An Open Letter That You Don't Have To Read.

Father.
I don't know if you have realised this, but I haven't called you 'Dad' for over a year now.
I also am a bit late in telling you pretty much everything that's going on in my life.
Well, here's the catchup.
I was diagnosed with clinical depression at the end of year nine. Two years ago, almost to the day. For six months before that, the longest I went without crying myself to sleep was three days. So I'd quite appreciate you not telling me that I don't know what depression is, that I don't know what it's like to not want to get out of bed in the morning and face the day. I do, more than any teenager really should, but I suppose there's a lot of us about now.
Today you told me that I'd become introverted in my teenage years. Why you notice things that aren't true- I've stood up to a you a damnsite more in the last six months than ever before- and you can't notice things like how I haven't felt any love for you for the past few years astounds me. How can one man be so oblivious to what he doesn't want to see?
You're constantly putting me and my gender down, telling me that I'm not strong enough physically or emotionally because I'm a female, telling me that being good at English is impractical and doesn't make me smart, and that I should be good at maths, telling me that I'll never be a lawyer, I'm not intelligent enough, an actress because I'm not good enough and I don't have the right connections. I already know I'm no good, but that doesn't mean I can't dream.
Dreams can be good for a person you know. It gives them hope.
Thanks for crushing mine.

And then you tell me that I'm not confident enough to succeed? Ever think that maybe, just maybe, you could have played a part in it? I used to be an optimistic, happy person. The only way to survive around you is at least temporarily convert to a cynical realist. Or a pessimist, if that's what you'd like to call it.

My change wasn't temporary.

Now, I don't actually believe there is much good in the world. Let alone good that can happen to me.
At the moment, I should be having what is the best time of my life. I am, really. But something is stopping me from enjoying it to its fullest. I'm constantly doubting myself and the people around me. I almost suspect a Truman Show-esque elaborate scheme, set up merely to fool me and provide entertainment to others.
What's a lie anymore?
I've become so filled with conspiracies that I don't know if I am one myself.
Fuck me, I just sound paranoid. But it's true.

It's not your fault.
It's my fault, it's the way I've adapted. Not just to you, to everything that's happened to me.
Doesn't mean I enjoy it.
Jus' sayin'.

Irrationality

I need it to be the day.
I need my blinds to be as open as possible.
If I flood my room, if I flood myself with sunlight, I'll be fine, I'll be absolutely fine. I just need there to be a light other than my bedroom light. Not night. Not night. I'd give anything to walk on the beach in the sunlight right now, because then it'd be easier to do it all.
I'm going to have to force myself to think of warm sunbeams and safe hugs tonight, which means I'll wake up early, but I don't mind. It's better than rocking back and forth keeping away tears. Because that's what I've been doing. It hasn't accomplished very much.
Crying isn't an answer to anything, so I won't.
That's the worst day I've had since... I don't know.
I can feel my pulse.
You know, it's odd.
When I was a young girl, one of the best things about the world was my dad coming home. I grew to rely on his hugs more than my mothers, because I got them so rarely.
I've switched dependency utterly. Now there's only two people whose hugs really, absolutely matter.

You know, today is the first time since 2008 that I actually wanted to kill him. If I'd been in the kitchen during that, I actually would have attempted to, without thinking rationally. Most of the time it's just a feeling of not caring whether he lives or dies... it was a goddamn lot stronger today. Why?

Someone. Envelop me. Wrap me up. Keep me safe.

I feel really heavy.

I've just spent the last hour and a half talking to first my father, then my mother, about tax, property ownership, government benefits and legal representation.

I feel like I'm under a lot of responsibility to communicate what they want through each other. If I get something wrong, then I could stuff up a damned lot of everything. Crap.
So my mother is ringing my father later tonight. Or she's going to try.
He just dropped me off back home, and he's going down to the pub straight after.
So I'm anticipating that he will be drunk. He is the most intimidating person I know without alcohol. He is worse when drunk.
They haven't spoken to each other directly for five years, and my father hates my mother as much, if not more than I hated him.

I think the best bet tonight will be to lock the door to my room, turn up my music as loud as possible, and ignore everything that goes on outside my door.

I can't let myself do anything more than be oblivious.

Annnd back down again.

