my mother, she is one of my biggest problems.
here is one letter i wrote about her, which sort of summarizes it all.

"my mom has gone out again to get drunk. she usually does this on the
weekends, but sometimes pulls in during school. then i end up missing school
and watching my brother while she is gone. last time she pulled it during
school, i had to miss semester exams. she alwase says she will be back soon,
but she never is. so i am sitting here, deciding if i have any important
classes tommorrow that i can't miss. i know people says you should love your
mom, but sometimes i wonder if i really do. i mean, i love her because she's
a person, and a human life, but i hate her because she has been so mean and
not there the past 7 years. right after she had her brain tumor, she
changed. she treats me like a whore, we fight all the time. and then
somehow, she blames it all on me. if my brother does something wrong, its my
fault because i'm a bad influence on him. she goes out and gets drunk every
weekend not me. i have tried alcohol a few times. i admit that. but i don't
go and get wasted every weekend. she never tells us where she's going. she
just leaves. i can't stand it. once, i was staying the night at my friends
house to get away from my mom, and so she went out to get drunk. well, i had
to come home from my friend's house at about 10:30pm to watch my brother
while my dad went to look for my mom. i totally lost it then. i slammed down
her phone, went into her room, and starting crying and screaming. i just
can't take it anymore. i try to tell her what is going on, and she just
tells me it isn't that bad. it is just in my head. i look at her, and say,
"these cuts are in my head too? this pain i feel all the time? the fact i
would like to die? this is all in my head, too?" she just looks at me and
says "your over-reacting" i can't take it. i swear, sometimes, i think i
really do hate her. just for the way she is to me and my brother. for the
most part, i can stand the way she treats me, but then she does the same
thing to my brother. he is only 4 and doesn't understand what is happening.
he thinks mom hates us. i don't know what to tell him, except mom has alot
of problems. but i just feel the hate inside me just trying to get out,
because of what she's doing to stephen (my brother) i am so protective of
him. if anyone, even my friends say something mean about him, even just
playing, i blow up. and then my mom does it, and i just start screaming at
her. then i sort of black out. the next thing i remember is being back in my
room. stephen is so young. i was about 7 or 8 when she changed. i had some
feeling of what a mother was. we had a really close relationship. but i
guess when they took out that tumor, they hit something. because she changed
alot. and now she is doing it to my brother, and i just can't handle it. i
am so mad at her, i wish sometimes i could just smack her and make her
listen. i feel bad, cause she's afraid of me. she knows i'll stand up for my
brother, even if i don't for myself. so she somewhat leaves stephen alone.
but she still calls me "bitch" and stuff. amything that happens, she somehow
finds a way to blame me for it. in 2 and 1/2 more years, though. i will be
gone. but i'm not sure if i want to leave, because that would mean leaving
my brother with my mom. i don't think i can do that"