To Sasha:

I have never been emotionally close to you the way my dad, Lucy, or Josh were, making me somewhat of an outsider to whatever occurred in the inner circle of your personal relations. I am the opposite of upset by this; I would not have it any other way.

I have managed to stay rational for the past 2 years I have lived with you and I have personally witnessed and experienced the destruction of relationships and bonds that you caused with your poor decisions. You may not want to read on, but I myself have seen the ripple effect of a single decision multiple times since I have lived with you. Open your eyes for once and just LISTEN!

You are not the person you acted like when I first met you. You acted like the cool mom everybody wanted, the one who shopped and cooked well and hung out with your friends. As you can probably recall, Lucy and I didn't get along when we first met each other. Once, after yelling it out in the garage, I asked her why she wasn't nice, if it was because Lucy thought I was stealing her Mom.

Lucy’s answer did surprise me. She told me that you were lying to us. She said that you normally yelled and drank a lot, that you broke promises. I remember not believing her, but she was right. There are so many "incidents" that I'm not sure where to start.

Remember when you used to get stressed out and go "drive"??? I'm not stupid; I could easily tell that you would come back high on drugs. That would lead to more screaming, more fights. I was right next door to your room; I could hear the arguments, you slurring your words after too many drinks.

Those drinks. You talked about how you loved wine, but it was so much more than that. You were an alcoholic. Once, the nanny took everyone to block buster to get a movie. I stayed home; I had dish duty that night. You came in the room screaming, slurring your words so much I couldn't understand what you were saying. You had two big drink glasses in either hand, and you pushed me out of the way and slammed each of them down in the sink so that the shards flew into me, and I covered my face just in time.

And remember all of those comments about Emily? Emily was your punching bag, because Anna was older and I was "model-worthy". You would scream at her for no reason, other than that you were mad at the world. We were both playing with Lucy, once, and you walked up to her until you were an inch away from her face. Then you screamed at her for being FAT for three minutes before you walked off. Emily is smaller than I am, and there is nothing she ever did to deserve your CRUEL ABUSIVE TREATMENT.

That was me and Emily. Anna had enough friends to go escape, and you could never treat Josh and Lucy the way you did us. We were the extras. You never needed to care as long as my dad was wrapped around your finger. Granted, Emily did get the worst, but you had to torment me, too. Dad would be gone on business trips when you would talk about how we never disserved to be loved by him, that you could send us back to our abusive grandparents any time you wanted to. Bull ****. But it didn't matter to you. As long as you saw tears, your work was done.

Lucy used to look in your coat pockets for drugs. She seemed to feel a little safer every time she found them empty. But she wasn't safe. You did do drugs, and you did drink. You put yourself first before the safety of 5 kids. Why? I think it's safe to say you did it because you didn't care. You never acted like it.

Winter 2007, day before our first ski trip to Tahoe. You went into every room in the house and screamed at everyone until I was so angry at you that I called you a bitch. You did not like that one bit; you grabbed my face in your hands and tugged my hair, screaming with your disgusting cigarette breath. But it gave me something to hold on to when you yelled at me. I talked to dad later and he said you were stressed because Josh's dad didn't get in trouble in court.

Whoa, back up for a moment. You were so upset and stressed out and worried for Josh, and yet you took the anger out on him and the rest of us?

Rewind a little. I did, indeed, call you a bad name. But I'm not sorry. This brings us to yet another topic. Your abusive language. You would tell us that we were bratty bitches, to clean up this pile of ****, to shut the **** up, must I continue?

They gave out these CPS issued pamphlets after the whole Josh deal at school naming the types of abuse. Guess what, Sasha? You register for a few! Emotional, Physical, and Verbal abuse. And that phone call was so close I could taste it on my tongue. I had already called the whole "don't run away" hotline thing, and that wasn't exactly working. 'It would be easier to remove myself then remove Sasha' was my thinking.

Then, miracle of all miracles, you got kicked out. Dad told me that he had been working at this for a while, going to Al Anon meetings and looking up information online. And now we face the current situation. Your kids don't trust you. What you said was "The real deal" is over. You may not ever see the new life we've successfully built without you, one which everyone but you benefits from.

It was never my fault that this happened. It was all yours. YOU. SASHA. You were an abusive, mean, high, drunk liar. And you know you were. You may still be that way. But your choices caught up to you. No one will treat me like that and get away with a clean slate.

By the end of this letter, do you truly like what you see? No? That's your problem.