'Im Fine'

Prologue

Too much of anything can destroy you. Close your eyes and you will see darkness. This darkness is what destroys us. It seeps through our skin and into our bones, soon enough we become the darkness. But at the same time, if you look directly into the light it will blind you from everything else, and without your sight you can’t see the dangers that life holds.

It’s a choice everyone makes, you either become the darkness that you hid from as a child, or you let yourself be blinded by the light and you never know of the hatred and the danger that lives around you until it’s too late.

Everyone chooses a path, but sometimes it isn’t an easy decision as you first thought, sometimes events grip hold of you and take you down a different route, you become lost and scared. You don’t know where you are or how you got there; and soon enough you realize you don’t even know who you are anymore.

Everyone gets lost at some point in their lives. Usually it’s just for a month or so whilst you decide on your next journey.  But sometimes it’s a little longer. For me it’s been exactly eight years now, eight years since my picture perfect life began to shatter.

I was seven at the time. It began with the slamming of a door, the sound of a pained scream, a broken heart and four people’s lives changing forever.  I never thought I’d ever have to watch my father walking out the door, knowing he would never be coming back. Yet i managed to pick up the pieces as best as a seven year old could. I learned to smile again along with my mother. But my brother was never the same, the only man figure in his life had walked out at the time he needed him the most.

Im not blaming my father for what happened to my brother in the next ten years, many people’s parents separate, many people are brought up by only one parent. But i can’t deny that his leaving started of a string of events that lead to my brother’s final down fall.

The second crack was the first time my brother took his anger out on my mother, as his anger towards our family grew so did his emotional abuse. Three years went by and ever night consist of my brother yelling at our mother. I would always hide in my room too afraid to move, and when the shouting was finished i would have to pick up the pieces. My mother’s depression was getting worse and i had to try and help keep her on her feet. I was ten.

The third crack happened when i was eleven, the only person i could always rely on to be there for me, to never judge me. Died. After my grandmothers death my brother’s emotional abuse towards our mother turned to physical. Sometimes my mother would fight back, but then she would crumble at the thought of hurting her son and i would have to tell her it was all going to be okay.

After that the cracks came more and more often, my brother became addicted to drugs and alcohol. My mother became reliable on pills the doctors gave her for depression and i now wore a mask to hide my true emotions. Soon enough there was no glass left to crack. My family had fallen apart. We were all scarred; i was just better at keeping mine hidden.