It seems that I’ve been doing my best to deny your various emotional and drug abuses and highly manipulative ways. And, apparently, when it comes to you I’m quite skilled in my denial skills. I’m a complete fool, and utterly blind. Why do I believe you, why do I believe in you? Why do I believe every explanation or denial of yours? Am I incapable of seeing the truth? Perhaps so because when one sees the truth, one really is expected to handle it. And apparently I just cannot handle the truth about you, so I’ve denied it on some naive hope that I was actually making a difference in your life, that this was going to be like one of those Hallmark movies where everything works out okay and everyone gets to feel good because their love and hard work paid off. But that’s not this, is it? There’s no denying it now. Nor is there any denying that I’m a fool for thinking I could love you through this, for thinking that if I believed in you enough, encouraged you enough, then you’d start to believe in yourself. If I loved you enough, then you would love yourself.
I haven't once pointed out to you your complete lack of maturity or your total refusal to take responsibility for your actions. I have not once said, "You know, it's really NOT okay, what you did." Instead I’ve run around behind every one of your disasters and picked up all the pieces. I’ve even damaged my own standing in the family with my insistence that what you really needed was a break. Some time. Love. Compassion. Whatever. While you have been busy damaging yourself and the family at the rate of at least one HUGE episode a week, I have walked the fine and exhausting line between defending you to them, and then defending them to you. I have tried to be mediator and interpreter, and for what? You keep going about your selfish ways, without even a second thought. I have asked you, no, begged you to try. I’ve begged you to just try. And you, you look me in the eye and say that you will. And as quickly as you’ve said the words, you turn around and forget them. I wonder, do you think I'm in this for myself?
I wish you had the maturity to acknowledge that the very things that you've done are what have brought about the consequences you face, or don't face as is your case. I wish you had the maturity to acknowledge that these consequences came from your own poor decisions and not from some teacher, coach, parent, uncle, aunt, or some notion of everyone ganging up on you. I wish you’d stop being such a self-important little shit. I wish you’d realize that YOU are responsible for the mistakes you've made and continue to make. I wish you would not blame your mistakes on anything and everyone. I wish you would see the direct line between your behavior and your unhappiness and anger. You want the privileges of an adult? Then grow up. Really, it’s way past time. If you ever took an objective look at how hard we have all worked for you, made adjustments for you, ran interference and came up with alternatives for you, you would be so humbled that all you would be able to do is drop to your knees and cry out loud for the amazing and undeserved gifts you’ve been given, and the equally amazing and undeserved responses and actions we've gotten back from you. Because every single thing we’ve done for you, you’ve gotten pissed off at us as if we were doing something TO you and not FOR you. Well, you know what? YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOU. Get it? Understand that much if you don’t grasp anything else. And grow up, please. Stop smoking pot, stop stealing, stop lying, stop tuning the world out and the volume up, stop complaining, stop talking back and cursing and yelling, stop thinking that the world owes you, that your family owes you, stop refusing to see what you are doing to yourself and what you are doing to this family, stop locking us out, and stop this behavior that is going to ensure you live your entire adult life plagued with regret. Stop killing any and every chance of a happy life for yourself. And stop breaking my heart. Please.
