Counting Steps

I m i s s y o u

Let's start off with the basics.

The two Ds:

Depression
Dysphoria

Just a couple of the many things that go on in my head. Many people are the same.

Let's start off with what I started to talk about in the last chapter.

Depression:

It started after my dad died when I was eleven. He fell asleep on the road, causing him to drive off into a tree. He died on impact. The car caught on fire.

I've heard many different things over the years of where he was planning to go. I don't really care what it was anymore.

I never got to say goodbye.

Before then I never really had a close relationship with my father. My parents were going through a divorce and all that my dad wanted to do was to be with us. But I had things that kept me from him. And at a yound age I didn't know how to manage them.

I guess he didn't either.

He got into things.
Mom said it would be better to keep us away from him because of it.

I didn't understand any of this at the time. I was young and didn't want to pay attention to the bad things around me. Sure, I loved creepy crap and dark clothes but I didn't want to know what was going on in the real world. I was in my own little world and I liked it. I wasn't exposed yet.

My dad tried to get better. He went to places to recover, he tried his hardest to stop. He eventually got together with a woman that I know he didn't love.

She was a cruel woman. Always yelling at him and asking things of him. It hurt my heart whenever I saw them together. I hated the way she treated my dad. Maybe he stayed with her because he did feel something towards her. It wasn't love, though. Not like how he still loved my mother at the time.

I have a theory. Not only was he together with a woman other than my mother,

this woman had two daughters.

Before I came out as transgender, I was once a girl.

The family, the other family, was his rebound, I think.

At that age I had a huge case of OCD. I was also terrified of germs. I still have a bit left of what my late "rituals" were. I used to wash my hands until they were as rough as sandpaper. Whenever I rode in my dad's truck, since it smelled bad, I wouldn't rest my head on the head rest in fear of getting dirty. I couldn't get in bed until after taking a shower, and it was forbidden to wear day clothes in my holy fortress of sheets. Today, I never fail to cover my nose and mouth when someone coughs, sneezes, or breathes loudly near me.

I used to hate staying with my dad and his girlfriend because of the way that they smelled. I still feel guilty.

I would do anything to smell his leather jacket that wreaked of alcohol and smoke.

I used to hate his hugs and now all I want him to do is hold me in his arms and never let me go.

It was almost a month after my birthday that he died. I was getting my hair cut at a store when my mom got a phone call. I admired my short hair in the mirror as my mom stepped behind a corner where it was more quiet. Being the nosy little prick that I was, I listened in.

I wish I hadn't.

Panic drenched her voice and she mentioned the name of one of my cousins who I immediately recognized as someone who was close to my dad. That's when my heart started racing. My mom turned the corner, her eyes glazed over and her shoulders tensed. I approached her slowly and she told me we had to go. I watched her as we stood at the register. The woman behind the counter spoke to her but she didn't respond. She just stood there, fiddling with her wallet. When she came to her senses she apologized and said she was only out of it.

We walked out of the salon and she pulled me against her body, walking hastily toward the exit. I started crying. I told her to tell me what was wrong and said that she was scaring me.

She's never held me as tight as she did that day.

She kept silent the entire car ride home. I stared out the window, considering all of the possibilities. When really, I knew. There's no easy way to explain how I knew, I just did. Something had happened to my father and I didn't know how to react. So instead of sobbing, I stared out the car window up into the sky, talking to him, hoping he was in the heaven that I used to believe in, tears springing down my cheeks.

When we turned onto my grandmothers driveway, police cars lined the trees. My legs turned to jello. Everything was blurry and my head hurt. I was the most scared I had ever been.

My mom led me inside, holding me with her death grip. We opened the door and I noticed the police talking to my family, everyone turning their heads to see who had arrived.

I immediately counted heads. There was my grandmother, my aunt, my two close cousins, and my grandfather. My sister was at a friend's house. I knew that if something happened to her then my mother would have reacted much more harshly than how she did at the store.

There was only one person missing.

My grandmother took me to her bedroom and she asked me what I thought happened. She looked into my eyes with such guilt that my words caught in my throat.

"Dad?"

She shook her head and if she wasn't holding me then I would have fallen to the ground.

I sobbed and sobbed and my grandmother apologized over and over again. My mother joined soon after and we cried for what seemed like eternity.

I won't go into detail with what happened after that. My sister came home and she broke down into my mother's arms once we told her the news. No help to my youngest cousin blurting, "Uncle Shawn died". It always upsets me when I think about how she told my sister that. She widened her eyes and sprinkling tears erupted into showers that could fill an ocean.

We didn't go to school for a week.

Everything changed after that. My family was never the same. Besides the occasional fights my mother used to have with my dad, the only fights she had now were with herself.

I became more alone then, even though I got the most support I ever had. I only thought about the worst in life and by the time I was twelve I started seriously thinking about suicide.

Things got better, though. My mother brought me to a therapist and I talked about everything to her: my imaginery friends, my OCD. Our visits always revolved around my dad and when I tried to change the subject the therapists kept bringing him up.

I understand that that's probably why my mother brought me to therapy in the first place but I wanted to get help not talk about a dead man.

Soon I became annoyed with everyone and one therapist turned into two and two turned into three. After talking to people they finally got the picture and understood that my feelings (or lack of feelings) didn't revolve around my dad. I'm visiting my fourth or fifth therapist now. She's helped me a lot.

Thankyou, Dawn.

I don't talk about my dad anymore but I never fail to remember him every single day. I cry a lot when I think about him and if I don't cry then I stare off into space and the color drains from my face.