a very different dialogue written down to him that I've ever had. Obviously I've written it as if it's to him and I think it feels a bit strange
T: And it makes you sad. First of all you don't have to read it. It's very personal.
A: I want to. I know I do want to, because I feel like it like closes the circle. You know, I said, I want you to know that. I'm sorry. I never really saw you. I was young, hurt and felt very vulnerable. I felt as though you hated me. I see now that perhaps that was not the case. I wish you shared with me more of your life. And I wish I learned more about your culture and home to really understand your perspective. Looking back now, I am sad that you and I missed out on any sort of father, daughter relationship. I am sad that this is how things lie. However, I want you to know that I'm not ever willing to close the door on family completely. I want you to know that I do see you now really see you as the young man thrown here into the UK. Oh my God. I never thought this would get to me. Thrown here in to the UK with three young kids trying to provide a life and stability from nothing trying to rebuild and restart as your whole life was left behind you. I know how stressful that can be as a mother providing. So I can't imagine that on top of feeling so far away from your friends and family and everything you have ever known, let alone feeling socially different too. Cause I know he did. Hmm, I'm sorry you experienced that. I'm sorry that to this point, I've never acknowledged that I want you to know that my door is open. My beautiful boy will always be there to love his Pappi. That's what they refer to grandfather. I miss my family. I miss my sister and my brother. I really crave those moments again of laughter and the connections and relationships that can never be matched. I'm not pretending it will be easy. I will need to work through and process so much as I have been and feel hurt. I need to learn to not connect our relationship to mine with mum and not feel guilty. However, I want to say again that I see you and I hope one day that you will see me for who I am today, too.
T: You get it. You were just so afraid. What was it like writing that?
A: It's not like I'm like, oh, all is forgiven. You know, I'm not but I'm also…. for so many years. I felt as though it was me and that's quite like, self-indulgent, isn't it like, oh, why do they hate me? But of course you have that. And I've so wanted to kind of really understand. And honestly, that's like priceless to what weight that takes off me. 
T: I’m so pleased. I think that was more than I hoped for, for you today that you've started to look at it differently. And yeah, we have to say again, zero tolerance for cruelty to children, but for you to find a greater level of peace for you to be able to stop being the 13 year old who hated her father for leaving her mother when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, you're still that 13 year old girl. And today I think you are now looking at it slightly differently from a different perspective and trying to understand why. If we understand why it doesn't take away the pain of what happened, but it, it makes it more tolerable.
A: God, yeah.
T: Yeah. I sense. He was a very vulnerable, very unhappy, probably very angry man. 
A: I was just very aware my dad was different, not because I saw like, his look was different. Cause obviously he's my dad, but I just saw, he just was different. And I thought it was just because he was so awful, a person genuinely and I'm being really honest that he just like didn’t get on with anyone. No one really liked him, but of course it's not that. It’s like you go through like all these things of your memories and it's like, oh, 
T: There's also this, this other psychological concept called confirmation bias, which is when we decide, we believe something in a certain way, we have a clear belief about whatever it is and so we will cherry pick memories or find ways for memories to fit with the belief to confirm it. And I guess when you were seven or eight, you said, and your mother said to you, I just want you to know you're not my favorite, but the reason I give you more is because your father gives you less. I guess at that age, that was when you first began to develop the belief that he wasn't nice. He didn't love you in the same way as he loved your siblings. Now, I'm not blaming your mother for this. Although I think, I think it's a pretty hefty thing to say to a seven or eight year old. 
A: I do. Now. I look at that and I think I would never say that to my. Child. I mean, there must've been a massive story behind that for her too.
T: And she felt sorry for you probably. And she could see it being played out in the way he smiled with your little sister and he told your brother a million times a day, he was, you know, the king of the world and that you were, you were just being told off, but you know, you lay down that belief and understanding, and also from what you experienced from him at the age of seven, it's confirmed by your closest other your mother, and then he leaves her at 13. When she’s diagnosed with breast cancer, after having been really nasty to you and all the things that had gone on, of course, you're going to end up in a position where he's just a horrible person. There is no way that you are able to look at him in any other way. What you're now saying to him is. I see you and you would have had glimpses. I mean, him cooking the amazing food he cooked his north African food and the moments where he could truly be himself, but they must have been very few and far between. He must have felt like so displaced, so awkward. 
