Dear Amy

Dear Amy,

I am sorry you feel that I am responsible for the direction your life has taken you.  I know you feel that I am at fault. Amy, I am not.  You chose your path.  You chose to have an affair.  You chose your pills over your family.  You chose not to get a lawyer. I know you said you looked and nobody does pro-bono, but  I do know that had you gotten out of bed and gone to work you would have had the money to retain a lawyer.  I know right now you are in fighting mode, which is completely understandable seeing how you just lost custody of your children and now have to have supervised visitation.  Have you stopped to breathe and think about this?  You deny having an addiction.  But, the whole family sees it differently.  Everyone in the family believes you do.  Do you realize this?  Your approach on life for the past 3 months has been more of "everyone is out to get me" rather than, I fucked up and need to fix this.  You didn't attempt to talk with anyone in the family about what was going on in your life. So yes, you are estranged.  You have barely talked with our parents since you moved into your residence and prior to that you all but quit talking to our mother.  Mom and Dad approached you over a year ago in a very respectable fashion in regards to your actions, attitude and perhaps addiction.  Do you not remember Dad stating to you that you have all the signs of addiction?  Why did that not register with you then?

You want nobody to interfere in your life.  I understand that, but do you realize we all love you and your actions have affected everyone?  Not just your children, but your nieces, nephew, and extended family.  You wanted our extended family to help you but you couldn't tell them the truth.  You concocted little lies to make it appear that Will is the bad guy.  I am sorry if you feel you can cheat on your husband and then expect your husband to just get over it and keep living on like normal.  I am sorry you feel you deserve to be supported by your soon to be ex husband.  I am sorry you can't get out of bed in the morning because you are so doped up on your pills that you can no longer function like a normal person.  I am sorry you seem to think you have done nothing wrong and our family has.

Is it possible that you are an addict?  Is it possible that you do have a very severe problem?  Is it possible that your whole family does love you and only wants the best for you?

I can sit here and bang my head all day over this.  I can pour my heart out on this blog and tell you what I really think but it isn't gonna solve the problem that you are sick.  It isn't gonna do a damn thing.  You have to fix this.  You have to own your mistakes and attempt to correct them.  You need to wake up before it is too late.  Before we lose you permanently.

Heartbroken,
Your Sister,
Jennifer