I don’t know how to start this.  When I was 11 my family all piled into our old blue minivan and drove down to florida.  I remember the beach.  The waves.  Around lunch the waves got so high they’d touch the window of my bedroom back home.  They crashed almost relentlessly.  Hitting you harder and harder until all you tasted was salt.  Today was like the breath you got between waves before being shoved back under the water.  I really don’t know how to ******* start this.  When I was 4 my dad was on a business trip.  This was before my mom got ‘better’, you see. It was when she was still ‘sick.’  My baby sister was still that, just a baby.  1 I think? 2? A bottle of wine later and she’s passed out on the floor. I’m not good at writing, I’m sorry if this is choppy.  I didn’t know what to feed her, my sister.  She cried for 3 hours.  I don’t think I slept.  5 hours ago my mother cried in a doctors office as a lady whose name I can’t remember told her that my childhood was probably the cause of my issue.  It is 2 in the morning and I can still hear my mother crying from her bedroom.  I told her I have only been feeling this way for a year or so.  I have been feeling this way since I had to explain to my 2 year old sister why mummy wouldn’t be waking up anytime soon.  I have been feeling this way since a boy in third grade called my mother a ‘drunk’ on the playground I have been feeling this way since 4th grade when my mother couldn't come to the mother/daughter dance because she had AA I have been feeling this way since the first time the girl who lives next door brought up my mother and how she ‘was awful’ and how she ‘wouldn’t blame me if I hated her.’  I’ve been feeling this way since I heard my mother say that exact ******* thing 5 hours ago.  “I wouldn’t blame you if you hated me.”  Well that’s where you’re in luck, mother dearest.  Because that’s the thing about my little ‘problem.’  It’s not you who I’ll blame, it’ll be me.  Every night.  Every morning.  Every waking hour.  I’m so sorry.  I’m so ******* sorry.