Final chapter .. part 3

[Rita]

Oh, Exquisite, my heart aches for you. You sound so sad.

When your mind is in that place, it's so hard to climb out of it.

But I will say this -- my mom was in a similar state when I was a teen and in my 20's. I think she was in MLC, actually, and my parents got a D. I always felt so much responsibility for making her feel calm or happy, and I also had to hear way too much about my dad. This caused me intense anxiety, panic attacks where I would end up in hospital, etc. I want to encourage you to set your kids free from that -- Give them the gift of not having to worry about you. Find a support group, go to confession even if you are not Catholic, talk to a counselor, pray, go into the forest and yell at the universe. Find a million other places to vent so you don't have to vent to them. You have a heavy cross to bear but I just wanted to encourage you not to ask your children to carry it. You don't have to worry that they won't know the truth about their dad, they will. But if you encourage them to love and forgive him, or at least don't make them feel bad when they want to, they will be able to grow into themselves without as much anxiety.

MLC and D are horribly hard and it's all so unfair, I feel just the way you feel a lot and get the same panic and fear. But that fear is not of the light, you can battle it -- and you can also lift that battle from your kids shoulders as a gift to them.