One thing I have learned in my year and a half experience of therapy is that they really love to talk about your childhood. I always give the shortest possible answers. I don't want to talk about it. The truth is a lot of it feels blurry, like I dreamed the whole thing. My dad didn't really know how to be a dad but he tried, and that counts for a whole lot. Did he make the best decisions all the time? Absolutely not, but he wasn't much older than I am now and all he knew was he wanted my childhood to be nothing like how his had been. I remember always saying to myself that everything he did was for me, that I should be grateful. That's it. Be grateful for what you have because a lot of kids have it way worse. My therapist says that's not a good way to think, that I don't have to defend my dad, but that's all I've known for as long as I can remember. No one ever told me that's how it is, but it's always been subconsciously in the back of my mind: Work hard, don't be needy, don't rely on other people to do things for you. Even when he started dating you-know-who I told myself it was for me. I could never ever for even one minute think that he'd made a mistake because he was perfect. Even when I heard the shouting, smelled the smoke, saw the bruises, I continued to tell myself he was doing it for me and I should be grateful. After all, I was only seven, what did I know? Then it happened, and everything changed. I didn't know what had happened at the time, only the feeling, which I can't write down. We moved to get away from him and everything and after that a lot of things started to change. Suddenly I couldn't focus in school (I'd never been the best student even before), the halls were too loud, the lights too bright. Sometimes I felt too much all at once and I had to run and lock myself in a bathroom stall until I could calm down. There were notes sent home: Kayla is disrespectful to her peers, Kayla is a smart-aleck, Kayla needs to focus in class, etc. etc. The counselor said it was anxiety, that it was normal in kids my age. Those weren't the only changes though. I was seeing things that weren't there. Obviously my eyes were playing tricks on me because horses only had wings in TV shows. Right? But I couldn't exactly tell people that stuff because they'd think I was crazy. Until I turned nine. I guess you know the rest, but yeah. Long story short, my childhood isn't something I want to talk about—some of it really was good, but the rest I'd rather just pretend didn't happen. I read somewhere that it takes 7-10 years for all your cells to regenerate, and then you're basically a new person. That means that technically, I'm a totally different person since it happened. A completely new person. That's kind of nice to think about.
