My Life
*TRIGGER WARNING* abuse, and depression are mentioned often
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Unlike what most would think from how my current life is, my childhood was perfect. My parents were married and we lived in a typical modern suburban home. Three stories, five bedrooms and a huge backyard with its own pond. And I was your typical little girl, I loved playing outside, playing all of the sports that I could. I guess you could say I was a tomboy.
I had an amazing childhood until I was six years old and my younger sister was born. Originally it was just me and my older brother, but with her, there were three of us, and like most middle children do, I became the forgotten child.
Once my younger sister was born I started becoming less active, I stopped playing sports, stopped playing outside. It wasn't that I didn't want to do these things, I just wasn't allowed to. I now had to watch my younger sister, change her diaper, feed her, put her to bed. I couldn't play sports cause then who would watch her while my parents were at work or when they went to my brother's games. At the age of six, I went from being a kid to an adult, or at least that's what it felt like.
This went on for a few more years, I would get home from school and take care of my younger sister. After one of my parents got home I would then do as much homework as possible before being told to help with either my younger sister or with making dinner.
I wouldn't say that my life was hard after my sister was born to me it just became normal.
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Things for me really started to get worse when I was around nine and a half, my parents got a divorce and we moved. Now moving wasn't that bad, what sucked was now that my dad was gone the one person who paid attention to me had disappeared.
Another thing that sucked was where we moved, we were oh so lucky enough to move into section 8 housing. For those of you who don't know what that is, it is basically government subsidized housing for the super poor. To be in it you have to make less the $40,000 a year and normally have other people to support on that income.
The neighborhood sucked, I can't tell you how many rapes, break-ins, or drive-bys happened in that neighborhood. The good thing is though that none of those things happened to me and I also got to make lots of friends with the other kids. We all had issues at home and bonded over that.
Besides things going well with my new friends, things were going pretty good at school. I didn't have a ton of friends, but I got to go to my same school, except on scholarship now. I got to be known as the smart kid of my grade and hade straight As.
However, just because things were going good at school doesn't mean that everything was good. Things at home started to get worse and worse. I never realized that when I was younger that my father was always sore and covered in bruises. I thought that he was just old. It wasn't until my mothers first break down that I realized why he always hurt. It was now my responsibility to handle her outbursts.
At first, it was horrible, sometimes they would last for only a couple minutes other times it could last for hours. Within just months of her first outburst, I had become numb to most of the pain. No matter how much my mother hit me it had pretty much just stopped hurting. The only time when it hurt anymore is when something broke or got dislocated. If I have to give my mother credit for anything it would be how accurately and hard she can hit without leaving bruises.
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At the age of ten, I fully took over taking care of my family. My mother did not do anything a mother should do to raise me or my siblings. A mother is someone who cares for her children. Even if she did just get done with a long day of work she is supposed to cook, clean, and help her children with homework. However, none of those things describe my mother. My mother would come home from work and do nothing, she reads and sits around. I would come home from school and cook dinner while helping my younger sister with her homework. After that, I clean or do laundry.
I did all the things a mother should do. I have raised my sister and my older brother. From the age of ten, I have done all of the cooking and cleaning in my house. I learned very quickly in my house that the only person I can depend on is myself. I couldn't depend on my older brother to help me because he was working along with being in high school. Because I couldn't depend on anyone for help I grew up fast.
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I was around twelve years old when I realized I didn't want to live anymore. I didn't know what depression was at that age, all I knew is that I would cry myself to sleep every night and often wonder of things that could kill me. I started finding ways to put myself in danger, started jumping off of anything and everything that was taller than me. Would stay out late and try to start fights with the more dangerous people in my neighborhood. Yet nothing ever happened that could end my pain. I yearned for a way out for years, with no good solution.
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A week after my 15th birthday my mother beat me so bad that she broke three of my ribs, cracked a bone in my spine and made it so I can now partially dislocate my hip whenever I feel like it. When my dad found out how badly I was injured he immediately moved me into his house.
It had been years since I had spent more than a weekend at his house and at first, it was awesome. I love my dad, he is my hero so it was awesome to get to see him every day. I also got to live with my best friend and step-sister, who can say that can have that amazing experience. It was awesome there for about a month, but as with everything in my life, it seems shit has to hit the fan.
I quickly found out that my dad was rarely home, he worked from 8 am to 7 pm most nights, my stepsister was only there three days of the week. Which left me alone with my stepmother often. My stepmother in the simplest words is someone with manic depression, who can't hold down a job a or function as an adult.
My life at my dad's house wasn't really much different than at my mothers. to help my dad out I did all the cleaning and laundry and started taking over making dinner. I didn't mind all of that, at this point, it had become a habit for me to do all of that. What I couldn't handle at my dad's house was the emotional abuse and constant feeling of being suffocated. Everyone in that house was depressed and struggling to just get through the day.
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After a little more than a year of living there I couldn't do it anymore, I was going to go insane staying there. The entire time that I had lived with my father I hadn't talked to my mother more than a hand-full of times. It was just a random night but I decided to reach out and see how she was doing because I couldn't live there anymore.
My stepsister had tried to kill herself in that house and I started cutting again to help manage the emotional pain I was in. After reaching out to my mother we actually started talking again and having pretty good conversations, it turns out that she had started going to counseling and was doing a lot better then she had been. I had actually started to enjoy our conversations and see her as someone else besides an abuser.
A little more than a month later my stepsister and I decided to move out of my father's house, we both knew that it wasn't healthy for either of us to stay there. As we were moving out, my father and I got into a huge fight. He kept telling me who it was my fault that his wife wanted to kill herself. And that I wouldn't a part of this family if I moved out.
I simply told him that I didn't care if she did or not. She is an adult, she shouldn't be throwing a temper tantrum at her age. Nor should she blame others for her issues. And with that I walked out of my fathers house and haven't spoke more then a couple holiday niceties to him.
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After leaving my fathers house I moved back into my mothers house. Since I moved in with my father she had moved to a much better neighborhood, with amazing neighbors. Everything was really good there until I came out to my mom and the beatings started again.
The beatings continued on until I dumped my girlfriend. Till this day though the light within my eyes is lost and only slightly returns with thoughts of her and my baby sister. Since moving back home my younger sister has become my everything. I see so much of my younger self in her that it scares the hell out of me. All I can do is hope and pray that I can make her happy and love her enough where she can grow to be the amazing person I know she will become.
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Currently I am in college and actually enjoying it. I made my own family here with friends that love me and support me in the way that family should.
Although I don't like what I have been through and I would never wish it upon anyone. Even my worst enemy. I still would not ask for anything to change. What I have been through has made me stronger. It has forced me to see the world in a different way that can only be explained by saying...
live your life to the fullest, enjoy what you are given and fight for what you want. Do not let the pressure of the world and its expectations hold you back from being you.
No matter what you go through use it as a learning experience and grow to be someone better, someone stronger. Someone that other people look up to and want to be like. But instead of getting cocky remember your struggles and tell people this "your life is a learning process, grow through your struggles and believe in who you are."
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Dedicated to: All those that took their lives, all those that died too young and to all those who are struggling, you will get through it and flourish once you do.