Great, fucking great. Love this so much.
I've been up and down so much over the past three days, I think I'm starting to lose my mind. Or it's already lost and somehow I'm retaining some semblance of sanity.
For Christ's sake.
My father has such a monopoly on my feelings. Whatever mood I'm in, he has the power to turn it on its head. I was like I was yesterday, happy and bouyant, until about quarter past ten this morning. Then he called to say that he'd be dropping a laptop charger off, because mine is broken and he'd ordered one in. He also asked me to ask my younger brother if he was doing anything, if he wanted to earn some extra money cleaning his gutters today. My brother was still in bed, and as soon as he heard that he'd have to get ready in 10/15 minutes there was a flat out no. My father went huffy, started swearing, then hung up the phone. About 20 minutes later, he pulls up in the driveway, hands me my laptop charger, tells me my brother is a lazy fuck, and starts to pull away. I say sorry. He stops, has a full on one-sided yelling match at me through the open window of the car. I stand there, just fucking nodding and apologising. He ends up pulling away from the curb violently and drives off.
What the hell am I meant to fucking do about it?
I go into the house, and tell my brother that dad will be mad at him tonight. He asks why. I quote dad. "You're a lazy fuck." Letting him know that it was dad that said it.
"Fucking hell Brittany! What the hell else can I do, I can't get fucking ready in ten minutes!"
Why are you swearing at me, why are you yelling at me, why the fuck is this my fault now?
I tell him that he could probably remedy it by getting ready, calling dad, explaining he couldn't have in that short an amount of time and asking if he wants him to come over now.
"No, why the fuck do I want to help someone who calls me a lazy fuck? I'm fucking sick of him."

I cannot fucking believe my brother sometimes.
I blew up.
"Look, it's not just you it's going to impact negatively on. He's going to be in a fucking bad mood with me and, oh, don't forget you have another sister too, because he can't just round on one person, especially when that one person he's rounding on just sticks his iPod in his ears and is oblivious to the fucking world around him! I cop the fucking brunt, you know it, that forced me into fucking depression for a fucking year and half. Look, I think I have a lot more reason to be sick of him than you do, yet I still go to his house, I still am perfectly fucking civil to him even though I want to kill him. He asks you to do one bit of work, you refuse, he has a go at me about it, and you tell me you're fucking sick of him? I'm fucking sick of having a brother who doesn't acknowledge that other people fucking exist and that they have fucking feelings too."
Tears are streaming down my fucking face.

You know what he replies? He replies "You're just fucking weak."

I fucking hate my father for making me so fucking weak.

No, I hate myself for making myself so fucking weak. It's my fault.

Why the fuck can't I deal with this?

Excessive swearing.
Oh fucking well, deal with it.

Day 3- Your parents

My parents. Jeez.
My parents are the people who've brought me up, who've made me the person I am today. And I don't know what I feel about the person I am today, and so I'm not completely sure what I feel for my parents.
My mother is perhaps the unintentionally funniest person I know. She's very quirky, and she can make people smile and feel welcomed usually no matter what.
She does have a temper, but that's obvious; she is my mother, after all. I am not aware of one teenager who has ever not argued with their mother. However, this isn't something I often discuss, so people I am close to might be among these rarities...
I love my mum immensely. She's always there for me, even though I know I can be a sharp stabbing pain sometimes. I rarely take advantage of that, and I think she's a little hurt by it. But when we get talking, she's a great listener, and she's incredibly compassionate and empathic.
She can however be quite stubborn, and she isn't necessarily the smartest of people. We clash sometimes, because we have very different personalities.
But she's my mum, there's a family bond between us, and I love her dearly, for her faults and her strengths. She's fantastic at being a mother, that's something I couldn't do. And I most definitely have more flaws than I could name of her, and bigger.
My father is someone I don't spend much time with. I see him every Friday and Sunday, for about six hours apiece. My family have been separated since I was eight, and the only contact they've had with each other is dropping off in the driveway of their respective houses.
Oh, and in the first few years, my dad came over and they spoke like civilised people, and then he took us out for walks.
That is, until in the last house I lived in he got... mad. He picked up our Ovaltine mugs and threw them at the wall. With Ovaltine and milk still in them. They smashed, splinters of ceramic pieces embedded in the wall and shards all over the floor.
That was not the first time I was deathly afraid of my father. Mind you, I was ten at the time.
It wasn't the last either.
A few of you will know I had a counsellor for about 6 months at one point, to help me get over depression. The only reasons I'm here right now is due to a guilty conscience and the efforts of a few friends.
I broke down in the middle of school one day in year nine. Burst into tears three times throughout the day, was taken to see the nurse. I'd almost committed suicide the night before. What stopped me was the thought that my brother and sister would be left alone and that either of them would be left to bear the brunt of my dads anger.
The second night I tried to commit suicide was on my dad's birthday, four days before mine, just before the Christmas holidays of 2008. A diary entry of that night. Describing the day-
"I bounced a basketball against my head to stop myself crying, to which Callan let a stray giggle escape before he realised I was serious. I must admit, at that point I felt a little glee. I don't know why. Maybe because I realised at my worst, I can make people laugh. Even at me. Even if they are sadists.
I just kept crying, all the while fiercely whispering to myself to shut up shut up shut up. I kept on trying to say what I was scared of but it just wouldn't come out."
I was scared of turning into my dad. See, even though my dad can be a horrible, sexist, racist, hypocritical, terrifying bigot, he is the only person who has similarity to me in personality. He is the person most like me in this world. I recognised that, at the age of twelve. It was the worst realisation I'd ever had, and I haven't really recovered from the revulsion I felt towards myself since. It's definitely died down, but it's nowhere near disappeared.
But that night was the night I can pinpoint a lot of my thoughts changing. That night was the night I know I grew up. I haven't been the same since.
I was in a tent in the backyard because we had friends over from England and I was giving up my room for a couple of them for a month.
"I like being alone in the tent like this. It means I don't have to stifle my sobs. There is quite a wind blowing, like a massive hand is trying to uproot it. I'm, for once, safe and shut in, even if I am crying my eyes out.
It's almost like I'm the only thing keeping this tent here... I'm afraid to leave in case it gets blown away. I feel like that in my head too. Like, if the stronger one leaves, the weaker one, the one that gets the headaches, will fade.
But I've got to leave the tent sometime.
And the stronger one can't always back the weaker one up."
I saw my mind in two different parts when I was that age. I had a stronger one, that was holding up a wall so that my emotions wouldn't get strewn everywhere, and a weaker one, who'd dealt with the emotion enough times that they'd recognised a need for a wall. I kept myself locked up to almost everyone apart from my diary.

