It’s weird how a year can make such a difference—one breakdown and my whole world and how I see it has changed. My walls are down, and anything can get to me so easily; it amazes me.
Since yesterday, I have been sitting here with this huge pressure on my chest. All I kept thinking about was the date coming up. I know it’s just 3 Kings Day to most, but to me, it means so much more. Today is also my dad’s birthday.
I know we are not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but some people deserve it. He has been gone 25 years and still has a hold over me.
He instilled in me a fear and the inability to protect myself. He opened the door for most of everything bad that happened in my childhood by robbing me of my innocence and warped my sense of self-worth and what was right or wrong. By the time I realized what was right from wrong, I was caught in a web of lies and deceit.
My early years are such a haze and confusion. I doubt I will ever be able to put it together. It’s like what came first, the Chicken or the Egg, so no point wasting my time on it.
All I remember is a lot of yelling, screaming, and crying. I remember footsteps in the night, a lot of “Shhh,” and being told to be good. “This is how all little girls become women.”
The back of the couch was my favorite hiding place. I would take two or three pillows and hide myself. That is one habit I have carried into adulthood. I have a fort of pillows in my bed, and I won’t travel without one of them, as they are my protectors. Every morning, the first thing I do after getting up is grab one and bring it downstairs with me.
I was so fearful that there were times I barely spoke. My only salvation was that I was also constantly sick and was in the hospital a lot. That became the one place I could sleep without fear, run, and play with other kids. Only a few times did I have moments there that brought me back to reality, and that was when people said that it was weird how much I knew as a 3-year-old about things I should know nothing about yet.
Things did not get better as I got older and started school. We had moved to a new neighborhood, and at least the children around us were nicer. I was the youngest before, and I will leave that story for another post as they deserve their part in my story and not a sideline in this.
There are moments of joy as 2 of my best friends live within a short walk. But in the background was always the fear of being seen for what I really was.I had learned that my home life was not normal and that I was broken and abused so early in life it did become easier to deal with at times than the fear of being found out.
My child’s mind could not comprehend that I was conditioned to feel this way. That fear was my constant companion. Fear of exposure, fear of food steps in the night, and fear of my mother being killed, but most of all, of becoming a woman.
I remember a night when he flipped out, got a kitchen knife, walked around, and told my mother he would kill her. As he walked back, he gave me this look that told me that my fate and my moms were tied together.
I mean, I was used to the beatings and insults. I came home to a demolished living room and my mom’s clothing, all being thrown out of a window into the washroom with oil all over the floor just for being 10 minutes late. He noticed that my favorite cup was being thrown out of a closed window just for trying some red cabbage.
These are just a few stories, as he was also a functional alcoholic who was not a happy drinker. The stories of his deeds could fill a book, and 99 % weren’t good.
During all that, he wasn’t my only demon. He opened the door by stripping me of my defenses. I am not going to write about them as this is all about my dad. The person who started it all and still has the power over me 40 years later.
This year, I plan on working on all my demons and strings that held me back from living my life. I need to rid myself of the chains so I can become the person I always wanted to be.
I am not afraid or worried about turning 50, just about turning 50, still living in the shadows of my past and my demons. This is my year to break free.