Dear Mom and Dad, I miss you. I miss your hugs, your comforting words, your interest in arts and the world around us. I miss you, the dog, and yes, even my siblings. I miss all of it, but I guess this is what I chose when I decided to go study in the US.
Dear Mom and Dad, I am happy I moved away from you. Don’t get me wrong, I still love you, but being away from you has made it possible for me to grow as a human being. It has made it possible for me to feel better.
Dear Mom and Dad, I don’t understand how you could not see that something was wrong. A child should not be that scared. I would call out to you crying in the middle of the night just because it was dark. I would lie frozen for hours in my bed afraid that if I moved the attacker would get me in the night. I was scared of going into a room alone, I was scared of being alone.
Dear Mom and Dad, a teenager should not get angry like that. It shouldn’t lie in their room crying for hours, it shouldn’t eat that much, it shouldn’t be home on Friday and Saturday nights.
Dear Mom, I didn’t make up my mental health issues.
Dear Dad, I needed you to show that you loved me.
Dear Mom and Dad, love is not for sale.
Dear Mom and Dad, I wanted to kill myself for years because your anger and controlling nature had made me feel like I was not wanted in this world, like I did not deserve your love, I told my sister to not cry or show any emotions and it would all be over soon, but I knew at the same time that it stopped me from expressing any emotions at all and I did not want her to end up like me. Broken.
Dear Mom and Dad, I love you, I will always love you, I know that everything you have done and will do, have been for me and my siblings. But I had to move away from you to love myself. Because in our household, self-love was not a thing. Mom told me she was fat and we would all diet, I would see dad for two hours a day, between dinner and bed.
Dear Mom and Dad, you needed help, you were broken, like me, but instead of seeking out help you decided to create me.
Dear Mom and Dad, a child is not a fashion accessory, and I am not your savior.
Dear Mom and Dad, You told me it was all my own fault. Like the only thing standing between me and happiness was me, I was to blame, it was easier to hate myself knowing that.
Dear Mom and Dad, I was angry at you for a long time, but I have now realized that it was not your fault. You did not want me to be sick. Perhaps you thought it looked bad on you as a parent if I was. So you told me to plaster a smile on my face and hide my insecurities, and in the end we would all pretend we were happy, it was the story we told the outside world, that we were all ok, and that unhappiness, was not a thing in our family. Because after all, we come from one of the happiest countries in the world, you can’t be depressed if you live here.
