After we moved into the house in front of my soon-to-be stepfather's house, life was relaxed and fun. I remember playing in the yard and chilling with my brother's life was great for the first year. Around a year and a half into my mother’s relationship the man she was dating cheated on her. Because of this, my mother moved me and my brothers back to Spokane Washington where we lived in a large white house on a hill with a tree in front. Our neighbor had a large pig myself and my siblings befriended this time was found and gentle.
I remember leaving our stepdad, I wasn’t sad about leaving him I was mostly sad about leaving his two dogs blue bell and Sasha. Over the course of her time with him she left in the middle of the night or just as day was about to break a lot, I remember her packing the whole Christmas tree and everything under it on Christmas eve. That evening she drove around crying on the phone with my grandmother eventually she went back, and they continued to fight. This time the morning air was cold and a bit dewy it was dark, and I remember her telling us to be quiet. (Growing up with this kind of uncertainty always left a feeling of insecurity as an adult.) I think we lived away from him for about 6 months or so my mother seemed happier than almost at ease. Over time they slowly got back together and by the time I was around 5 years old, we were moved back in with him.
When we moved back in with him something was different, each day our home life became more hostile and hateful. He and my mother started getting in all-out wars with each other screaming fighting so bad that you could hear them two or three blocks down. The fights commonly had some type of physical abuse. He started taking out some of his anger on us as the kids and over time we ended up becoming the focus of most of their fights. My older brother was, unfortunately, the focus of his attention I got the second most, and then finally my little brother. Because our education was restricted, we mostly did manual labor that our new stepfather wanted us to do.
Our days as the kids resorted to playing out like waking up and not eat breakfast normally commonly. Go outside and work doing whatever task he saw fit, on the days he and my mother would fight which was most days. I and my brothers would be told to go outside from sunup till sundown no matter the weather. In the end, I think it was good we were outside because the few times we were in the same house as they fought one of us kids got hurt pretty bad normally it was my older brother. When the weather was bad, we would get to go to the front house it did not have heating but at least we weren’t wet from the snow. I actually remember hiding in our dog’s den under the porch for the warmth it served as shelter when it was snowing hard. Some days he would take us hiking which we all dreaded I remember all three of us going to my mother and begging her to let us stay home. She replied empathetic showing she knew how bad it was for us, but she never acted upon it protecting us. Sometimes I would get to stay home but it was at a cost of what I could do for my mother basically making me be her personal slave the things she had me do were grotesque at best but on his bad days it was better than being out hiking with him.
During these hikes, we would walk up sizable mountains which weren’t bad, but he would tell us that we would not be allowed to drink water till the top. He would hit us and call us names if anything went wrong it always had a way of returning to being our fault. At the end of each hike, he would have some issue to fight with my mother about something we did. We did not have regular meals because of income, or my parental figures were too busy going at each other’s throats to remember to feed the kids. Life at home got really bad It got to the point where if we had a good day with him, it was known then that meant life would be a living hell for the next two weeks. This went on for a long time I would
say this was an average day until I was 12 years old when he died.
There will be specific events that I will later discuss however for me this is sort of heavy to recall with detail. While this is difficult in many ways, I think it is good to address traumas from the past I think with the right mindset you can come out stronger. I used to loot at other who have lived a happy life and have a level of resentment which I know now was wrong I think the reason I did it was that I had no level of contentment in my own youth. It took me a long time to realize I had a lot of powerful gifts that came from that broken home for example I have a large appreciation for animals, and I won’t ever put them outside on a chain. That seems like a silly example but thinking about it I gained a different perspective being outside with them. Now I don’t think I could ever write anything to give an inside perspective on how difficult life was I can really only discuss the events growing up in a place like that… I have moments of pure anger and frustration of heartbreak because I really don’t think they loved us kids which is a hard pill to swallow.
However, I do think you can find strength from pretty fucked up things is its easy hell no is it worth it yes 10000000000000 times yes, I am sitting here writing this knowing I’ve made my own way and found my own support network who has become my family. People will hurt you if it happens there are a lot of people like me who had some really fucked shit happen and in response, they chose to hurt others for one reason or another. There is another way I am going to be a squish ball and say that kindness does heal, and love does help close big open wounds So if you’re reading this, I urge you to choose kindness.
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