IS KNOWING I USED TO
-
Growing up where silence didn’t mean peace — it meant waiting for something to go wrong. Waiting for a door to slam too hard, for a voice to rise too fast, for the shift in the air that told you to be careful. His father was never a gentle man. Not constant violence, not something you could point to and name every time, but enough. Enough grabbing too hard, enough shouting, enough things breaking to make a child understand that safety wasn’t guaranteed. He was 12 when Parkinson’s began taking pieces of his mother — slowly, but relentlessly. His father drank more, got meaner, less patient, less controlled. And now his mother wasn’t just someone he loved — she was someone he had to protect too. So he did more. Woke up earlier, slept lighter, listened constantly. Helped her move when she couldn’t, learned things a 12-year-old shouldn’t have to learn, while still making sure his sisters were fed, dressed, cared for. Stretching himself thin trying to hold everything together. Being at school the day she died. Doing exactly what he was supposed to do. A fall — a moment where her body failed and help that didn’t come fast enough. His father being home, but useless, drunk, passed out, not paying attention. And by the time anyone realized, it was already too late. Only one thing that stuck, was simple and brutal: he wasn’t there. He should have been. He failed. His father making sure the guilt never left. What had once been tension turned deliberate, cruel — no longer outbursts, but punishment, now with him as the target. The blame came first, repeated until it felt like facts — that he should have been there, that it was his fault, that he wasn’t enough. Then came the physical side of it, worse and more frequent than anything before. Kicks that left him folded in on himself, struggling to breathe. Hands in his hair, dragging him back when he tried to move away. His head slammed into counters, walls, whatever was closest. It was no longer chaotic, but targeted.Taking it, at first, because his sisters were still there. Because someone had to stand between them and that. So he absorbed it, keeping being there for them — getting them to school, making sure they ate, trying to keep some version of normal intact — while everything underneath him started to fracture. Not breaking all at once. It was slower than that. By 14, the cracks were obvious — no sleep, always tense, school meaningless, temper quick to snap. Fights came fast, first defensive, then not. Started drinking to take the edge off, and it worked — until it didn’t, until he needed it. Coming home for his sisters, no matter how late or drunk, but even that slipped. Nights got longer, absences more frequent, distance easier than responsibility. Drugs followed, not all at once but as another step — another way to shut everything off and escape the feeling that he was failing at something he couldn’t fix.
Leaving home at 18, but kept returning to check on his sisters. Drinking and using more, pushed against authority; being on front name with the police. In and out of jail. After an overdose, going into rehab, where he stayed sober for over a year — experiencing stability, clarity, and a quieter life that didn’t feel threatening. For the first time, he wasn’t just surviving — living something close to normal. But without the identity he’d built around survival, he felt empty. Returning home and facing his father triggered a relapse, sending him back into old patterns. His life unraveled again — short jail stints, escalating fights, lost relationships, and a growing lack of stability.
At 25, existing in between. Not clean, not completely gone. Working enough to get by. From the outside, there are moments where he almost looks stable, like he’s holding it together, until the cracks show again. His addiction coming in cycles now. People know him. Not as someone to be afraid of exactly, but as someone to stay away from. Trouble. Unpredictable. Not bad, not entirely, but not safe to get close to either. And sometimes, despite everything, he still does things that don’t fit that image — shows up when it matters, steps in, protects — but it’s rough, misplaced, too intense, like the instinct is still there but the execution is broken.
Not trusting quietly, not trusting kindness, and not trusting himself most of all. But under everything — the addiction, the anger, the reputation, the damage — he’s still the boy who stayed awake listening for something to go wrong, still the one who tried to answer every cry in the night. The difference is that now, he doesn’t believe he can save anyone anymore — not his mother, not his sisters, and not himself. Deep down he’s become the man he hates the most.
-
-
-
-
