When you fall down, do you always get back up? When everyone
is telling you to start over, can you? When you don't know which direction is
which anymore, does it really matter?
If your world is falling down around you, and you just
don't know what to do, does it matter what anyone else thinks?
I have been trying.
Everyone thinks you can just change overnight. But, I
have to find out where it started. What really made me who I am, and how I can
change it. It's been a long last couple of months, even years. Going through
everything I have gone through isn't even explainable. Maybe that's why I
stopped talking about it, because there wasn't anything left to say. But, there
is a lot left to say. Maybe I stopped because I was sick of being asked so many
screwed up questions, or maybe I just didn't know what to say anymore. Everyone,
when they find out about me, asks all of the same questions. Like, it's recorded
and on a continuous cycle, and I can't find the off button. They always ask,
“Where did this all start? Why are you doing these things? Why won't you talk
to us about it?” But, the thing is, I know all of the answers, I just don't
want to talk about it anymore because I decided that I would when I was ready,
and I wasn’t ready yet. I think it’s time to be ready though; I’m hiding from
it which isn’t healthy either, so I guess…I’m ready.
Every day, she asks me the same question. My therapist
that is. Every afternoon she says, "Are you ready to talk about it
today?" Every day, it's always the same answer, “no”. Then she goes into
some big ordeal about why I should and whatever else she says. I tune her out
most of the time just because I have heard it so many times. Then when she
realizes that I am either staring at the floor, out the window, or at my
hands, completely not listening to her she decides to ask me another
question. Usually regarding where it started, or something along those lines. I
have never answered before, because where it started I never thought I knew the
answer to, but, I think I truly do now...
I was two, or was it three? It was three, I’m pretty
sure. Either way I was really little. I was sitting in the middle of the living
room floor playing with my baby dolls, and the phone rang. It wasn't out of the
usual, I was so used to someone calling that I barely noticed my mom stagger
into the living room to answer it. When I turned around to try and figure out
who she was talking to, I saw her face go completely blank. She hung the phone
up and walked out of the house, leaving me alone…
For what felt
like hours, but was only minutes. Till my dad came home from a call from my
mom. I don't remember exactly what he said. But I do remember him
coming into the house saying "Hey Hans! Want to go for a ride?" My
dad and I were and still are best friends, I loved going anywhere with him. I
shot up off the floor and ran outside. A few minutes later my dad came out with
two suitcases, being three I really didn't think anything of it. I just climbed
up into his Chevy S10 and put my arms up so that he could put my booster seat
lock down from above my head. From there I fell asleep in the car, and we
showed up at my grandma's house, my mom’s mom. I was really
excited especially because she lives really far away. My dad and I
stayed there for a few days, because my uncle had just passed away earlier that
morning. It was my moms’ brother. Where my mom was I didn't know, and still
don’t.
That's the day it started, the first day that my mom
would never be the same again. She drank and smoked when I was even littler
than that, but it was going to get worse...fast.
The next two questions about why I won't talk about it,
and why I do these "things." Are going to need a little bit more
explaining. After the day it started, the day my uncle died. A few days later
my dad’s brother was diagnosed with cancer. After just losing one uncle from
cancer, and then having another one diagnosed a few days later was very hard on
my entire family. Especially my dad, it was his brother, and he was
what my dad used to say "to young." Which I understood. Everything
kind of stayed normal after that from what I remember. My uncle got his cancer
removed, and was doing better. Then when I was six my grandpa John died. My
dad’s mom got remarried after her husband died (my dad's dad), and I never met
him. So, my grandpa John was the closest thing I had. I wouldn't say we were
close, because my dad didn't really like him, and when I was that young my dad
knew everything, and everything he said was right. So, I just kind of went with
it. Two years after that my mom's dad passed away. It was the worst day of my
life, and forever will be.
I stood in the middle of the kitchen in my uncle's
house. He just got home from the hospital, and my dad's cell phone rang. It was
my mom. She was yelling over something, we still aren’t quite sure what it was,
and we really don't want to know. But, from the parts we could hear, she said.
"I...not going to be....home....for a few days...dad's dead...going to Tex....don't....me."
