Teenager writes heart-wrenching open letter thanking her drug-addict parents for teaching her how not to live her life.
Chelsea Cameron, 18, said their destructive habit taught her to be independent and ambitious. The youngster spent her childhood watching her mother and father in the grip of a heroin and valium addiction that tore the family apart. As young as seven, she would witness her parents passed out from heavy drug use as dealers hammered on the front door for money.
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But Miss Cameron was determined not to follow the same route and went on to notch up a number of incredible achievements including being made a prefect and head girl at school. Now she has written a letter putting her success down to the independence she learnt through her teenage years and her stubborn resolution not to live the same life as them.
She said: ‘Mum and dad thanks for everything, I owe you. Thank you for teaching me that taking drugs ruins lives, breaks families apart and gives no one a quality of life worth living. I’ll be eternally grateful for this lesson you have taught me … I have never and will never have a desire to take harmful substances through your example.’
Rather than adopting a tone of angry accusation, she instead expressed gratitude for the lesson that ‘life is unfair, people disappoint you’. Miss Cameron, from Dundee, was taken into care when she was 14 and at one point was almost expelled from school. But she rose above the heartbreak at home to achieve a number of successes.
Sadly, thanks to her parents’ continued drug use, they were never there to witness them. They missed her first exam results and the chance to wave her off as she left for the trip of a lifetime to Uganda. And they never saw her appointment as head girl, which came after teachers were impressed with her academic turnaround.
Addressing her parents, the teen said: ‘I hope one day that you’ll wake up and realize there is so much more the world has to offer you guys and when that day comes, please come to find me so we can enjoy life together.’ Her mother Tammy, 37, admits she is riddled with guilt but proud of her amazing daughter. She said: ‘No child should have to go through what Chelsea did and live that kind of life. I am ashamed and upset at my behaviour and am so sorry and so proud of her.’
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There were times when she looked out of the window to see her parents fighting with other drug addicts in the street. ‘Despite everything mum did try hard and to some extent I did have a fairly normal childhood and there was always a hot meal to go home to,’ she said.
© Daily Mail
