•ALEXITHYMIA• [SLOW UPDATES]

Chapter 1

3 years. It's been three, almost four years.

It's been so long, yet it only feels like yesterday since I was in that house. The very house where everything took place.

It all started when I was 7.

I was seven years old when my mom left me. And I lived alone with my dad. It was quiet to say the least. When she first left, I hardly ever saw him around. He was in and out of the house. Whenever I saw him, we just stared at each other. Whenever he saw me, he'd just look blankly at me. As if he didn't know me, as if he didn't know what to say or do. He just stood, and stared at me.

When she left, I remember trying to talk to him. Yet he would just sit on the couch watching tv, and all he did was stare.

I remember how he didn't even acknowledge me when I tried to comfort him. When I tried to get him to talk, stand, or do something to show me that my dad was still in there.

Eventually, after a few weeks, he did respond.

Not exactly in the way I expected, but in a way, he still showed something.

My naive self couldn't comprehend or understand what was really going on. All I knew, was that, my mommy left me. And my daddy is sad.

That's all I got from the first few weeks of his staring blankly. No emotion whatsoever. Until he seemed to snap out of his daze.

I didn't expect for him to tell me it's your fault.

My fault? What did he mean??

Was it my fault that mommy left?

"It's your fault. Your fault she's fucking gone!"

But what did I do?

He was mad at me. He thought since mommy left it was my fault. I tried to explain. I just thought he needed someone. I just smiled and started moving my small hands. 'Huh? Mommy always says if you're feeling sad, you would maybe need a hug'

I couldn't hear what he was saying, all I saw were his lips moving. All I had to depend on were his expressions and that way his lips moved as he spoke. I couldn't hear.

Very faintly, was his small, quaint, echo of a voice. Too quiet for me to understand anything he said. He knew I couldn't understand him. After all, it wasn't a secret that I was born with hearing that only seemed to become more faint as the years went on. It wasn't a secret to him especially. He was my dad. He raised me. He helped me cope with my hearing. I loved him. He was my daddy.

But I remember, he said something I couldn't comprehend, and then as soon as he said that, he started yelling. All his yelling was just a faint whisper to my ears. I heard the words, only they went in and slipped right out. He stood from his chair, as he practically roared at me. I only stood there. His yelling was even loud enough so that I could actually comprehend what he was saying.

Daddy is mad.

7 year old me just let him yell. I thought he just needed to defuse. But no, was I wrong. Seven year old me didn't know how to understand anything people really said. I didn't learn to understand until a while later. It was then that I understood that, he wasn't just defusing. He wasn't just sad.

He hated me. He thought everything that went wrong was because of me. So he took the opportunity to punish me. He stopped taking me to school a few months after my mom left. Said I didn't deserve it.

He stopped feeding me, giving me food only a few times a week. He stopped taking care of me in general. Instead, he found joy in what he did to me. He knew my worst fears and used them against me. He'd lock me up in the place I hated the most. He'd sometimes force me to stay in the basement for days at a time, sitting there, in the dark.