Dear Dad,

I don’t really know how to tell you that I don’t want to see you because I’m scared of you. Of course I know how to say it (clearly I just did), but I don’t want to say it. I don’t want to be another one to break your heart like mum did and I don’t want to make you sadder and lonelier than you are now. I know you wouldn’t even understand why I’m scared of you because you don’t remember the last time. I know it was just me and the boy I told years later. Dad, I’m glad you don’t remember.

I wish that this time you’ll get treatment, but before you can do that you need to admit that you’re not okay. That never happens. Sometime, you’ll have to give in and admit that maybe they’re right. Maybe the doctors know what they’re saying. I feel like a monster when I think I’d be less scared of you once they’ve got you on medication. I feel like I’m not accepting you. Somehow it’s like I’m forcing you into conforming with the rest of the world, like I think you’ve just got to take your meds and be normal. That’s not what I think, though! I don’t want you to ever be normal. I just want you to be my dad again.

I can’t remember what you’re like…I can’t think of you except for the angry man forced to be in the hospital. It’s easier to think of you that way because that’s not something I want to be around. Thinking of you as the happy, chatty man that my dad is is so much harder because I want to see him. I miss that man. He’s my dad.

It’s kind of ironic, you being a psychologist and all…I bet you would appreciate that irony. It’s the kind of thing you’d find funny.

I still can’t say I love you.

Madee, age 15