Ten years old forward. It’s when I remember things more clearly. Before that it’s just some flashes. Me brushing my teeth at 4. Or being punched at 9. Or some costume’s day at kindergarten at 6. Or being thrown down the stairs at 8. Probably the reason, I thought for many years, for my lack of memories. After that everything is a bit more solid in my recollections. Definitely resumed the punches, kicks, and having objects being thrown at me. Being stabbed at 12, almost getting blind. But the worst of all was the yelling. Knifes don’t magically get into you, or hands or any other objects, but a voice… The right voice gets into your brains, into into your dreams and can hunt you for years on end. And that particular voice, the anger. I could feel it, the pure need, pure truth on those words. “I’m gonna kill you”. “I’m gonna f#&€@ing kill you”. Years and years. I heard it. Banging on the door. Over a remote control. Something on the fridge that was not there or any other random reason. My own blood. Wanted to hug me on a second and strangled me at another. Bipolarity, that was one of the diagnosis that doctors were able to made on my sister. You would think that between all the psychologists and psychiatrists over the years, they would figured out more than that. If at least that medicine that made her so big would make some other effect besides make her hungry non-stop. Being older than me, i should have know that eating could have made the difference on those early years. We had the food, but i was always scared of stepping into my own kitchen. Both parents working and only my grandparents on the second floor. My grandma really, old pops’s home being the pub for the last 3 decades. I lost track on how many times i have seen him past out on the bottom of the stairs. The Italian blood is the only thing that keeps him alive after so long. I fall into depression early own. I tried running away, gave up on some road, hours away from home, when i saw a police station and “came to my senses”. I tried suicide but failed. I was a coward, that was the truth. I wanna a easy painlessly way out, and i unfornately i didn’t leave in the U.S. Pop’s old gun was my only chance but i made the mistake of going to check first before taken and Grandma found out about it. I’m not ashamed of saying. I still believe it would have been the best fucking way. I was alone. I accepted that early own as well. My sister was into making my life horrible over the week and go out to meet family, friends and go to church and pray her sins away. For me was really funny how in some aspects, she wanted to be normal. So naturally i never believed in god. Never wanted to go out. Always quiet when I did. Always observing. Most of my time, i recall , i was watching tv. At the beginning, i believe it helped me preserve my innocence. The cartoons as a kid surely are some good flashs and helped me develop my curiosity and some really important values that shielded me from turning into what could be a very dark way. I was a good student at first. High grades. Really good chess and guitar player. Good with languages. History, Math, Geography. Even Gym, although I was not that good early on. In a way, i had potencial. Huge potencial. But i was busy trying to survive. Sleeping with a knife under my pillow. Trying to figure out what fucking life represented. I planned everything. The perfect plan. I would live my country. Go to the best one. The better educational and heath systems, with security and economical stability. I would do what I would love the most about all. Art, all kinds of art. Music, drawing, painting, photography, you name it. Make it a business out of it. Being able to travel and work. To live a good but extraordinary life. Meet the perfect woman along the way. Wife material, mom material. Have a dog or a cat at first. Maybe a couple and write a beautiful story. Build a beautiful new family. A kid’s dream. That was all planned out. At twelve. But on reality i got stuck. My dream was too big. My situation too poor. Not necessarily financially. My parents made good money. Father is a graduated lawyer. The youngest of ten and the only in his family, as he once said. Mother was a art’s teacher. She graduated on psychology and sociology, but decided to change areas when i was a kid. The problem was, that they spend it good money too. Black labels, red labels medicine. Shrink sessions weekly. For some time, they even try a private school. I remember visiting one and seeing the difference. I asked for one and they put both of us, from when i was 10 to 14, to try and help us develop mentally. I made two good friends on that school. A lot of learning, but a lot of bad experiences. Trying to be normal when i was clearly not. I was ambitious. But innocent, naive. Ignorant of the difference of my really from the rest. The depression, the anxiety made it all worse. After a while, technology started to addict me. Not just the tv, but i had my first video-game at ten. I played for 6 good years. I had also a phone at 14. My life was getting distracted. Being alone. Until my parents got divorced. I knew early on my dad was a liar. I came to find out later how much of it one could actually be. But i didn’t care. I didn’t care he cheated for years before the divorce. At the time i only care about living that house. So it happen when i was 15. I was almost 16, which meant my was sister was almost 18, almost a adult on the eyes of the law. And father being a lawyer, knew when he could leave and wouldn’t have to care to many expenses. After you leave a dangerous place, you realize how dangerous it is. I noticed it after i moved to a better neighborhood, even the public school felt safer. Living with him was better. He always has been strict and organized person. Maybe that was exactly what I need it at the time. But i need it help. In a lot of ways. Things got quiet at beginning. That helped. But the anxiety on the silence before the yell never went away. In the displeasure getting into the kitchen was the same. I had problem eating. I didn’t even cook for myself. And that was interpreted as laziness, lack of character. My father never yelled to me until I was 17, before that wasn’t i need to, i guess. I never truly confronted him. He knew very well how to choose his words. He was always a diplomatic, politician kind of individual, he knew how to get things done his way in a very subtle way. If your not careful, not educated enough, and not being paying fully attention, he can bend the truth on small details and go unnoticed in a conversation. And that was what he did. A true pathological liar. I tried to be as normal as i could. Until i left my country at 19. It’s a long story that it meant nothing. I was not myself. I didn’t anything when i left or when i came back for a short time before what I thought would be the last time. I had grown a long way. Away from the favelas where i lived. Away from everything and everyone i hated. Denmark. First world country. I felt miserable and last than a year destroyed everything. My relationship, my income and savings. Went all the way back because of one phone call. It’s ridiculously how life plays with you. Full red moon. The first in decades, my mom tells me the truth. I got the truth out of her actually. I didn’t know what got into me. I has high as i could be. Still trying to stay in Europe and fighting and mental battle with my family. I need answer. Why this happen? Why nothing is enough. Finally the truth came. My sister was never born with a mental disease. She was born health, beautiful and sweet. By the time she was almost one. My mom got pregnant again. My grandparents didn’t accept it. My parents decided to move to a friends’s house just down the street. For almost three years i stayed in that house. My parents at work. It was the perfect scenario for them to do what they did. In a way, i must be thankful, i guess. That i forgot at all. I could have turned out like her. Angry all the time. There’s was never a disease there. Just pure hatred and pain. And at that phone call i understood why. Two of them. For months. That’s why i don’t remember that much, before the violence started with my sister. I forgot almost everything. I guess really caught me off guard. I called my ex-girl and explain everything. She didn’t believe. I called my “best friend”. He said he was to busy with some “work shit”. Life really made it sense now. My being graduated on psychology first and giving up on it. The amount of Tv, and lies, distractions and manipulations. I think about the times i asked for a psychiatrist. I felt i need it help and it was denied because they fought i was okay? Or i a lost cause? Or simply they couldn’t afford. That’s what my mom said, either ways, o wonder if there was not something to be done. Someone maybe should have listen. It doesn’t matter. None of it. Some stories are sad than others, aren’t they? It’s what I choose to do with my reality that it matters. So… I choose what I chose when i was 12. I’m not gonna be like them. I’m not gonna be like men. Like most men. I’m gonna care that anger. I’m gonna build something. Something beautiful. I will rise and protect who didn’t protect me. I’m gonna be better than no one ever was and care like no one care for me. My mental state. My soul and heart. I need to help them. I need to try at least. But me first. I need to achieve my dreams. Nothing changed. I just need to heal and evolve. |
