Dear Mom,

I wish you had listened to us. I wish you had gotten help when I was 7, when my brother was 9. I wish you would have forgotten about your pride and submitted yourself to a home, or at least gone to a doctor. For 13 years you were distant, a shell of a woman, with no emotions other than those expressed through your disease. I know you tried to take care of us, but I don’t know how much that helped.

I’ve been to 12 different schools, lived in 4 different states and lost countless contact with friends and family. Some days I was actually surprised I woke up at all. Some days I thought that this is it, there is no way I can make it, but I did. I think God helped; I know it wasn’t you. Well, it’s now 13 years later and you finally got help. You have no job and no car, but you are better. I haven’t seen you in two years even though you live in the same state.

I’m 20 now but you act like I’m still a child, maybe to make up for not really being there.

Your son, age 20