I would like to tell you a story. Now, this is a story not a lot of people know, because it is about my hardships and how I came to accept that I needed to change my life and the way I look at things for me to be a better person. It is a hard story to tell because a lot has happened, but it is a story that I feel like I need to tell. This is the story of the past 9 months of my life.

Jump with me back to January of 2017, I was in a Residential Treatment Center, and I had been there for almost a year. My best friend, Laura, had left in December to go back home and I was stuck with new people that I did not want to talk to. I was closed off most of the time and resistant to talking to people I did not know, but I had to, so I did. It ended up being better than I thought and now I have more friends than I could ever possibly want, but it was really hard. During that January my great grandmother, Memere, had passed away. I was not extremely close to her, but I was pretty close. I hadn’t seen her in over a year by then and I couldn’t go to the funeral. I remember being so upset about it, but I had more sadness to come.

In February that same year, I went home on a home visit and relapsed into one of my old coping skills. I talk to two boys I had met online because my dad was not paying much attention to me during that time, so I looked for other males to take his place. I came back to the RTC, Residential Treatment Center, and was put on focus, a sub-level of the four levels to help you see what you did was not the best decision you could have made. I then left for another home visit in March, that one went a lot better than the last one. I went with my family to The Camp, a house next to a river that my grandfather had built. This was the first time I had gone with my Dad there and it was so much fun. My Dad and I bonded and had fun together. For the first time in my life I had felt safe with him. When I went back to my RTC I could not wait for my next home visit in April. Well, that home visit came much sooner, and it was the worst home visit I had ever experienced.

Later in March I went to Moab with my RTC for a trip, during that time my Dad had gotten sick and had to go to the emergency room. He was then sent to the Neurology Intensive Care Unit. While I was in Moab all of this happened and I was able to call my Mom every day. When we got back to the RTC I called my Mom and she told me there was hope, that his body was partially responsive, and that he would most likely just be paralyzed on one side. This made my day, there was hope that my Dad was going to live.

The next day my therapist took me into her office and we facetimed my Mom. She was outside of the hospital with my brother. I remember what she said so vividly it still scares me to this day. “He isn’t going to make it sweety. He is going to die.” she told me crying. I sat there in shock, not being able to comprehend what was happening, what she had just said. Then it hit me, and it hit me hard. He was going to die. My Dad, was going to die. I took the whole day off with my therapist crying. When I went back inside, everyone knew because one of the therapists had told them. I had a plane flying out the next day so I could say goodbye to him and go to his funeral so I began packing. Packing was one of the hardest parts because I had to pack for the funeral.

When I got to my house, I slept with my mom that night. The next day was one of the hardest days of my life. I went to go see my father at the ICU.

When I walked in he was lying there, tubes out of him, and life support off. He was pale and his lips were blue. I touched his hand, cold as ice, and held it. I cried and cried, and then his heart stopped beating. He was dead, gone, lost, lifeless. All in 20 minutes my life changed forever, and I will never forget it.

That Saturday we held his funeral, it was at the church where my mom and dad buried their first born, a son who lived for less than a week. There is one song that reminds me so much of what it felt like to be at that funeral, and here is a quote from the song “How Could You Leave Us”-by NF.
“Took me everything inside of me to not scream at your funeral
Sitting in my chair, that person talking was pitiful.”

I remember crying because he was gone, because I would never get to tell him I was sorry for everything, and I would never hear him do the same. I held in my screams though, I held in all of my anger, because everyone around us thought of him as the most amazing person in the world. After the funeral I went home, numb from my emotions. I felt like relapsing on drugs, alcohol, and self-harm. But I could not do that, not to myself or my Mom. It took so much not to relapse but I did it, I did not relapse and I am so proud of myself for it. Two weeks after his funeral I went back to my RTC. So much had changed. There were new kids and people had moved on to different levels, but I was stuck in my depression. Something I always said was that I was born with four parents, and now I am down to one parent. I used to say this because I was adopted so I had four parents, but since I don’t know my birth parents I was down to two parents, and now that my Dad is dead I have one.

During the month of April I had figured out something. I figured out that my father never really lived, he never had a childhood, and he never had an adulthood, he was stuck in a depressive anger most of his life. He died that way and I do not want to die that way as well. I want to be happy and live my life to the fullest, even if that meant working through the pain of my life. I realized that even though I had such a huge bump in the road, I still got something out of it. My father lost his life, but I am finding mine because of it.

After his death I found that it was hard to work on myself when everything bad was happening. I had another chance to relapse, and you know I really wanted to take that chance because I had every right to relapse. In May my dog Gigi died from old age. So far I noticed that in January my great grandma died, in February no one died, March my dad died, April no one died, May my dog died. 2017 was looking more and more like a crappy year for me. I did not let that stop me though, I kept working on myself even though I was hurting.

9 months later, after everything that has happened, I am still pushing through. I graduated my Residential Treatment Center, I have begun a new semester, and yes, I have not relapsed since. My life has been very hard, but I keep working through it because the only way I can get better is to work. I started this year thinking life was great, that it was going to be my year, and in many ways it is my year. I have left treatment with a better understanding of myself and of life, and I believe that is the greatest gift I have ever received.