Kinda busy

And I remember being perfectly okay with that, they fought, constantly, about everything. Riiight up until the moment my mother said I'd be living with her instead of him.

Instantly began crying, and it wasn't because "You'll see your dad less." No, I knew where he was and the number to call him, that wasn't the problem.

He was safer. He actually hugged and cared for me, took me places and shared a lot of my interests. My mother? Even at 12 I knew that would be absolute hell on Earth. All the vitriol she'd been throwing at my dad she'd had already turned on me in the weeks he was gone, only, I didn't fight back then, I just sat and cried for hours on end, even in public (Which, made her look bad, so of course... she had to kurb her worst tendencies)

But I knew life was about to get significantly worse. At first, I just tried to go with my dad, but mom shut that down hard, "No No, I'm your mom, you stay with me."

Then I started begging Dad to come back.

Literally, in tears, I'd tell him everything that was happening and I could see the conflict on his face of "I want to get away from this woman." Meeting the realization, "If this happens, she'll just switch targets to her."

And I feel bad. Because he decided to stay. I'm grateful, of course, while it didn't make home easy, at all, it did get my mother off my back enough to get out and escape.

But. That's how bad it was wasn't it? At 12 I knew she wasn't safe, and I didn't want to be alone with her.

I feel like a normal kid would just be upset at thier parents splitting because it's a change. I remember first thinking "Thank God, you'll stop fighting." and then "Oh God. No, then I'll be stuck here..."

At 12!

That sucks.

I'm so sorry you went through that.

So I don't remember quite when my parents split up (I swear it was when I was 10 but I'm not sure). It ended up with split custody. My mom had me for one half of the week, my dad had me for the other.

Should also note I have a little brother, cause that's important.

My dad's partner at the time this happened was abusive. Not physically, but emotionally and verbally, meanwhile my dad allowed it, ignored it, and sometimes did it himself. It led to me only ever being in my room (and is also the reason I need my door to be visible at my desk so I can close it if I hear someone), and also me learning to completely mask any and all emotions, positive and negative.

There were also a lot of moments where my brother would have one of them shouting or berating him, and I would step in and find a way to make them target me instead.

Now flash forward to the day it all happened, Christmas of 2019.

My dad's girlfriend at the time also had her son live with us. Something with him happened, and a towel on the towel rack fell to the ground.

My dad saw this, and demanded my brother and I apologize. We had nothing to do with it. We never so much as touched the damn towel. And yet as much as we said we didn't do anything and wouldn't apologize, he and his girlfriend demanded we do.

After a bit, I decided enough was enough. My brother and I were sobbing from everything, and that when I called my mom and asked her to get us. It wasn't her day to have custody, but she said she would. My brother and I put our shoes on, during which we were still being told to apologize or that we were being dramatic. I think he believed we were just going to run away somewhere and come back later after realizing we needed a place to be.

My brother and I left the house and walked down the street, still sobbing, and waited at the neighborhood mailbox until my mom arrived.

I'm realizing as I write this that exact details are getting harder to remember. All I clearly remember was that it was because of a towel we didn't touch, there was a ton of sobbing and shouting, and we got picked up by my mom and her girlfriend. Thinking about it, that's probably for the best.

And now here's the big consequence of it all. Leading up to it, I had not been taking medications. I hadn't needed them for a long time. After Christmas in 2019, I had to go on a ton of them, prescriptions changing and all that.

I didn't need medications anymore. I used to, but I'd gotten to a point where I didn't need them anymore. And after that day, I needed them again, and still need them now.

But my biological father was so abusive to me, my mother, and my brother that we have a restraining order and no contact agreement.