Dear Mrs. Bluth,
I wrote to you four years ago, while my parents were going through a divorce and life was unbearable for myself, then twelve years old (I am now sixteen) to ask you for help to be able to cope with all the fighting, bitterness and lies that I and my four younger siblings were made to endure before, during and after the divorce. My parents were fighting with each other a long time before and it was terrible during the divorce process. You helped me get through it and gave me ideas of how I could help my younger siblings deal with stuff they were too young to understand. Thanks to you I was able to keep up with my schoolwork and maintained my sanity when sanity was in very short supply in my home.
Now, it is four years after my parents got divorced and there are new problems for me to deal with. If you think life became easier for us kids after my parents separated, you are sorely mistaken. Whenever we were with either parent, the hatred they felt for each other was constantly there. Each one would make a point of telling us how evil, cruel and abusive the other one was, so as to turn us against either our mother or our father. The war never ended but is ongoing to this day. I see the damage it has done to the younger kids who were forced to take sides. They have become angry and hateful little people who fight with each other calling one another ugly names and physically hurting each other. I, myself, can no longer tolerate living this way and want to live away from my parents and siblings. My bubbie and zaidy can’t take me in because they are both in Nursing homes and my saba and savta also fight just like my parents still do, so that is just not a place for me. I have asked my aunt who lives in Canada if I can come live with her, but she has not answered me yet.
Please help me understand what I can do to help myself function and survive until I reach eighteen and no longer have to adhere to the wants of my parents and the rules of the court. Thank you for still doing what you do and I hope you can help me.
Thank you,
Hadas*
Dearest Hadass,
I do, indeed, remember you, the twelve-year-old, old soul, who looked after her four little brothers and sisters in the war zone that was your home. I am so very sorry it has been such a terrible ordeal for you, one that no child deserves no matter what their age. That it is still ongoing even post divorce is sadly not news to me either. Children of divorce are nothing more than bargaining chips for the warring adults, with no voice of their own nor anyone to adequately champion for their well-being. Very little has changed for the better in that regard. Courts are still hard of hearing when it comes to doing what is right for the children over what the vindictive actions, false statements and false testimony both sides employ in order to hurt each other, without caring how it affects their children, so long as they can be used to punish each other.
Hadass, you are a very old sixteen, having gone through such ugliness and mental anguish that many other children never do. I ask you to hang on tight with the knowledge that the mighty eighteen is only a short wait away. I know how tired you must be, trying to referee between your sadly damaged siblings and warring parents still, even after the divorce. Those children need you in the deepest way because you are the voice of reason in their damaged and dysfunctional lives. I know it is a lot to ask of you, but if you leave them now, you will carry yet another burden of guilt and pain.
I have enclosed my private phone number, something I almost never give out, and ask you to call me whenever you need to speak with me, no matter what time of day or night, I will be there for you. You are an extremely brave and amazing young lady who is very special to me and I would very much love to offer you all the help you need in any way that you need it. There are others like myself who stand at the ready to help you as well, so please know you are never alone in the physical sense. Stay well, stay strong and stay positive and everything will turn out well.
*Name has been changed to protect privacy.
