Dear N (potential trigger)

Sometimes, I wish I was mute.

That's not true.

Yeah, it kind of is.
Sometimes, I wish I couldn't speak, so that I wouldn't have to speak. Because sometimes, in our home, to speak is to pick a side. And to pick a side is to start a war.

For whatever reason, you argue less with me.
This is shitty. I am thrust into the middle of every argument, because without my presence, they descend into shouting, crying, yelling. Admittedly, even with my presence, this happens, but moreso when I'm not around to translate.
 It's so fucked up that I'm needed to do that. She makes sense. She does. She speaks with clarity and precision, as she's had to over the years dealing with you. She makes sense.
 You, on the other hand, play dumb. Is it because you like the attention of both of us? Is it that if you're going down, you want to drag me down with you? What makes you argue for hours and hours over the smallest word choice, until I have to get involved and dumb it down to three letter words, because it's half eleven and you need to go to bed?

I hate having to get involved, because it means that, whatever I say, it will be twisted and warped until it barely resembles my original words. I hate getting involved, because if I try and reason out either viewpoint, I feel as though I am betraying the other. I hate getting involved, because I'm so exhausted. I hear the same arguments, all the damn time, and nothing changes. I ask why, phrasing it in a million different ways, to hear I don't know, in that awful dead voice. I hate getting involved, because it makes my stomach clench and my head ache and my shoulders crunch up to my ears.
I hate that a simple question, a basic conversation, can lead to now; all three of us in separate rooms, feeling various levels of hurt.
I hate feeling like it's become one of my burdens to try and reform us, after Hurricane N has visited. I hate feeling like I hate my younger sister. Because I do feel that way. I do sometimes feel like I hate you. I listen to the things you say, and see the way you act and I think, God, why are we still living this? What epic mistake did we make that karma is paying us back, this hard?

I'm so tired of this. Of feeling so empty inside, so dead.
Sometimes, I feel as though you are a leaky bucket. You can never be completely filled. But instead of asking for help patching yourself up, you go around punching holes in everyone else, so that they hurt, too.
There are days when I wonder why we didn't make you go and live with your dad, last year. Logically, and when I'm feeling capable of looking to the future, I think it's probably a good thing. Your dad is actually not dissimilar to mine, and I know how hellish I found it living with him.
When I'm not feeling capable of looking to the future, I curse the fact that a train didn't come last year, when I was standing on the tracks, looking for a sign.
I made a promise to myself that I would be the sister to stick around, I'd be the one who was there. Sometimes, I can stand by that. Other times, I think I was a fucking idiot to put that on myself.

I don't know how to keep doing this. I don't know how to keep being there. I'm so tired of this. I'm so tired of feeling like I can't ask you to do anything. I'm fed up of dreading the time I know you'll be home from school. I hate the feeling of pure terror that fills me when I think about the upcoming summer holidays.

I don't know how much of it is in my control. I've spent hours, in my own head, trying to work out what more I can do to help you. Trying to figure out which parenting book to read, so that I can get through to you. Hanging around on parenting forums, trying to see how other families have coped with children like you.

The idea that some of it is not in my control, that it's in yours... I can't actually bear to think about it. Because sometimes, I'm not sure that you can change.
Sometimes, I'm scared that this is just... you.