My Journey

chapter one

Depression isnt fun. I recently realized I'd been abusing the word. Being sad and being depressed are two very very different things. It sounds so simple now that I know, but It didnt always. Depression makes me feel empty. It makes a bad day become a horrible day, void of all emotion. The ticking of the clock the only proof of the minutes going by. My eyes looking forward but seeing nothing. The darkness became my comfort zone and silence became a heavenly sound. I can sit with silence for hours. Not seeing or feeling. Most of the time I dont even realize I'm doing it.

Depression can be scary. It leaves scars and wounds that may never fully heal. Mentally and physically. It can push you to do or almost do things you'd usually never even consider.

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I was born into a dysfunctional family. My father was a angry man and a woman beater. Hes put woman into the hospital many times. When I was a baby my father refused to help bath or change me because I was a female. My mom and him would fight alot but I was young enough where I dont remember any of it.

My father ended up punching my mom in the face and breaking her nose which she would years down the line need to get surgery to fix. That was the day we finally left. My mom packed us one bag of stuff and walked us to a place to stay for the night. Most of my preschool to 2nd grade years were uneventful other then the fact that we moved houses alot. Ive gone to 7 elementary schools.

My mom at some point met a guy she liked and we moved in with him. He was also a woman beater and they fought all the time. I dont remember much of living with him except for one night that I've never forgotten. My mom and the guy I'm gonna call D were fighting just like every other night, but tonight I decided to be daring and try to listen. Bad idea. As soon as I had padded up to the door D bursts through it clutching his hand to his chest.

"Look what your mommy did to me." He said to the child version of me displaying his bleeding hand as if it was a casual thing. That memory is the only memory I have of D. I dont think I'll ever forget it either. D also beat up my mom at one point leaving her competely unrecognizable.
Despite this D and my mom had a child. My little brother Donald. Donald didn't end up living with us for long. His nanny took custody of him because my mom was being neglectful. The same reason I went into foster care at the age of 2. My moms smart though. All she had to do was win over the social worker on her case and bam, she had me back in her clutches.

After D came the next boyfriend. Now the thing about my mom is she has a type. A bad type. She seems to only be attracted to assholes who are going to treat her and her kids badly. Dave was the embodiment of that. He was a drug using alcoholic who loved to startup fights that lasted the entire night, and do random dumb shit to cause trouble.

We continued to move from place to place with Dave until we moved into a big apartment building with lots of other tenants. This was the kind of apartment building that someone had to buzz you up to get into. Me and Dave were close at this time he was still the cool new guy in my life who my mom liked. He would take me out in storms and we'd watch the lighting even though it terrifies my mom. To this day I love watching lighting and standing in the warm summer rains. Along with the good memories of this building of course always come the bad.

One night in particular stands out to me the most. I remember that I was sleeping when I heard screams and crys and someone talking on the phone. I could tell they were panicking because of the tone they were using so of course i was curious. On my way to investigate the crys I was stopped by Dave who told me I couldnt see my mom. Confused as ever I tried to go and see her anyways and he stopped me, and brought me out to the livingroom. From my spot on the couch I could see two medics come in and help my mom walk out of the house. I noticed she had alot of red stuff on her and dave reluctantly told me what happened. He said that mom had fallen and hit her head. I later found out what really happened is that dave pushed her and she sliced her head open. For months they would fight every single night. The constant yelling made it hard to sleep and when I did eventually get to sleep I could only have nightmares.

Soon after this we ended up moving into a new apartment on the second floor. The fighting stopped happening as often, but when it did happen it was really bad. I remember my mom screaming out the windows for help because the fighting had gotten so intense.

While we were living in the little apartment I started getting sick quite often. I would get headaches and throw up every night. We could never figure out why until one night the roof collapsed from black mold. Luckily no one was hurt but we had a huge hole in the roof for a while.

Eventually we finally moved. At this place my mom eventually ended up getting pregnant with a little girl who we will call E. The fighting continued and my nightmares got worse and worse, until eventually the police were called. They showed up at our door and demanded to be let in. E was put into her seat and taken before I could even process what was happening. This pushed my mom to end it with Dave and find a place of our own. It was close to our old place so I could still go to the same school, and we were finally away from Dave.