Dear Mom and Dad,

I have waited a long time to write this. High school, college, my first job, my first apartment.

Your firstborn is finally an adult.

We’ve addressed the issues before. Usually at the kitchen table, or as you stand in my doorway while I cry in my bedroom. I have yelled. I have called you assholes, terrible parents.

I blamed you for fucking me up.

You did fuck me up.

But.

I am an adult now, so it isn’t your job to parent me any more. To teach me acceptance of self. To tell me I am beautiful; perfect the way I am. To tell me I deserve only the best. To tell me that guy who broke my heart is crazy for letting me get away. To tell me I am a catch. A good person. A talented artist. A fountain of possibility. A woman with an amazing life ahead of her.

You weren’t there for me when I was bullied in middle school and high school. You wrote it off as “being a kid” or “well, that’s high school,” but I was a kid. I was in high school. That’s all I knew. I didn’t have your hindsight.

When I found the note in the garbage during science class, the one that was written about me by two girls in the class, you weren’t the ones who held me and told me it would be okay.

You didn’t acknowledge the pain that I felt when I read those words – ‘she’s such a stupid bitch. I wish she’d just like jump off a cliff.’

You told me they were being stupid and childish. You told me to brush it off.

You found the suicide note that I penned at 11 years old. You were going through my stuff. I was so mad at you. You sent me to therapy, and we never spoke of it again.

When I was diagnosed with depression and bipolar disorder, you didn’t help me shoulder the burden. You didn’t cry with me. You didn’t buy any books on the topic. You didn’t do the Walk for Mental Health charity 5k that I KNOW happened several years ago.

Why didn’t you do that?

Why?

When I overdosed in college and you came to pick me up, you silently drove me home to your house, two hours away, where I stayed the entire weekend to “get away from everything.” On Sunday night, you asked if I was okay.

Sure.

I’m okay. Two days ago I tried to kill myself, again, but you know, sure, okay, I’m fine.

And then you put me on a bus back to school.

And we never spoke of that weekend again.

I stayed in therapy.

When I gained all of that weight, because of the PCOS, and I was sad, miserable, and feeling less than worthy of anything, you bribed me with a new car to lose 20 lbs. You didn’t tell me I was pretty. You didn’t tell me size was just a number. You didn’t tell me to go out and have fun with my friends, to not care about what I looked like, to know that it was the inside the counted the most.

You told me you’d buy me a car, and when I starved myself for two months, you handed me the keys.

You never told me it would get better.

But then there was your second child.

I know now that parents have favorites. Do you love all three of us? Of course you do. If something were to happen to any one of us, would it break you? I would hope. But when all three of your kids stand in front of you, you know who your favorite is.

He is your favorite child.

He grew up bubbly, fun, surrounded by friends. Smart, adorable, well-behaved. Charming.

I hated him from the beginning. Remember the time I spilled hot soup on him when he was three? Remember the time I yanked a huge chunk of hair out of his head when he was seven?

I was, undoubtedly, your angry child.

But somewhere along the path of growing up, he became my favorite too. When you guys didn’t care about my broken heart, he did.

When I needed help with stats, he always knew the answers.

When I was in my darkest moments, fearing the end, I remembered that while I idolized him more than he looked up to me, I had a little brother to take care of.

He encouraged me when you didn’t. He took me seriously when you brushed me off. He laughed at my jokes. He asked to spend time with me. He got to know me beyond being his sister and your daughter.

All the while, he shined. Confident, secure, compassionate; he encompassed everything you’d look for in another human being. He made for great company.

He is gay.

You didn’t bribe him to change. You didn’t encourage him to shy away from his friends because he was getting used to his new skin. You just didn’t.

He was still beautiful. He was still talented. He was still smart. No matter what he “was” – he was still your son. My brother. And you loved him for exactly who he was, exactly who he is, just as you did before, just as you always will.

The acceptance was instant. It was non-negotiable.

He was surrounded by your love – the same love I lacked when it came to my yearning for your acceptance. Your non-negotiable support.

I resented you. I resented him.

In the wake of the recent suicides within the LBGQT community, I am so thankful that my little brother was one of the few who was enveloped in love and support from the very beginning.

That he became so much more that could define him other than his orientation.

That his life was so filled with possibility, he never wanted it to end.

You did not grace me with an abundance of love at the times I needed it the most. Perhaps it was because I was your first – your oldest – your first “go” at all things parenting. Perhaps you had no idea what to do, so you chose to do nothing. I know that as a child, I was different. I had different needs. As an adult, I can understand that. And I can empathize.

But thank you for being exactly the type of parents my little brother needed.

If you had been different, if things had been different…well, I don’t know how to even write the words that follow. I can’t write them.

All I know is that I am grateful for him – the one person that in my darkest hour will tell me, “Caroline…it gets better.”

My little brother.