stuck in thought

Call the police is all I can hear. Then I hear my older sister “should I call the police?” I’m stuck, in shock. Only five years old. I just watched my dad beat my mom to the ground, and now he is holding a heavy giant porcelain lamp over her head. I thought he was going to kill her. I was frozen. Scared. I don’t know what made him put the lamp down. I really don’t think he even heard the pleading and crying of my older sister because I don’t remember him looking over at us…

Seeing my dad beat up on my mom was not something uncommon. They were drunks. I lived at the bar with them. But this time has been burned into my brain. I cannot forget it and I find myself living over again time to time.

I’m 28 now l, and I suffer and have suffered for over 20 years from severe depression. It did not start with this moment. It was an accumulation of these types of event. I can remember being around five. My mom and dad went out drinking. I was at the house of the kid who is today my best friend. This was where I went if they didn’t feel like taking me to the bar.

I remember my dad calling and saying he was coming to pick me up. I begged my friend’s dad not to let them come get me. He said he couldn’t do that. I begged him to tell them I was sleeping. He refused and my dad came to the door to get me. I was balling my eyes out because I didn’t want to see my mom get beat again. I was scared. I couldn’t stop crying, and on the way out to our car, my dad told me “I wish I wasn’t your dad either”. I never in my short life wished he wasn’t my dad, and it hurt so bad to hear these words come from him. Why couldn’t he just ask what was wrong?

I think this is where my depression started, and the constant mental and verbal abuse that never ended ate at me…

Over the years I wore a mask everywhere I went. At one point I became severely depressed when I was a teenager. With My mom and dad having joint custody both parents needed to sign for consent of treatment. My dad refused, he didn’t believe in medicine. I stopped going to the psychiatrist and continued to wear the mask I’ve come so used to wearing. I continued to self medicate with pot which I started smoking on an everyday basis at the age of nine. I tried cocaine by eleven. Did Xanax in grade school, and started drinking when my mom and dad would let me pick out what kind of beer I wanted when I was six. The first time I tried cigs and a joint I was five, I just didn’t smoke them everyday till I was 9. By the time I was 14 I’ve tried everthing I could except heroine.

I was always so smart and I feel like I wasted it all. My teacher once told my mom I was a genius, I asked questions that no one else did, I aced my tests, I just never did homework. I wasted my life, I lost my way. I was always told I was full of tremendous amounts of potential…why didn’t anyone show me how to use it? Why have I wasted it all?

Like I said I’m 28 now. I have three kids of my own. Just a few weeks ago I had a major break down. I went blank . Felt no emotion and was at a point that my family would be better off without me. No one else but my wife new all the things that trouble me (not just the things I wrote about). Everyone was shocked to hear I’ve been hurting for do long and never said a thing. I was at a point where I was going to settle with my death. Nothing was going to keep me alive. My wife took me to the hospital and I was admitted to the psych ward.

I’ve always felt empty and alone. Everyone said sorry blah blah. But no one understands. I felt good when I got out of the hospital for a week or so. Now I’m scared because I can feel it creeping back. The feeling before I went to the hospital felt like my shoulders were chained to my feet, I could feel the depression reaching from my chest into my throat. Now  unmotivated again and I know it’s not long until it comes back. I know this time I will not tell anyone because I know it will just keep coming back. I am worried because I know now that when this monster comes back I will end it without thinking twice.