A Journey

As the years passed, I learned to mask many of my inner thoughts. I pushed my way through school and diversity, even when social life was hard for me. I often over‑exaggerated everything because I didn’t feel heard, or because I didn’t fully understand the social context of the conversations around me. I interrupted without thinking, blurted out things that didn’t match the moment, and of course I would get laughed at. I would be embraced as the joke and then walked away from.

By the end of grade nine, I told my parents I would not be returning to school. I was done being the freak who was always the inside joke of someone’s conversation. My parents listened and transferred me to a different district within the same area. They got me out of the crippling Special Education classes, and I was finally placed into classrooms where I felt “normal.” But the problem was, I had very little understanding of the material ahead of me at a grade ten level. My reading and writing were at a grade four or five level at best, due to the inadequate teaching I had received. My parents were only doing what they thought was best at the time — they didn’t have anyone to guide them differently.

I was angry. School became a mountain I felt I could never climb. I was bitter, trapped in a brain flying a thousand miles a minute. I had missed all the basics and now had to learn at a speed that felt out of control.

At fifteen, I started smoking cigarettes — at first to fit in with different crowds, and then continued because I was now addicted. Still, I danced and loved choir. Vocal lessons were a treat for a few months, and sharing my singing abilities with the school gave me a small shift in self‑confidence. I stayed connected with a few girlfriends from middle school and junior high, and I began to make more friends at my new high school. Boys came into the picture, which was both fun and scary. My dad didn’t like many of them — typical dad — but he was also judgmental, forgetting that the “right” boys he wanted for me were the same ones spray‑painting cruel phrases on highway abutments for everyone to see.

My parents never truly understood the depth of my pain. The brutal treatment I endured in and out of school had already left scars. By the time they paid attention, it was too late. I had no connection with them, and listening to my needs was far gone. They simply didn’t understand the damage that had been done.

I went through phases of pulling out my hair, screaming at the top of my lungs, hiding in dark rooms to shut out the world, talking to myself to ease the pain, making up stories to avoid self‑harm, and running away from any situation that felt too hard. Avoidance became my middle name. And where was my little sister in all of this? To me, she was a pain in my side. Eight years younger, she had everything I wanted — a relationship built on trust, love, and safety with our parents. I watched it bloom and grow from the time I was eight, my jealous eyes angry and sad, exhausted by my parents’ ways.

I would do anything to escape the pain. And I did. That’s when I met Carter — a man too old for me, but he gave me what I craved: attention. Because I didn’t understand what love was or what safety felt like, he became my escape from school life and home life. Deep down, I knew he wasn’t right for me. I found open arms that only wanted me for sex. But eventually, he cared enough to marry me and start what I thought I wanted: a family at the young age of twenty‑one, just like my mom. I was following in her path.

Looking back, I see how desperately I searched for belonging, safety, and love in all the wrong places. My choices were shaped by pain, but they were also shaped by a fierce will to survive. Even in the darkest moments, I kept moving forward, even if it was messy and imperfect. This chapter of my life reminds me that healing is not about erasing the past — it is about acknowledging it, learning from it, and continuing to grow. I share these words not because they are easy, but because they are real. And in telling them, I hope to remind others that even when the path feels broken, there is still strength to be found in healing in real time.