Today my thoughts drift back to high school – back to the life I lived when I was home with my parents. Time moves so quickly; it’s hard to believe that all I graduated almost 2 years ago now. It’s harder still to believe in just a few weeks I’ll be back there again for the summer.
I sit in the very back seat of the school bus on the way home from school. As Val, my best friend, continues to tell me every detail of her day, I stare out the window her words faintly reaching my thoughts. She didn’t notice my distance. She didn’t notice my lack of reply. She didn’t pause to ask me if everything was okay. She never did, and that was perfectly okay with me. I didn’t want her to. I didn’t want to talk about it.
The bus stopped. I grabbed my things; it was my turn to go. “I’ll see you in the morning Anna!” Val said enthusiastically. She always made me smile. “Yeah, laters.” I never say goodbye.
I took a deep breath as I unlocked the front door to the place where I lived. It has never been home just a house. No one was there. That was my favorite part of Tuesday. In every other way Tuesdays were always the worst. My mom was off for the day, and she would be back with my younger siblings in about 45 minutes. 45 minutes of freedom. I let the dog outside and checked the mail. As always, I carefully left it on the edge of the messy kitchen table. When my mom got home, she would expect me to have done something, if not everything. I should have dishes in the dish washer, clothes in the washing machine, my homework done, ect. I never failed to let her down. Those few minutes alone, were the only few minutes of quiet peaceful life I had all week-long and even then I had enough guts to keep them to myself. I knew I would have to pay for them later.
I didn’t get on the computer to talk to friends nor did I turn the TV on. Generally, I spent the time sitting on the couch reading or cuddling with my pets. I was the only glimpse I had at normalcy.
When I could hear my moms van pull into the driveway I’d start to clean or to do the dishes. It was best that way because it looked like I was doing what she wanted me to do.
It was hectic after that – lots of yelling. My mom would sit in her chair with the weather channel on generally way to loud making it hard to focus on anything. Chelsea and Rob my two youngest sibling were always complaining that they were hungry. All of us kids were, but Liz and I knew better than to complain about it. It only caused more yelling. “You have to wait until your dad gets home,” my mother would scream at them. It wasn’t their fault. Our grandma fed us dinner any other day of the week usually 2 or 3 hours before my dad got home. It was a long wait.
Usually my siblings were fairly well-behaved, but never on Tuesday. My mom couldn’t keep them under control. She didn’t know how to talk to another human being. She could only scream. By the time my dad got home things were out of hand. Everyone was so irritated. I felt like I was the only one accomplishing anything – cleaning the kitchen, taking out the trash, starting homework.
“What’s going on?” my dad would yell. “Anna help your sister with your homework and find your mother the phone book.”
What I did was never enough.
“Yeah, just a second,” I’d reply. “I’m in the middle of -”
“Did I ask you what you were doing? Just get your f*cking ass up and get the damn phone book.”
I felt stupid when he yelled at me that way. Why couldn’t I just learn not to talk back to him and just do what I was told?
I held back hot tears as I looked for the phone book. There was no telling where the it was, but I found it. It was buried deep in the heaping pile of mess by my mothers chair. She had told me she had already looked there.
We had pizza for dinner. I hate pizza. Yes, it tastes good, but it always hurt my stomach. Still, every Tuesday we had pizza for dinner. It’d be quiet for a few minutes before the craziness started again. Everyone ate somewhere different. I sat at kitchen table in the newly clean kitchen trying to finish the last few math problems before it became impossible. I sat alone. I often imagined what a family dinner would look like. It sounded nice, but I knew it would always lead to more arguing.
“Did you see the test Chelsea brought home today?” my mom would ask my dad.
Of course he didn’t. He didn’t care unless it was bad.
“Yeah well she got another D,” my mom would say furious, “I told Anna to study with her. She must not have done a good enough job.”
Everything was my fault.
I’d listen to the yelling for a while, until I couldn’t listen to it anymore. It was in those moments I felt the most worthless. It was in those moments that I felt the need to cut myself.
Even after we were all sent to bed the yelling continued. Usually it was a money fight. Sometimes it was scary.
“I’m leaving. I’m taking the van and driving it off of the hillside,” I could hear my mom scream as I lay in my bed in the dark staring at the ceiling tears streaming down my face. The door would slam while my dad was still yelling obscenities at her.
She always came back, but I always believed that one time she’d do it.
I’d pray and cry until I fell asleep.
Looking back, I know that I was in a toxic environment. No one could have convinced me of that then. My depression worsened as did my cutting. I just wanted to stop. I just wanted to make things better and I felt like I always failed – that I always would fail. I felt worthless. The truth is, as hard as it is to say, that anyone in this type of environment that felt the way did and did the things I did probably won’t be able to help him or herself get better without leaving the environment. Talking to someone and getting help is important in this type of situation. At the time, I wasn’t strong enough to come to that conclusion and it put me through much hurt. If you or someone you know is in a toxic environment there is always a way to get out of it and it isn’t until then that one can begin to grow out of it.
As always, there is hope and every life is precious and important.
There is Hope. 