There Was A Time..

Where I would wake up, wanting to face the world, excited for what the day would bring. This time was all cupcakes, roses, sunshine, little girls with golden blonde curls. I was not yet a teenager, but not quite a child. Even though my parents had split and I hadn't seen my biological father (R) in years, life had not touched me. We had just moved house and had made a few friends. My brother was fine then too. Here is a quick family tree for contexts sake:

Then everything went scarily wrong. I started to become a teenager which I hear is hard enough in normal circumstances. I, was about 2, K was 5, and D was 12. I was roughly 14 and school was hell. I was unable to fit in, I had few friends (save a few amazing people), and my parents were slowly losing their sanity. My step-father's closet alcoholism was brought to the forefront and our house became hostile. My parents were unable to speak to each other, or us, without raised voices and intimidation.

Then, my Mum seemed to hit rock bottom. She started sleeping around and drinking with intensity. She started working twelve hour shifts at the hotel where she worked as a cook, and she would work 5-6 days a week. This was stressing her out majorly, especially since she had to leave her children with her alcoholic spouse. While I can understand her situation and feel empathy for her, I feel worse for me. I was one of the children being left with the alcoholic spouse.

As much as I love my step-dad now, he was a horrible person back then. He would drink to excess every day. He would start upon waking and finish when he would pass out sometime in the wee hours of the morning. All the moments in between, he either spent at the pub or at home terrorising people he professed to love. Needless to say, this left little time for parenting.

This is when I stepped up, I guess. Reluctantly and not with any prior experience or skill, but I looked after my siblings. I looked after them when my step-father was at the pub, and my mother was working, or drinking, or at some random person's house. I looked after them when it so happened that both of the "adults" were home and arguing. I looked after them when my mother would leave after and argument, and my step-father would be the only one home, drunk and angry.

One day, I walked into the kitchen after another of my parents intense, furious arguments. My step-dad was in there, with his head in the cupboard where we kept our knives. I walked over to him to see what he was doing and I realised that he was sharpening knives. I also realised that he was muttering aloud, threatening to kill us all. He said it with such conviction that I thought he would do it.

He was always so inebriated that he was intimidating. He had little control over his actions, and would like to make his status known throughout the family. He hit my mum in front of us, and my brother, D, in private. He never hit me, I guess because I am a girl, but he was still intimidating. He would come home and yell for hours, pushing me around. One night he came home, drunk and stoned, and held me down with his knees on my arms to draw on my face. Apparently, he found this to be a fun game. I did not, and he wouldn't get off me until D walked into my room despite my yells that he was hurting me. Mostly, he told me a lot of stories. This wasn't so bad, I learnt a lot about my parents before they became my parents. Although through these stories, I found out how much he loved my mum and how much he resented us for taking her time and energy.

For the next year and a half while he was drunk and drugged and my mum was wherever she was, I feared for my safety and the safety of my family. I stopped sleeping, and basically went into survival mode. I took days off school because when I went to school, I would come home to 2-year-old I, and 5-year-old K, throwing things around the house. My mum was absent and my step-father was passed out. This was most frightening because we had a fire place.

During this time, my mum took in a new lover and my step-dad moved out. Across the road. Pointless, really. They fought just as much, I just had to look after my siblings more. I made dinner, bathed them, made sure K went to Kindergarten, made sure they went to bed. We were at my step-dad's during the week and my mum's on the weekends. She was rarely there on the weekends. She didn't work, it was socialising time.

This went on for about a year and half (as I said) with various specific incidents that I may elaborate on at some future date. Afterwards, I became caretaker. My step-dad slowly gave up the drink and mellowed out a bit. He sat on the computer all day, consuming to the depression that led to his drinking in the first place. My mum grieved. For her teenage years, I think, and for the time before the life that scarred her and her children.

Meanwhile, I was a mess. I was cutting, not eating, not sleeping. If I even went to school, I would sleep and hang out with the smokers behind the basketball courts. I started smoking casually (I was around 16 at this point), something that I never really found addictive. I was still cooking and doing minimal cleaning around the house. Now that K was older, I was helping her with homework, but still bathing her and I. I was getting mum to sign notes for school so that we didn't go without. So that teacher's never knew the difference.

And it has all been downhill from there.