Manic

Chapter 1.

Today is the nine-year anniversary of the day you were arrested. I know, a very cliche way to begin telling a story. But this is my story. And as I am laying in my twin-sized bed, head on the pillow, feet hanging out of the blanket, getting lost in my music while I think of the best way to put this story into words, I started it here. Because it's as good a place as any to start a story where the absent father is the root of all the protagonists' problems.

For example, my anxiety. Thanks, dad! My insane OCD, thank you to my old man! The dissociative identity disorder, thanks pops! Of course, I can't blame them solely on you for leaving. But I do recognize that after you left, the wonderful issues began occurring.

My mother on the other hand... well let me start out by saying, I didn't mean to kill her.

Of course, she wasn't really dead, but she might as well have been.

She would sit staring for hours. Her face was sunken and haunted, her mind cold and empty. The more the years went on, the more she seemed to be a walking corpse. Alive, but only barely. All the life and the light sucked out of her, and there was nothing that I could do.

There was nothing that I could do because I was the reason she was hurting.

I never got to tell her I loved her one last time. I didn't get to hold her close before she slipped away. I never even got to look into her loving, beautiful face, which always brought me so much happiness, before she became this ghost with no expression or emotion.

My mother wasn't always like this.

According to my grandma, she used to be full of light and color and happiness, beaming with joy, loving to anyone that met her.

And then she had me. I brought a toll on her health. She was in and out of hospitals for the first six years of my life. When I got diagnosed with major depression and insomnia, she became sad. Her once colorful presence became gray.

I didn't mean to kill her.

But now she walked around, expressionless, barely present enough to care for me.

I'm not fully to blame for her being this way. You played a big part in damaging her self esteem. You were an emotionally abusive piece of shit. You broke her down and built her up in your image and she lost herself because of you. When I was little, I tried to tell myself you did what you did out of love. You would drink because you were sad. You would smoke because you were stressed. And you would hit me because it was the only thing that made you feel better.

I was nine when you were arrested.

Nine years later, and I still remember that night like it happened yesterday. You came home from work, I deduced that you were sad because you were drinking. A lot. And then you needed to feel better. So you started hitting me. Over and over again, I barely was able to get up when you were finished. Mom called the police. An ambulance came and took me, and when I got home I asked for you, but you were gone. Mom said you won't ever be back.
And that was when Saraphina came, "It's alright, you're safe now. We don't need a father". She would whisper soothing words that kept me calm amidst my anxieties.

But she wasn't alone in my head. "Will he never come back? We need to check, make sure. You know, stay safe, away from harm. Best get things in order in this mess of a home". That was Danny, the inspiration, progenitor of my OCD.

Danny, however, hated the reckless voice that enjoyed turmoil and chaos. Reid kept silent at first, he worried about the others. But would, at times, reach out and seize me by force. Bringing out my recklessness, paranoia and anxieties to new levels.
But you will never know any of this about me.

Because when you get out of jail, you won't be allowed to see me.