Random Stories

My Year From Hell

This was an essay from my college class over the summer...

My Year From Hell

    When I was in middle school I went through a lot of tough times, I lost two friends to suicide and battled with self harm for a long time. Even though I didn’t have an extremely hard childhood, as I became a teenager life had become increasingly more trying. My freshman year of high school turned out to be the worst year of my life thus far. My expectations leading up to it weren’t too high, but I would have never expected what was to come.

    My freshman year started like that of my peers, going into a new school, meeting new people, being at the bottom of the “food chain”, and not really knowing where to go with my life. Within the first month or two of my freshman year, my father was caught cheating on my mom. This was a really hard concept for me to wrap my head around, not because I wasn’t expecting it, but because I watched my father crumble at our feet. It was a regular Sunday afternoon when my mom got a call from my Aunt and Uncle who had caught them in a parking lot. I had heard my mother cry alone at night wondering if it was true and now she had confirmation. I watched her kick into action. She packed him enough clothes and things for a week and had them ready when he got home. He left to New Hampshire to be with his family. That night we all tried to cope in our own way.

    The next week went by in a blur, I still don’t remember many of the details to this day. That friday was business as usual. I staffed at the teen center helping with the dance for the middle schoolers, they held one every friday. About twenty minutes before the dance ended, my brother walked in and rushed me out not giving me an explanation as to what was happening.  But I saw the looks on everyone’s faces. One of my bosses gave me a hug on my way out. I was the most confused I had ever been in my life. I got to my house and felt my heart drop. Everyone was home, it was a friday night, and not all my brothers live at home. I walked in and my mom was crying, my brothers weren’t talking at all. Finally my mother pulled me aside and told me that my dad had tried to kill himself and was admitted to a local mental facility. I didn’t cry. I refused to go see him. He was a coward. He had tried to run away instead of repenting. I was so angry.

    After a few weeks he was released, it was nearing thanksgiving at this point. My mother decided to move out and let him say at the house with us. He could support us better. It was then me, two of my brothers and my dad. My mother was staying at my aunt's house for a while. Skip forward to Christmas time,  my parents had decided to work it out and stay together. I will still never understand that decision on my mother’s part.

    After Christmas, though there was tension, everything was going pretty well. Then February hit. My mother had a stroke on a cold morning when my brother and I had a snow day. We immediately called my father and they went to the hospital. After 3 days, my mother was diagnosed with moyamoya. A disease of the brain that weakens the blood flow. Her stroke was mostly induced by the stress that she had been under for the months prior to it. Today, she still battles with the headaches and memory fragments from both the stroke and the disease itself.

    When most people think back to freshman year, it is mostly sunshine and rainbows about crushing on people and doing school activities. Personally I prefer to not look back at it in the first place.