This is why I'm not sure about my parents. I love them both. But dad put me through the worst experience I've ever had. And I haven't entirely forgiven him. I wanted to stick a knife in his back at some of my worst points. I don't think you could hate a person more fiercely than I used to. I cried myself to sleep at least once a week because of him.
He's better at not letting his anger out on us children, and I've gotten better at dealing with it. We have a laugh sometimes. He's the most like me and he can teach me how to deal with myself. But I can't separate who he is now from who he used to be.
I still cry myself to sleep a couple of times a month because of something he's said, and I still think it would be much easier if he buggered off to Thailand like he keeps on threatening. But there's no denying I love him, and that I'd miss him.
My parents are my parents. I love them both to death.
I hope this hasn't been too detached emotionwise. When I get this upset, I write objectively generally. I don't think that would have lent itself to this post.

Thanks for reading.

Blood is thicker than water, but you don't really drink blood.

Family.
One word. Five letters. It can mean so much and so little. So many connotations, to just myself, let alone all the different views that must be present in the world.
Brothers, sisters, aunties, uncles, grandparents, step-siblings, step-mothers, step-fathers, then, more importantly(?) mums and dads.
I don't know how people can lose contact with parents purposefully. They're so there, so in your face that it's impossible to imagine life without them. I suppose I've got a very small family comparably, and I still live at home, but even to imagine life without my father it's hard. That's me talking now, when I'm not even living with him, and even after I went through depression, and came close to suicide because of his actions. I still love him, admire him, and respect him. He is the one person closest in personality to me in this world, and that may be the reason I found myself unable to tear our bond. I can fucking hate him sometimes, but there is not one moment in my life I have lost respect for him.
Everyone in the family I live with gets a 'love you' each day, and without that I don't think some of us would get by. Being emotionally separate from family is something I can't understand. I only have a few relatives though; they're my brother, my sister, my mother, and my father, and then I have one great aunt in England, who I've met a total of two times. So you can imagine, the family I have... we're pretty close knit.
But that does not mean we don't argue. The other day... two nights ago, actually, I was on the phone to my boyfriend, and it was the night before the last day of school. (Which yes, means that today is a holiday. I am very much looking forward to the rest of this holidays, though today has constisted of eating Easter eggs, Mi Goreng, and cereal, while lounging around watching Harry Potter) But anyway, it was getting late, I was meant to be off the phone at around 10:45, but it was around half an hour to an hour later, and I was in the family room. My brother came out to get a glass of water or something, and saw I was still on the phone. His immediate reaction? To go to the power switch, and flick it off. The phone disconnected. In the middle of the fucking conversation.
I came so close to attacking him, I figure I have amazing self control. But not so amazing as to stop what I did next. I went to my room, led in my bed and attempted to steam off my anger for a little while. It didn't work. I picked up my phone and sent him a text. "My brother is a faggot douche fuckwit pussy. Hope you appreciate it. Love you. xx" (Grammar isn't my strong point in texts at near-midnight.) I figured locking my door would be a good idea, and it was; he came to my door, appeared to attack it, from the sound, then informed me he was telling mum. So today is my second day of being banned from the phone.
A trivial thing to get worked up about, but I feel a lot calmer than I did before any of it happened; it was good to let off a little steam I gather.
I do slightly regret it though.
Everyone has a different opinion though.
That's what blogs are for.
Thanks for reading.
Brittany.