Dear Dr. J.,

This is very strange. Sometimes when I've done something I find difficult to talk about, I'll write it down, so I can take all the time I need to think about what I want you to know and not panic. Often it doesn't work like that. I'll tell myself that I don't need to rush anything, but then I'll think too hard about what to write and get het up and panicky and scared of what you'll think of me and then I'm angry at myself for chickening out of writing anything at all so I stick two fingers up at myself and write the first thing that goes through my head and then when I've finished writing I'm so utterly embarrassed by how much of a moronic freak I must come across as that I tear the page from my notebook and refuse to look at it until I'm in your waiting room and it's too late to write anything else and so I show you what I wrote and I'm always afraid to look at you when you read it because, even now I've been seeing you for, what, three months, I'm still self-conscious of what you think of me. Despite your being professionally impartial, I still worry what you think of me. That's another major difference between you and my diary. A friend asked me a couple of weeks ago what it's like having a therapist, and I told him that it's a funny kind of relationship, because I only ever meet you in the context of telling you everything I never tell anybody else, and I just have to trust that, outside office hours, you don't care. That would be the best thing.

You said once how you feel that it's always you doing the talking. Sorry. I'll try and be more open. It's just hard when you're the only one who knows all that's going on. You tell me to try opening up to some people. Well, I have, with mixed responses. One person didn't want to know at all. Another was deliberately dense. Another was surprisingly helpful, in a very passive, non-judgmental way. Maybe I'll try telling someone like Mum, or maybe my sister. Maybe not.

Thank you for your patience. I really do want to be normal.

Katherine

Dear Ben,

One day I'll stop feeling guilty for the criminal amount of messing around that I've subjected you to over the last couple of years. Until then - and this won't be the last time I say it, nor the last time I mean it - I'm really, really sorry.

You are among the most reckless and irresponsible people I know - but at the same time, you're also among the most dedicated, perceptive and downright stubborn. I appreciate you for how grounded you are. While I'm here floating away in my own bubble of volatility, you're always so... stable. You probably disagree, but this is just from my perspective. I love you for how reliably unpredictable and surprising and brilliant you are when you're not focusing on impressing other people.

I don't know where to take this now. If you were with me you'd pat me on the head condescendingly and go on to tell me about a race you've got this weekend, or a philosophical theory Mr Davies told you about today, or something completely irrelevant that John's up to nowadays, and you'd be eating a panini and spitting food everywhere and still be complaining about how hungry you are. And then I'd complain at you for the influx of obscene jokes that I rarely get.

That's that.

From Kat

(That rhymed, did that.)

Dear Sophie,

I wish I could see you more often. You make things better, even if it's only temporary. I love how wholesome you are. Don't let anything bad happen to you, my little one, because you deserve more than what the world is going to do to the rest of us. 

I really love you. Please let's always be friends.

Lots and lots of love from me xxxx

Dear Rory,

I'm still pissed off at you.

Dear Michael,

Y'know what I really, really like about you? We have very little in common. You've seen me at literally my most embarrassing. Sometimes we drift off into complete silence. You've met my family - and despite all that, you still seem to like me.

You make me feel like I'm enough. I hope I do the same for you because - trust me - you are more than enough, in the nicest way possible. That didn't come out right. You know what I mean.

That's, um, yeah. See you later.

Katherine

Dear Dad,

I don't need to beat around the bush; things haven't been great. 

I've spent the majority of the last couple of years unwilling to trust you, or spend time with you, or talk to you, or even look at you sometimes. So, no, things haven't been great. They haven't been great and they haven't been since I hit adolescence. I don't know why. I guess you disagree with teenagers and I, as a teenager, disagreed with you - which is sad - but despite how not-great things have been, they seem to be getting better. I think.

Thank you for enduring me. I'm probably not easy for a father to deal with. I'm not a daddy's girl, I'm not anything to boast about, I'm quintessentially neurotic and awkward, I can't stand sports, I keep bringing home inappropriate men, and you punish me by pointing out my lovebites. Which is no more than I deserve, I guess.

You have the least diverse taste in films and music. (Don't get me wrong, the stuff you like is good, but your music collection hasn't had an update since 1975 and the only films you consistently enjoy are the Lord of the Ringses and The Usual Suspects.) You're embarrassing when you've had too much to drink. Your Brussel sprouts are the worst ever. You don't take care of yourself. You make stupid, unnecessary remarks. You're always getting on at me about what I eat - be it too much or not enough, there's usually something wrong.
Those are the things I dislike. For most of 2012, that was all I focused on when it came to you.
But now time has passed. I've grown up a bit - enough to see just a little of the hundreds of thankless, shitty things you do for us. You're the only person that stands between the rest of us and our house becoming a sty. You take us places at unsociable hours. You buy us random shit when we ask. Just earlier today, you put together a shepherd's pie for us to eat for dinner, when you were going to be at work, so that none of us had to cook, and that really, really touched me. Mum and Rob and Katie are grateful too, but I don't think they've really thought about it. I mean, Dad... You're not the most agreeable person on the planet. We both know that. (Most people know that.) But you are utterly selfless, and it's only now that I'm beginning to see how much of an honor it is to be your daughter.
Love, Katherine

Dear Tim,

Um. I don't know exactly what to write. Maybe it'll be easier to think of the stuff I definitely shouldn't write.

Oh, jeez. This is way harder than I thought it was going to be. Why is that? Maybe you know, you seem to be able to read me with more accuracy and confidence than any of the other people who've tried that psychoanalysis bullshit on me. And why is that? I feel like I don't know anything about you - or, no, I have my theories and my ideas and my hunches but absolutely nothing I'd bring up with you, because I'm nervous about going too far and making you never treat me the same way. 

You get me. You get how frustrated I can be and how lonely I can get, and it's cliched to say that you get me because you're the same as me, but increasingly I'm wondering if we're more alike than anyone thinks. Beyond the obvious - lots of people write - and, but, um, I don't know where I'm going.

You're special to me because you understand. You understand without my having to explain, and to me that's significant. You probably understand why, even though I'm not sure I do.