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Friday, 11 November 2011

Childhood Fleeting Pt.3

My dad was beginning to break down. He was stressed and not eating because he never felt hungry. He always had a problem with being a light sleeper so he wasn't sleeping much either. He was withering away before our eyes. He tried to keep up with our daily life but everything was overwhelming. We would go to my grandma's for meals because somedays that was too much planning for him. I remember the day his mind basically shorted-out. He was scolding my brother for something and all of the sudden he started stuttering and his voice was high-pitched. He was crying. I don't remember exactly what happened after that. I know we went out for Chinese food and I had to order since he couldn't talk properly and the people knew him (we were regulars) and would have asked questions. He came to rely on me more than before. I stopped swimming lessons because he said that he didn't want me to get too far ahead of my siblings but really it was so that I could help grocery shopping and laundry, etc. The worst day for me was when he asked me to quit piano lessons. We were both crying. Keeping to scheduled events was never his forte and being stressed the way he was made it an impossible task. I was so angry at him because piano was the one thing that I had to interact with other people, it was fun and it was mine. He called my piano teacher and told her we were cancelling lessons for the year, his voice cracking. He loved hearing me play piano and I knew that he didn't want to take it away from me. I guess I would have been 12 at this point. I didn't have anyone to talk to besides my grandma. I suppose I talked to my mom a bit but not much since most of our phone calls were on speaker phone. My grandma was very sad and did her best to take care of us all. I don't know what my mom's side was during this time, I was only getting my dad's version. My mom thought my dad was hurting us and that he was incapable of caring for us. He never hurt us and he was coping the best he could. We weren't little kids anymore, but I wasn't allowed to babysit my siblings.
Finally my mom took a month off from work to take care of us and my dad checked himself into the mental hospital. He needed rest, he needed help. My mom planned on moving us closer to where she was working so she was looking for places for us to live along with trying to take care of my dad. Life was spinning faster and faster around us and we just hoped it would all work out. Before we knew it, we were packing up our belongings and leaving the only home I had known. I knew we were never coming back even though my mom tried to appease my dad saying that we could come back on the weekends and blah blah blah. We moved in December. My dad was over medicated (we found that out later on) and not the man he was, only a shell. We continued with home-schooling despite my mom complaining that we were not keeping up with our public school peers. My parents were seeking counselling for their marriage but my dad didn't like most of the counsellors (he didn't like to be told that he was wrong).
I was in a new town, far away from my grandma (my best friend) and still having most of the same roles since my dad wasn't functioning at full capacity and my mom had a full time job.

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