A PLEA TO CHANGE

Dear Mom,

Me and my brother are writing this letter because we are desperate. We love you so much and this is why we are risking your anger and hate towards us for writing this letter to you. We are hoping that this letter will make you look at yourself and change your behavior before it is too late. We know you are hurting inside but we are just little children and we just can’t take it anymore. We feel like we are going crazy and that we are the ones to be blamed for everything. We are under so much stress and you make us feel guilty. But we did not do anything to deserve this. You tell us you hate us and to get out of the house and to go live with our father. That you are moving away and leaving us. That everything is our fault and not yours. But you are the parent. Whenever we are with you, you just sleep. You don’t feed us and lately, you don’t even wash our clothes. I have been doing the laundry and trying my best. My brother hides in his room and doesn’t eat and you make us feel we are in the way and the cause of all of your problems. He is falling apart and you don’t even care. All you do is yell and swear and scream at us. The house smells and is a mess. We can’t have any friends over because the house is so dirty and there is so much stuff all around that we can’t walk without stepping on something.

You sleep and sleep all day and make us feel we are worthless and unwanted. You pick us up from school and then go back to bed. There are empty wine bottles all over the house. Other families laugh and eat meals together. We haven’t sat down at our table for a meal together or been happy for five years. During the divorce, instead of spending time with us, all you did was to sit in front of your computer all day doing ‘divorce’ things and blamed us for the divorce. All you do is complain about money and we cannot enjoy anything because we feel so guilty. You told us that our aunt and cousin said, “I was just like my father,” over and over again. This hurt me so badly until I spoke with my grandmother and she told me that it wasn’t true. All of our memories are sad and bad. All of our childhood has been stolen from us - we didn’t have one like other kids. Ours has been full of stress and worry. That is all we do - worry all of the time. We can’t do our school work because we always have so much on our minds. Even our dog has been sad. You act like you hate us but Grammy says you don’t hate us - that you hate yourself and that is one reason why you act like you do. One moment you are nice to us and then the next moment you treat us like you hate us - this is what gets us so mixed us. We are not crazy - we didn’t do anything to deserve this and it is not our fault. You tell us we are bad and that it is our fault for all the bad things happening. We can’t go on like this, we can’t take it anymore. You don’t care for us, you only care about yourself. You only think about how you feel and never think about how we feel. You don’t care that we are hurting or about our schoolwork or about how we feel. When you go into one of your rages we are so afraid and terrified and want to run away - it scares us so much; your eyes get so full of hate that we get so scared of what you might do to us. When we were little we would cover our heads with pillows but that doesn’t work anymore. You always want us to agree with you and if we don’t you get mad at us. My brother wouldn’t need pills if he didn’t get so worried and depressed and scared and living in all of this mess - he has given up on hope or having a normal or happy life because of all of the bad things that are happening around him. You make fun of us and never ‘listen’ to what we’re saying. You have no clue as to what we are feeling. Every morning before school it is so stressful and we are afraid when we wake up that we will be late for school again because you run around like a mad person and all we remember when we run in the door of the school is your yelling and swearing at us and telling us that it is our fault that ‘we are running late’. Then our day is already ruined and instead of concentrating on our school work all we can do is remember your angry face and your screams. We are so afraid when we see you sleeping on the couch all day with those empty bottles on the floor, that you will die. When we are at school we worry that you won’t pick us up and that you have died. It takes us so long to wake you up every morning and we lay in bed the night before thinking that tomorrow morning we won’t be able to wake you up. If you loved us you would stop drinking. You are never happy so we are never happy. We don’t want all of those gifts you get us for Christmas or on our birthdays. The only gift we want is for you to change and to get better. You think we want to live with our dad because he has a nice house. That is not true. We would be happy with you if we lived in a shack as long as it was neat and maybe, just maybe, for once we could come home and have a snack and a meal ready for us and we could all sit together and laugh together and not be afraid that the next minute you would start screaming and yelling at us and tell us to get out of the house. We don’t feel safe anymore and are so afraid when you go into one of your rages.

So, mom, please don’t drink anymore and please take care of yourself. We just can’t take it anymore. You make us feel that we are a burden to you and that you want to get rid of us. We are so afraid when your blood sugar is low and the ambulance has to come. Other people have diabetes but they take care of themselves - you don’t - you eat too much candy. We are so afraid you will die. If you loved us you would take care of your diabetes. What will happen to us if you die? We want to stop feeling so sad and scared and not cry all of the time.

The worst is the unknown - not knowing what your mood is going to be or how you are going to treat us from one moment to the next - that is why we are nervous all of the time. We deserve to be loved and we did not do anything to make you feel this way about us. I can’t take it anymore how you yell and scream and the times you kicked my little brother out of the house. It breaks my heart so much.

We love you but we don’t think our hearts can stand to be broken one more time. Please love us and get better. We miss how you used to smile and laugh and love us. We want to believe that we are worthy of your love. The only way we will know that you love us is for you to take care of yourself. So, please, please, change right now.

Your sons.