13. Moving On
"Dad, Stop hitting Mom!"
Growing up, I lived in a household of fear and trauma. I can never deny the feeling of hating myself for being a young child that's useless from the loud shouts and physical wounds my parents inflict on each other.
My siblings and I got so used to it that every night when my dad gets home late, drunk, and we'd wake up from shouting outside the threshold of our bedroom. We would huddle together and have a planned strategy to stop them. My brother was always the one who looks after us - my younger sister, patty, and I- and he's also the one who comes between my father and mother while I look after patty in the distance, watching and telling them to stop.
I thought it was normal for a family to experience these problems. Normal to be relieved when my father goes to work and normal that he gets home drunk and smells strongly of alcohol. But as I was maturing, I realized it's not normal. It's not normal to run to your room when your father comes home, not normal to be silent in the house in fear of getting scolded by him.
When one day, my mom got tired of this routine, she could see that it was affecting us terribly. We decided to see psychologists, It was quite fun. I liked this one woman, she had a very beautiful smile and she could calm you down - maybe that's why I want to be one -. They did help our family, the physical hitting stopped and the wounds were healing but it would always leave scars in our hearts.
My father is an alcoholic, he did stop for some years but it came back. They say that you can never fully heal someone's addiction when they don't even want to be helped. He would go to bar's and repeatedly committed acts of infidelity. There were so much events that resulted to my parents getting separated.
You would have thought that we would cry for this decision but it was as if, we breathed a big sigh of relief. My siblings and I live with my mom and we got more closer, our family got stronger for all the hardships we're facing. This decision was for the better because in some way, my father realized the importance of his children - even if it depends on his mood.
They say that the things or experiences that you are exposed to when you were young will influence your life as you grow up and make a family of your own.
That has been proven, you see, it happened to my father's family and it struct me, I don't want to be like him - harsh but it's true -, I'm scared that someday I would make bad decisions and make my family suffer while I have a good time. I fear of being addicted on something and can never turn back from it. I don't want to have a big debt that I wouldn't give my family the right amount of money or to loan more money only to be able to have my children go to school late. I don't want to scar anyone around me or have my family go through this experience, i don't want them to feel what I felt, it hurts and it's not easy. I'm just scared that someday I would be just like him.
But you know what, I can't always mope about this that is why I'm striving hard to finish and get a job. I realize that I want to help other people, especially children, with traumatic experiences. I want to prove that my past won't affect my future. I want to be a psychologist, it will take a while but it'll be worth it.
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