I’m writing you this letter because I want you to understand why it is hard for me to accept, what felt like a flip apology for “the trouble you caused”. The last time I tried to write you a letter explaining to you how I felt, you refused to read it. I hope this time you’re in a better place to read & reflect on what I have to say.
You don’t seem to understand how your addiction and issues affect me and my family. Each time you go off the rails, so to speak, you, Mom & Dad have a chance to shout, scream at each other, fight with each other and hash out all of your feelings. I never get that opportunity because I am far away. I’m left on the outskirts of our family when it comes to dealing with your problems, which affect us all, me included.
Each time we live through one of your episodes, do you know that Mom stops talking to me? She completley shuts me out, she doesn’t take my calls and when she does answer my calls, she doesn’t want to talk about anything. That most of the time Dad answers her phone and says Mom doesn’t want to talk right now. Do you know how hard that is for me? It feels to me, as unreasonable as this might sound, but like I get punished on some levels for your actions.
Do you know that every time we discuss your problems, Dad brings up every mistake I have ever made in my life? That he is unable to forgive me and move on from the mistakes I have made because of your actions? Do you think its nice for me to constantly be reminded of Donald? Of the mistake I made marrying him? Even though I feel its completley unfair to compare my messed up marriage to Donald with your drug addictions. They’re mistakes on completley different levels. My mistake lasted 2 years and did not have the impact on our entire family that your battle with addiction has had, yet Dad brings that up every single time. He accuses me of being “ skynheilig” because I have made mistakes to.
Mom and Dad are angry with me because I’ve refused to contact you in the last months that you’ve been in rehab. I haven’t wanted to talk to you, I’m still too angry with you. I haven’t had a chance to express my feelings and vent my anger, the way that Mom and Dad have but I’m expected to let to sweep it under the rug and pretend like we’re one happy family. I vowed, after your last episode, that I would never have contact with you ever again, that I didn’t want to be apart of your life and I didn’t want you to be apart of my life, I didn’t want you to be a part of my family. Of course, that’s not what I want, but I’m still very angry with you for what you have put us all through, perhaps after writing this letter and getting some kind of feedback from you acknowledging my feelings, perhaps then I can start to move forward and perhaps then there is a chance that we can be a part of each others lives.
I’m sure being in the middle of this mess, you’re completley unaware of this, but the last 10 years you have sucked us all dry, leaving no space or energy to deal with any other issues. I have told Mom this before, but for 7 of those 10 years, I lived through my own personal hell, you don’t even know a quarter of what Walter and I went through to have a child. You don’t know that after I had my 6th miscarriage, I wanted to commit suicide. You don’t know how long I was in therapy to come to terms with everything we had been through, you don’t know about the day that I phoned my therapist and told her how I was going to kill myself, how she kept me on the line while she phoned Walter to get home to me. I have lived through my own version of hell and I did it with very little support from my own family, they couldn’t be there for me because you took just about everything they had to offer. One day, perhaps when you’re a father, you’ll remember this letter and you’ll have some understanding of what my own hell walk was like and how it was to do it “alone”.
But God gave us a miracle, he gave us Ava-Grace and she has blessed us and our families and it’s hugely sad for me that you have missed out on so much precious time with her, time that we will never get back, because of your issues and addictions. She’ll never be the cute little toddler she is right now, ever again and you have not gotten to be a part of any of that. That makes me very sad. Her second birthday is coming up and you won’t be here to celebrate it with us and that makes me very sad. But the thing that makes me the saddest of it all is that on some levels I feel like I need to protect my precious child from you. I don’t want her to be exposed to your lifestyle, I don’t want her to be exposed to the screaming and the fighting that goes on when you’re having one of your “episodes”. When her birth mother gave her to Walter and I, she did so with so much trust and so much love that we would do the best for Ava, that we would protect her at all costs and you need to prove that you are worthy of being loved by her, because she will love you and I don’t want you to hurt her by being absent later on in her life.
I love you. You are my brother and I do love you, but you have to know, you make it very difficult for me to like you. Each time I hear Mom cry, each time she tells me about how Dad cries over you, I dislike you a little more. Mom and Dad are getting old, they can’t continually be there to bail you out. What is going to happen when they are gone? Who will you turn to then?
Mom puts a lot of pressure on me to fix our relationship and while I am willing to do my part, I have told her, I won’t force it on you, you will need to play your part in repairing the damage that has been done over the years. I realize that you have issues and that at times you may feel intimidated or uncomfortable but we are all in an uncomfortable situation and you’re going to have to over come that in order for us to move forward.
I want to have a brother, I want to know what it feels like to have a sibling but I can’t do that by myself.
Please let Mom and Dad know once you’ve read the letter, I’d prefer if you didn’t share it with them, it’s between you and me and I’d prefer it stays that way. But once you’ve read the letter, you can let them know that you have read it and if you’d like us to phone you.
Love
Conflicted Sister!
