REAL STORIES

Age: 15
Gender: Female
Location: Tacoma Washington

I remember sitting in the living room scribbling on a newspaper, listening to mom screaming. Begging my father to please stop hitting her. I was four. And by that time, it had become a regular thing to hear my dad beat my mom. I thought it was normal since I never saw those old Disney movies where the prince saves the princess. He'd sold our TV after all.

Mom left him that day, and only a year or so later, he left to Phoenix.

Three years later I visited him. I still loved him; he'd never hurt me. And it seemed normal - he still felt like the daddy I knew and loved until his new girlfriend came over. They left me outside for hours while they did meth and had sex. By the time she'd finally left, my father had forgotten that I was even there in the first place. I took my flight back home the next day.

Four years later, two weeks before Christmas, I'm sitting on the couch crying. Mom the survivor is rubbing my shoulder, trying to comfort me, and there's a letter in my lap. One from dad trying to tell me how much he loved me, how he would come back, and we'd be a happy family again, and an envelope saying he was in Durango County Jail and not coming back home.

He'd been caught with his dead overdosed girlfriend in some warehouse. He was tweaking so bad, the police couldn't understand a word he was saying. There was vomit on his shirt, blood on his pants, and meth on his face.

Two years after that, I'm twelve in Santa Maria California, and I'm cutting myself. Ten deep lashes in my wrist that I got sent to the hospital for. It almost killed me

3 months later, I'm smoking and selling pot. Something to just ease the pain.

2 months later it's finally offered to me. And I just have to know, what took my dad away. What was so wonderful that he would want it over me, his only child?

My dance with the devil luckily only lasted a year or two. It ended after my failed attempt of running away with I guy I thought I was in love with, (My 20 year old drug dealer boyfriend). Thank God I have a mom who cared enough to put a stop to that. Triggers are still set off, but I can fight them.

Three years later, I've finally let go of my anger and pain towards my father. We're not speaking. I haven't spoken to him in person since I was seven. But I prefer it to be this way. I have an incredible boyfriend who takes care of me and loves me, and he's helped me let go of the anger. I'm at peace, and comfortably numb now. But I still get the urges, and sometimes theyıre really hard to fight off. But I manage. Somehow.

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