Last weekend, my parents took my brother to the psychiatrist in Bangkok. After listening to the problem and asking a few questions, the doctor said that Guy is having a rough time right now because quite a few people he loves have left him. He is feeling scared that everyone is going to leave him and he will be left alone.

The doctor thinks that it all began when my aunt and uncle went to live abroad last year. They were really close to Guy, as they didn’t have any children of their own. They always took him away with them on holidays. Also, not long after they had gone, Guy’s favourite dog passed away. He cried a lot and was very upset about it. Then after that it was me who went to live with Tai at her house.

The doctor said that everyone in the family should be spending more time together with him. Also try to avoid leaving him alone. The doctor gave him some expensive medicine to take every day. He said that it would help him calm down. He said that he should come back to visit him every week until he’s fine.

You know what, everything he said to my parents does make sense to me as it’s exactly how I sometimes felt in the past. When we were young, we used to stay with my grandmother in Bang Na. We didn’t often see our parents like other kids because they were both working hard. And then later on when we get older, we moved to stay with our parents in Paknam. But that still did not give us more time to be with them as they were still working late nearly every day.

After school, we had to stay at my aunt’s house and wait for my dad to come and pick us up. Sometimes we had to stay there until 8pm. I remember that every time my dad was late picking us up, we both cried and ran to him as soon as he got off the bike. It’s a bit sad, even now, every time I think about this.

After that, when I was in Grade 6, I started to go home by myself. My parents gave me the house key so I could get in and wait for them but it didn’t really make me feel better. I remember that it was kind of scary to stay home alone. Of course, when I started secondary school it wasn’t so scary. As there was no one home after school, I started taking my friends there to watch pornographic videos and then later I was taking girls there to be alone with them.

My brother is in Grade 6 and he is now a latch key kid too. Maybe this is why we both had problems and tried to get attention from our parents by being naughty. Myself I chose to be bad by smoking cigarettes and taking drugs. But, for my brother, it looks like he chose to be crazy — which I think worked because he started to get more attention from my parents. More than I did because I ended up getting kicked out of the house!

My own opinion is that he hasn’t really gone crazy like everyone thinks. I believe he is just pretending to be crazy to get attention and love from my parents. However, I think there is some truth in that he is panicking that people are leaving him and he is going to be left alone.

You know what the scariest thing for me is? I am here talking about my parents not spending so much time with us but my daughter only sleeps in the same house as me about 50 percent of the time! Maybe I should be thinking more clearly about how I want to bring up my own children. It is scary that any mistakes I make now will have to be paid for later. Who said being parents was easy?