A: Yeah. And you know, that's really interesting. You say that because we went and visited. So we didn't go often because it wasn't particularly safe to, but then as we got a bit older, it was, and we went probably the summer before he then left. So this was probably like 13. And then later that year and we went out there and it's really funny because obviously I was the most. Disconnected with my dad. But when we went there, I was, I was the one that was the most connected. To my family there, the culture, I just like loved it and I lapped it up and it was so weird for me to feel that way, because I was the one fighting against everything that he was pushing on me from that culture, because that was our conflict constantly. But then I go there and I like, love it. And I'm like really into it. And I'm like, I'm home almost. So it was a really weird thing. And I think that was probably the last moment or probably one of the only moments I saw him be probably the most, I won't quite say loving towards me, but like the most normal, like we had the most sort of. We had like a decent rapport and it was, it was nice. And I took, that was as, he just doesn't want to show face in front of his family. He’s just putting on this front towards me because he doesn't want, but actually in hindsight, 
T: He was probably the most relaxed. 
A: I probably shocked him, you know, like I was getting in there helping my cousins do this.
T: He must've been so happy. 
A: Yeah. 
T: You wanted to be part of something that was his, well, that could have been such a stepping stone for you and your father couldn’t it have been to, to, to go back there together to build your relationship around his culture, his family, to experience him. As himself and for him to see you embrace that, but that must have felt like a real sense of acceptance for him, because you were always so close to your mother that must've felt like a rejection, even though you felt rejected by him and you were the child and he was the adult so he holds responsibility in a way that you don't, you were the child. 
A: No, but I can see that
T: Yeah. That, that suddenly with your mom, not there and you just kind of. With your eyes open, having fun and loving your cousins. And that must have been just thrilling for him. It must've been so wonderful. 
A: I’ll never forget when we were leaving at the airport, I was like crying, saying goodbye, and I'll never forget he put his arm around me and like stroked my arm and stuff and I promise you I'm not exaggerating. It's probably the most contact physical contact I've had with him. I mean, he must've cuddled me as a kid, but I just, like, as I remember, and that's probably like the last time I remember.
T: That says everything about what that meant.  So what are you going to do with this letter? 
A: I want to send it to him. I'm worried that he would take that and just be like, oh my God, it's. 
T: It’s a beautiful first draft. Um, I think you'd need to set a little bit of context, you know, as you're probably wondering why I'm writing to you, but I've just had an experience and there's some things I wanted to, to share with you, or you could just send it. I mean, the thing I would say in these situations is send it with no expectation.
A: That's it yeah
T: Just because you've had your Eureka moment, he may not respond or he may not respond in the way that you want him to, if nothing else. He will have heard it. 
A: Mm. 
T: Do you feel, do you have the emotional strength to just read the one to your sister? You said it was easier in a way, because it just pulled out of you. I think that's cause you and your sister teetering on the edge of something, but it's just, you're dancing in an awkward way. And I think you can make that next step. 
A: Okay. Uh, sister, I want you to know that I take fault and understand my part in where we are today. I also want you to know that this breaks my heart every day that we are so far apart. I miss my sister. I would love for you and I to work together, to rebuild. I would love to hear you and understand you. You are not alone either and I want to be there for you. In your life to enjoy the good, bad and ugly moments if you will let me, there is so much for us to say, but I need you to know that I love you first and foremost, and I want to listen and I want to progress. There is no pressure for you to want what I want. I will respect your decisions, but I wanted you to know where I stand now. And then I put I love you to the moon and back sister, which is something we always used to say.
T: That letter is lovely and beautiful and kind, but it feels more like a sort of a mother to a child or an older sister to a younger sister with your dad. What you did was just amazing because you told him what you were seeing that was different. 
A: Hm. 
T: I wonder if you would be able to show her a bit of you in terms of how you think you can see how things could have been difficult for her. 
A: I think there was more hesitation for me to do that with her because I'm avoiding it. 
T: You are right. You are correct. It's not that you say, and I feel this and I feel this and you did this and the locks and the veil and the this and the that. 
A: Yeah. 
T: It's something. About I acknowledge that I haven't looked at my role in all of this. And I acknowledge that you know, that this might have felt like this to you, or I think I've been so focused on, you know, my pain that I now feel. I want to be able to, to, to understand it from all of our perspective, because
A: Yeah
T: We all have pain and we've all lost mom and we all to some degree are still, you know, playing out the legacy from mum and dad's difficulties or, or, you know, just something that feels like with your dad's letter. Oh, I'm in it. I'm, I'm, I've come to a new place of understanding and therefore I want us to find our way back together. 
A: Yeah
T: That letter you've written to your sister is lovely. I'm trying to imagine your sister's position and thinking. Yeah, I know she, you know okay she loves me, but oh God, I know what's going to happen. We're going to get back into that thing. She is going to be the matriarch. She's going to be the one she's going to, I'm not saying that that's because you're the one in the, in the wrong here any more than she is, but I just feel there needs to be a sense, you know, when you read something or you hear something. It's not so much what's said, but it's what you pick up from how it’s said.
