Dark past, Bright Future.

[1] - Childhood

To say I had a shit childhood would be an astronomical understatement. I can't remember a time when my dad didn't drink. Some of my first memories are of my dad stumbling into the house, bottle in hand. Sometimes he would be energetic and full of life and as a small child it was exciting and fun. But those times were scarce and for the most part he was aggressive.

They say abuse is a cycle, or it has a knock on effect and I suppose in this instance they were right my drunk father would hit my mother and eventually she started to hit me.

It started maybe when I was about six. Up until this point my mother had tried her best with me she loved me I think. But as my dads drinking problem got out of hand he lost his job and money started to become an issue. My mother was dealing with a drunk violent husband, a small child as well as working a job to try and keep a roof over our heads. I suppose something had to give and I guess that was me.

I can't really go into the details of it all it still pains me to think about. Those first few years when the abuse started I tried so desperately to please my mother. I tried to make her happy in hopes the abuse would stop. Then when I was about 11 I realised the best way to avoid the violence was to avoid the house so I joined all the after school clubs I could. This is when I found football. I kept myself busy and out of the way. This worked for a while I suppose the beatings occurred less but were increasingly brutal.

My fathers drinking problems spiralled. Leading up to his death I hardly saw him. He would go out and drink for days on end without a word before eventually returning. He would pass out and sleep for days before awaking to increasingly bad hangovers. And how did he cure the hangovers? He would reach for another bottle and so the cycle continued. Until one day when I was 14 he stumbled in and passed out on the sofa nothing out of the ordinary he stayed there for days I never questioned it. I mean this has happened plenty of times before except this time he didn't wake up. He died of multi-organ failure in the end all the alcohol had killed him whilst simultaneously masking his symptoms.

I grieved him. He was never a real dad to me he was always too drunk to care but he was still my father. My mothers grief was far worse though she loved him despite his abusive ways. She took her grief out on me.