What your pill problem has done to me

Dear Mom,

First, let me say that the apologies don't really count when they're covered with enabling excuses. I know you were in a car accident. That happened 30 years ago. I know you had breast cancer. That happened 13 years ago.

Maybe I don't understand.

But let me tell you what you don't understand.

I remember lying in my bed in the middle of the night, and listening to you upstairs, getting up every half hour (oh how I wish this were an exaggeration) and going to the pill cabinet. Until I finally crept up the stairs and took the bottle I knew you were going after. I took it and hit it in my bedroom. And then I got to listen to you get up every half hour and dig with more frantic sounds through the pills, dropping bottles everywhere as you couldn't find it. I don't even know what it was.

I remember my high school boyfriend finding your pills in my jacket pocket and looking at me angrily. Until I had to explain to him that the only reason they were there in my pocket, was simply so you couldn't find them.

I remember coming home after a date to popcorn spilled all over the floor, and knowing that you had simply just stumbled from the couch to your bed, not caring or perhaps not comprehending the mess you were creating.

I remember you trying to talk to my friends. In slurs and fragmented sentences. And the drift that was created between my brother and me because I stopped bringing my friends home, and thus stopped being home.

I remember coming home after a date and telling you I was home. You were in bed but asked me about my night and we would stumble through a 15 minute conversation. Only to have you scold me the next morning for not checking in when I got home. You didn't remember anything about our conversation.

I remember the letter you tried to write me... that was nothing but scribbles and illegible words. Until it finally just dropped off.

As an adult I remember taking my brand new baby to visit you. And as you held her you weaved and stumbled. And the got angry and threw a fit when we took her away from you.

And how you faked the seizures in the kitchen until we hauled you off to the hospital. What you don't know is that Dad and I took the E.R. doctor aside and told him of your medication problem. He said he wouldn't give you anything that would "affect" you. But once you knew you had your medicine, you started you started acting "loopy". Being flippant with the nurses and calling loudly across the hall at the doctor. When my 8 month pregnant body screamed for bed, I don't remember the degrading remarks you made to me for leaving, but I remember they were made. And I remember how embarrassed Dad was by them.

Every conversation was slurred. And full of chronic diseases. And I finally stopped answering your calls.

And now you need a place to live. With a pending neck surgery and a bag full of pills. And I don't think I can do it.

I can't have my circus watching it. I can't have them living it. I can't listen to your excuses as to why we should all put up with it. I can't listen to the apologies that are nothing but "feel bad for me's". I can't feel bad for. I'm too hurt myself.

I'm too hurt that the pills take precedent to your family. I'm too hurt that I raised myself, with Dad being at the fire station and you...

I'm too hurt that I can't handle a conversation deeper than the latest mod podge project.

And I'm too hurt to bring it into my home now. I'm sorry, but there are some things that medicine can't fix.
And no one can fix this but you.