A: A hundred percent. Yeah. 
T: So it's just a sense of, she could sit at the front of the church in your life, not the back of the church
A: Without a doubt. 
T: I feel, I feel that moving forward, it would be good for you to have someone you can continue to have conversations with. Take it slowly. But I believe there is hope and that's it. 
A: Yeah. Hope is a good word.
Claudia: How are you feeling? Can you summarize what has happened today? 
Annie: Do you know what it is? I just never thought of him in that way ever and I never considered him. As, uh, anything else, but just this awful person that, yeah, that was a baddy. And that seems honestly, now I think about it, obviously I was just stuck in that child person. Just looking at him in that way. Yeah. 
C: Who are you going to tell first? Oh, I can't wait for you to see your husband and go…
A: Yeah. So to kind of go. Do you know what I never thought about and he'll go, oh yeah. Cause he's also mixed race, may I add? So I think there's an element for us to have a bit of learning and a bit of respect for that.
C: Yeah. Um, this might be a weird thing to say, but, and Tanya might disagree and Tanya knows more than me. I would quite like your sister and maybe your brother to see the letter to your dad because. I might be completely wrong, but I feel like they have a loyalty to him. He wasn't invited to the wedding. He's been viewed as the baddie. You were the closest to your mum because she felt she had to protect you because you were his first daughter and he couldn't really handle a lot of it. Your letter to him is indicative of the, about turn you've had. 
A: Hm. Part of our struggle is that. I don't get their relationship and they don't get mine with him. And I think she said, we've been playing this out for them. 
C: Like a legacy. I mean, fascinating!
A: I remember people would say, oh, divorce can be really tough on kids. And I'd think, it hasn’t been tough on me? 
C: Whether people fall out with siblings or whether they fall out with a parent, but often an explosion. Like I said, at the beginning a death in the family, what you all went through, your mom died too young. It was heartbreaking, sent so many fissures, You know what I mean? Of pain out that lots of people listening going, hold on a minute. So we are so grateful to you. 
A: Thank you. Thank you,
C: Tan. What an extraordinary contributor. I mean that letter, the speed with which she went. All right. I'm going to go with this and just held it. I love the fact she's going to send the letters, I really hope she's going to send the letters and weirdly I want her to send the one that she's written to her dad, to her sister, but never mind that.
T: I liked your advice to her actually about showing that letter to her sister and her brother, because I think it's also about them understanding that her position on their father, who they feel a bit protective of, is shifting. And I think that's also extremely helpful. Um, yeah. The thing about expectations is you have. These therapeutic conversations, you have sessions with people like this, and then they there's that kind of moment of, oh, but you just, because we get it doesn't mean to say the rest of the world are going to get it straight away or immediately. Um, so, you know, remember you're sending this because you need to say it and you want it to be heard, and it comes from a place of compassion in you. But how it's received is a separate part of the process. And that is something else you might have to manage. Separately. 
C: I'm going to end with a quote, cause we're not going for crumpets. We're not doing roly polies. We're not leaving the house. 
T: We're not even together.
C: No. So here we are. And this is Nelson Mandela. “As I walked out the door toward the gate, that would lead to my freedom. I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison”. Because you were talking a lot with Annie about forgiveness weren't you and the release of anger. 
T: It is about understanding that resentment and bitterness is a prison for us. All. It doesn't make a difference. And her ability to shift that perspective, not saying that what he did was okay, but to try and understand why it might've happened, feels like it has released her today from this prison that she has felt with her siblings trapped in for all her 31 years. So it feels like a good morning's work Claud.
C: Definitely. I send you love. 
T: I said, you love back. I miss you. 
C: I miss you. Bye darling. 
T: Bye. 
Claudia: Just so you know, we always follow up with our guests providing useful contacts and information. Some of which you will find in the program notes of this episode. Please do share this podcast you can send links direct from the app. If you like, you can also follow to get new episodes as soon as they come out. Also, we would love to know what you think. Do rate comment and give us a five star review. It all helps us to make more. And finally, if you're interested in taking part in future episodes of How Did We Get Here?, please email describing your issue to how@somethinelse.com that's how, how@somethinelse.com something without the G. 
Next time we meet Charlie.
Charlie: As I’m trying to hold him. And he's trying to struggle to get free. We're sort of dancing around the room, which, we’re hitting beds. The beds were on casters, so they were rolling all over the place. It was just ridiculous. 
Claudia: This podcast was made by the team at Somethin’ Else. The sound and mix engineer is Josh Gibs, the assistant producer is Grace Laiker, the producer is Selina Ream and the executive producers are Claire Solan and Chris Skinner with additional production from Steve Ackerman. Thank you so much for listening.