We pieced it together to become "I am not going to be coming home for a few
days, my dad's dead and I am going to Texas, don't call me." Two weeks
later I came home from school and the police were in my driveway, talking to my
dad. My mom was in the back of the squad car. The cop was talking about finding
her in her car passed out, on the side of the road in Madison. How she got
there, we are not sure. But when they let her out of the car and left her with
us she went straight to the bar, didn't come home for three days...I looked at
my dad and asked him "What's wrong with mom? Is this our life now?"
He didn't know what to say, so he just nodded his head and walked away.
The next few years were all going to be the same. She would come home from work and I would get yelled at, and then she would leave and go to the bar and may or may not come home. We didn't know, and frankly I started to not really care about her anymore. My dad told me a few weeks ago that one day when I was nine or ten I came up to him and said, "If mom ends up in jail, can we not go get her out, and just let her stay there?" He told me later that he cried himself to sleep that night knowing that I really just didn't care about her anymore. I looked at him and pretty much flat out told him I didn't. She didn't want me in her life, why should I want her in mine. I tried making her a part of my life already, all it did was make my life worse. Her drinking quickly increased to the point where I couldn't have a conversation with her that she would remember the next day, after ten in the morning. I truthfully thought she was going to drink herself to death. I still do.
Now that I have told you my entire life story. I can
finally explain the rest with it making sense. I ended up at Roger's 3 months
ago, and went back a few days ago. Two years, three months, and 20 days ago, my
uncle passed away from cancer. Yes, the one who was diagnosed a few days after
my other uncle passed away. I stopped talking, I refused to go to school, I was
so depressed I could barely say three words to someone before I got really
angry and started slamming doors and yelling. I was diagnosed with an
anxiety disorder in November and went into Roger's for the first time in
January. I get anxiety attacks, and sometimes I will pinch and scratch myself till
I bleed just so that I know that I am still alive. My therapist, everyday asks
me "Why do you do these things?" I can honestly say I do not know. I
know I feel like my world is crumbling, and the person I want out of my life
most keeps coming back. I was put back into Roger's a few days ago, by choice.
I felt like it was in my best interest to go back. So, I did.
It was a different experience. But, it was one I needed.
A couple days after I came home I was texting one of my really close friends
about it. I told her that it was weird the first time, but it wasn’t as bad the
second. She actually said she was proud of me. Which is something I needed,
because at this point in time I don’t know who I am, I barely know where I am.
I feel like rolling into a ball on the floor and just giving up. But, I know if
I give up I will be the kind who, “Couldn’t hold it together.” Or, the kid who,
“Just didn’t know how many people actually care.” The thing is, everyone says
that, everyone says that about kids like me. But, the thing is, that we know
how many people believe in us. But, no one wants to show their support for the
“problem” kid. You don’t understand us, until you have lived through what we
have…and trust me, and everyone else like me, you don’t want to live through
any of the things we have.
Everyone thinks, I'm that happy kid. The one who always
has a smile on her face, and is laughing at something. But, it's not the case.
I am a happy kid on the outside, so that no one can see that I am crumbling on
the inside. I didn't ever talk about it, because I felt like so many people
have it so much worse, that I don't have the right to complain.
But, I have an alcoholic parent, and I am one of those
kids who have it “worse.” The kids whose parents wouldn’t buy them a $100 pair
of shoes for their birthday, think that they can complain about how much their
parents “hate them.” I haven’t gotten a birthday present from my mom since I
was three…get over it. I don't show emotion, because I don't want anyone to see
me as “weak.” But, if I was weak I wouldn't still be here.
But, it's time for me to "start over", and I
finally know what that means. I need to breathe, and take a step in the right
direction, not the right direction for anyone else, but the right direction for
me. Which is toward the light at the end of this dark tunnel I have been stuck
in since I was three. I have hidden in the shadows of this tunnel I dug myself
into for way to long. It’s time to see the world again. I will still be me, the
kid with no filter, and the kid who will stick up for herself, and everyone
else, no matter circumstance nor person…
That is who I am. This is who I am. I am me.
If you have a problem with that, I never asked you to be
part of my life anyway.
This is my first step towards the end of this tunnel, and
as afraid as I am, I will not run anymore.
It's time to be me...finally.
