Sometimes, life has a way of telling you that it’s not all like the movies. With most, they realize in their college years or even high school, but most likely after school is over, the realization that you just got dropped into this so-called life. It isn’t like that for me.

I’m 15 years old, just starting high school and realizing that I have been through more than most retiring. When this is said by some teenager, people believe it is probably some dumb drama at school. I like to call my drama, mama drama. My dad adds a word in there, baby mama drama.

I have been through depression, a sister with a serious disability, parents who cannot be in the same room together, and a list of many other things. Truth be told, I’m as wise as it is in some situations, and have tough skin like the military in others, but going through what I’ve gone through while trying to be a normal teenager, I’ve learned is close to impossible.

Chapter 1
Reality is what You’re Used to
You know your morning routine? Sit up, maybe rub your eyes, and then go to the bathroom. You have to make room in your stomach somehow. Or you just really have to go. You wash your face, put on whatever. Then after you’re dressed, you head to the kitchen for breakfast have to leave for work or school or whatever the day has planned for you. It’s what you’re used to, it’s your reality.

What you do every day is normal for you, but that doesn’t mean it is normal for everyone else. Someone could have grown up sitting around a huge dinner table with 7 other siblings arguing about who took who’s hair brush, and that’s normal for that person. Someone else could have grown up eating TV dinners in front of a screen their whole lives, and that’s normal for them. The fact is, normal is just a label people use for what they are used to.
For me, normal was being yelled at through the bathroom door while I locked myself inside. Normal was being blamed for things I didn’t even know were happening or things that happened. Normal was blaming me for my mother hating me throughout the years of my childhood. People ask, why I never told anyone I was being abused, but the weirdest and true thing yet, is that, I thought it was normal that these things were happening to me.
I was and still am, used to being yelled at things that don’t even make sense to me. I would be sitting on my bed writing an essay and all of a sudden this woman would walk in and start yelling at me about her mother yelling at her over the phone and because of that it was my fault. What did I do? Did I say something while visiting her or maybe I forgot to put something away before I left for school. Either way, I never knew, I still don’t.

My reality was filled with confusion and not knowing what was happening around me, but also not questioning it. I was used to feeling depressed, the feeling of hatred, but towards myself. All I kept saying to myself was that, this was my mother and she probably was supposed to act this way towards me. I remember telling myself, everything is my fault and I’m the one making myself feel this way.