A lot of time has past since we last spoke, I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on all that has happened. I’ve spent a lot of time watching Celebrity Rehab with Dr Drew, who would have thought that a reality TV show could give me so much food for thought.

I’ve finally found a place of forgiveness. I’m trying to learn to hate the disease and not the person, I’m trying but can’t promise that I will succeed at this.

I’m looking forward to trying to rebuild some kind of a relationship with you.

I hope we can succeed this time!

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!

Its fantastic.

You’ve been there a few months and they claim you’re a “delight”! Clearly they have not gotten to experience the side of you that we’ve had to deal with. There’s nothing delightful about you when you’re using. You’re horrible. Selfish. Unpleasant to be around. Stupid. Arrogant.

Mom still holds onto the hope that somehow she can repair our relationship, the one between you and me. But from where I stand, there’s little to no chance of that, unless I succumb to being guilted into it, but then how genuine would that be.

I get the impression that you think all is forgiven. Or rather that you don’t require my forgiveness for what you’ve done, what you’ve put us through.

I have asked Mom to stop trying to push us together. To respect the fact that I don’t want a relationship with you. Its hard for her. She has a scheduled phone call with you every Monday evening (just like a prisoner isn’t is?) and after each one of those phone calls she tells me how you have asked how I’m doing? How my husband is doing? How our child, your niece is doing. I’m not really sure what she expects me to say. Or what you’re expecting in return. But it’s not ok to do this to our family and expect that I’ll be fine with it every time.

This time, I’m done with you!

It only took 7 and a half weeks for you to grow a pair and come home, face the music and face up to what you have done.

So you sold your car and spent all the money on drugging it up with that useless-trash-goffel-thing-of-a-drug-addict-sometimes-girlfriend.

It took you 7 and a half weeks to grow up and face up to what you’ve done but we are all going to reap the rewards of that now.

Bye bye! Off you go to rehab again! To be honest, I’ve lost faith in rehab’s, I don’t see it working and I’ve given up on a miracle cure for you. How sad! Me who believes in miracles, no longer believes in a miracle for you!

But I am thrilled that the rehab you are going to is more like a prison than a rehab! You will be made a ward of the courts and on Monday, after all your assessments with the social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists is done, you will be taken the rehab vehicle – so no chance to escape – a good 8 hours drive away where you will stay for a whole year.

A year in which we will all get to have a break from your antics, we will be able to exhale and not constantly be holding our breath waiting for your next stunt, waiting and wondering. A year in which you will receive “help” but not a paid vacation. Unlike the cushy rehabs you’ve stayed in before, you will be required to work this year. You will be required to do hard, physical, farm labour. Perhaps the hours spent with yourself, doing hard labour, will give you sometime to think about what you’ve done, to reflect on who you are and what a miserable failure you’ve become.

But we are getting a years break from you! Hooray!

Seven long weeks since you walked out on us all.

Seven long weeks of emotional turmoil.

Seven long weeks being tormented by nightmares of what has happened to you.

Seven long weeks!

Mom and Dad have lived the past 6 and a half weeks on high alert… waiting! I asked Mom the other day, when does she stop waiting? I asked her not to upset her but because as a mother myself, I have been wrestling with the answer to this question. At what point do they wake up one day and stop waiting but continue on with the rest of their lives? Right now, they’re in limbo. They’re not living. They are barely even existing. All they’re doing is waiting.

If I’m honest, a part of me is in limbo too. I’m also waiting. But I am fortunate that I have some distance and I am able to continue on with my life, make plans for my future, or even just plans for the weekend but I am, in my own way still also waiting. Every morning, when my eyes open, the first thing I do is check my phone for that familiar sms that Mom sends usually in the early hours of the morning, after one of your disappearances, when you’ve decided to grow a pair and go home. That sms that says – “***** home! Will phone later once settled.”

I’ve looked for that sms every morning for the past 6 and a half weeks and it hasn’t come and I’m also waiting.

But when will we stop waiting?

I don’t know!

How will I live a life of joy when mom & dad are dead and gone and I’m left with the legacy of your disease?

6 weeks since you seemingly ceased to exist.

How are we all holding up? We seem to be getting past the constant crying. The constant feeling of foreboding. The constant feeling of anxiety.

In fact, it’s as if we’ve all made a non verbal agreement to not ask about you or discuss you anymore. To talk about you is a reminder of what you’re putting us all through.

So instead, we go along with you not existing. We don’t talk about you. Even though you’re there, just behind the veil in our thoughts. Just behind the tears brimming in our eyes and the ache in our hearts and the knots in our stomachs.

Perhaps if we stop talking about you for long enough, you really will cease to exist.

Perhaps then we can have some peace.

I am believing more and more with each passing day that you are not coming back.

5 Long weeks have started to take their toll on me too. I’m very emotional and seem to be unable to stop crying. I cry at the drop of a hat and I cry everywhere. Last night, I even cried in the shopping mall.

Tomorrow, our cousin, who’s like a third sibling, is leaving the country and emigrating to Australia. She is devastated that she is not going to get a chance to say goodbye to you and I am devastated by the thought of her leaving. Once she’s gone, I will be all alone. I know that I have Mom & Dad but at the rate they’re being pushed to the edge, they won’t be around for too much longer and then who will I have? No one. I have my husband and I have my child and other than that I will have no one to count on to be there for me when I need them.

I’m so indescribably sad and depressed but there’s no one to tell. Those closest to me who know of your situation, they don’t understand. They don’t understand that calling you an asshole and talking smack about you (even though most of what is said is deserving) doesn’t help me or comfort me in any way, all it does is piss me off.

I have never in my life been surrounded by so many people and felt so alone.

This time you went to far. When Dad realized this morning that his expensive, extendable ladder and the four spare tyres he keeps in the car port were missing do you know what he did???? He got in his car, drove to the police station and laid a charge of theft against you! BRAVO Dad!!!

I know police holding cells don’t scare you, you’ve spent a couple of weekends in them, sleeping with your back to the wall and one eye open. But this time it will be different. This time the charges won’t be dropped. This time you won’t be bailed out and this time you will go to jail, which in my opinion, is where you belong!

Perhaps, once you’re in jail, perhaps then we can all have the peace we deserve! Not spend every day wondering when the shit will hit the fan again. Wondering what you’ll do next. What you’ll get up to next. Peace, that’s something none of us has had in almost 20 years, thanks to you.

But you’re gonna get what you deserve! One way or another its inevitable!