A new problem

Just as my school life was improving, my home life started heading in the opposite direction. My parents seemed to never see eye to eye, which caused long nights with them continuously fighting and yelling.  Trying to sleep, I turned my fan on as high as I could. I could still to hear them, but it was good enough to distract me from everything that is going on for the time being.

Then, in April 2014, my mom and dad explained that they were going to part ways and live in separate homes. I didn’t know how to react to this new information, and I didn’t have the emotional tools yet to fully understand my parents and their decision. I began to hate them for destroying our perfect family and my sense of a normal life, and this only made things worse.

When my parents had separate homes, my anger got even worse, and I lashed out on at my father in particular for what I perceived as hurting my mom and making them separate. I never felt comfortable living in both houses because when fights with my parents happened, I felt caught between the crossfire. I lived with constant anger and negativity, which led eventually to depression.

I never told anyone about my feelings of deep sadness; for years I practiced showing a facade of calmness everyone around me, while inside feeling neglected and hurt.  This got worse when my father decided to have his girlfriend meet me and my little sister. I hated her right away. For one, he never told me that he was dating someone, and two, I met her out of the blue and without preparation.  To spend more “quality” time together, he decided that we would all go to church, where I would sit not with them, but in the youth service with a bunch of kids that annoyed me severely. I had no idea that, of all the days, that seemingly horrible day would change the trajectory of my life permanently in a positive way.