Dear Mother

Hey it’s me… your son… the one you were supposed to protect from harm and give love to… remember me? I remember you…

I remember when you tied me up and showed food down my throat… sometimes it wasn’t even supposed to be eaten… or something so hot that my mouth and my throat would hurt for days… Sometimes my tummy would hurt so much I almost couldn’t move…

I remember when you woke me up in the middle of the night…. screaming at me… telling me I was lazy for sleeping… and you would push me down the stairs… I still have occasional pain in my right foot… and when I do I’m reminded of you… but I’ve learned to leave out the delusions you planted in my head… your delusions… They are not mine anymore… maybe they never really were… but instead just something that your special ability to convince people you were always right that made me believe you for so long… I just didn’t know any better…

Yes, I remember your words and for a long time… for way too long …when I left home for the first time I did what you told me to do… and for a long time after that…. I listened to you for way too long… and I didn’t go away even if I could… I came back… I believed you for way too long… or maybe I was just too afraid to find out if you were right or wrong…

I remember being angry at you for leaving me… you made me believe I had to take care of the “it”… When Karen left… you made sure I remembered it was my fault… and then…the way you left… it made me even more convinced…

Now… almost 23 years later… I know you weren’t well… you weren’t yourself… I also know I wasn’t really well either… I know all of “it” was your illness… blinding you… preventing you from being a mom…

I remember times where you and I had together… times where you didn’t feel a need to hurt me in anyway… I remember being able to sit on your lap or beside you and you would put your arms around me and tell me you cared about me… that you loved me… and even though some of those occasions there were people around… I know you meant it…

On your good days you did show me love… You told me you cared… I remember you telling me you didn’t want me to be taken away from you… that you never wanted me to leave because if I did you would die… and you cried and you told me you loved me… I believe… or at least I want to believe you had some kind of conscience… some kind of awareness of what you were doing… but fear kept you from doing anything about it… Maybe your own childhood just made you too ashamed of admitting your illness…

I remember you telling me at 17… When I left for school to don’t let anyone know about what’s going on inside my brain…. “They will lock you up” …you said… and you told me they would fill me up with medicine that would make me drool all over myself and make me feel like a zombie…

Well yes… I’ve been “locked up”… and a few times actually…. but they’ve let me out again…. every single time… and honestly… it isn’t as bad as you made it out to be… I don’t know if you ever had this experience or not… I don’t know if you were ever in a mental hospital… and maybe… this was probably the reality once…

But let me tell you something… you and I may have the same illness… not all the same symptoms or delusions though… but I would rather die than make my children go through what you put me through…

You told me once I wasn’t allowed to take my own life as it would only make ‘it’ more powerful… and within someone else who wasn’t as ‘lucky’ as I was… well I didn’t care about that when I upgraded your methods… silence and burn… in an attempt to stop my pain….

I’m not angry at you though… not really… not anymore… well… sometimes maybe… but when I am… it only makes my thoughts go places I don’t want to go… so I try not to…

I may not be the most perfect father in the world and maybe… and for a while didn’t realize I had this illness… but I did have someone in my life that helped me realize I needed help… someone who loved me with all my flaws and cared enough to do everything in her power to get help for me… To fight my brain in order to get my heart back…

I am sorry you didn’t have that….

I know my fight isn’t over… I know there will be more battles… but I can’t afford to let you hold me back anymore…

your son

PS. Happy birthday mother… and rest in peace…

C.G.Arsante (06.25.1940 – 08.16.1992)