I can't say I've ever really lost anyone that has caused me pain, but I can write about my parents. Growing up, all I ever heard was arguing. It was just constant screaming and sometimes it got violent. I learned that that was love. It scared me. I didn't want to be loved if that's what love was. I remember happy times and sad ones, but the saddest of them all was the day he finally left. The father I thought I had left in September, right before my 11th birthday. Then, a year and a half later he came back and thus started the biggest war I've ever seen. My parents screamed, I cried, everyone else was confused. I didn't want to see him. The six stages of grief are shock, denial, anger, guilt, depression, and acceptance. After he left, I went through several stages of grief, and when he came back the cycle started again. I remember being shocked and in denial, continuing to tell myself he'd come back. He never left for more than a week. Then, after a month or so, I got mad. Mad at him and mad the world. Mad my mom wouldn't leave her bed. I didn't understand how he could just leave his kids and more importantly leave my mom in such a broken state. I never will. But I'm not one who could stay constantly inraged like that. I soon began to blame myself. Maybe if I had been just good, he would've stayed. Maybe I was wanting too much. Maybe I shouldn't have yelled the night my sister broke my favorite toy. It was awful, thinking I was the reason the whole family was ruined. I began to beat myself down. I even struggled with self harm later. Then, one day my mom was up and moving about with more energy than I'd seen her have in month. We left to TN that day. She reassured me, that everything was going to be okay. I actually believed her. We left and I didn't want to look back. Maybe this isn't the same as acceptance, but I began to tell people he was dead. I didn't make a big deal out of it, but if a friend came over and noticed I didn't have a dad, I'd just say he died a long time ago and leave it at that. We came back to Arkansas and my mom started to struggle with drug problems. I couldn't believe, so I didn't let myself believe. I ignored what I saw and told myself it was going to be okay. I guess that wasn't the right thing to do. A couple months later, she was in rehab and the guy that left a long time ago was wanting me back. I didn't want to see him, I didn't want to hear about him. My younger siblings all got excited, thinking maybe things would go back, but I knew better. I was almost a teenager. I saw what he's leaving had done and I didn't want him back, but I didn't have much of a choice. I remember yelling and screaming and crying when the police officer tried to get me to get in the car with him. But that's not the worse part of grief. The worse part, was when I was actually getting used to being with him and I numbed myself to the word, because stuck in a constant state of shock and denial. I didn't blame myself this time, I blamed my him for leaving and coming back, I blamed my mom for leaving me. I learned that year, that one of my sisters has a different dad than me. She got to stay with my grandparents and later my mom. I started to hate myself. When the father left, I was the one that took care of the kids, while my mom was trying to fix herself. They were pretty much mine. I hated him, for separating us. A lot of times I still hate him for making me stay. Now, I'm stuck with that same guy that left and she's with my mom every night. I remember how she broke down when she learned the truth. It hit me like a truck. That was the first time I ever really had a panic attack. I knew I was going to alone in some broken home with the new family the father had replaced us with. Grief isn't something that just comes and goes, it's always there. You just gotta learn how to deal with it. I finally came to accepting my surroundings this years actually, when I realized next year, I'll be 18 and nobody can stop me from doing what was done to me, leaving. I cannot wait to get out of this place.
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Once again, not the usual format, but it's my book.
