Art Book and Other Random Stuff

The Eyepatch Story

Okay, here is the story on how I got my eyepatch. Forewarning: this contains abuse, violence, and, like, one curse word. If you can't read it, I'll put a basic summary at the end of the chapter.

First, you're going to need a little bit of background.

My older sister– we'll call her Peggy– has always suffered from periods of intense pain. It would get to the point where it was difficult for her to breathe and if something were to touch her or move against her, for example, a blanket, it would hurt her. She, despite that, was forced to take care of the house, me, and my brothers. I tried my best to make things better for her and make the pain go away, but it always came back, no matter what we tried.

Now that she's away from the restrictions of our home, Peggy was able to get it checked out. Turns out, she has fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia is a disorder that is characterized by a person experiences widespread musculoskeletal pain and is accompanied by symptoms such as fatigue and cognitive difficulties. She's being treated for it now and is doing better.

Because of Peggy's discovery and improvement, my brothers started talking and decided that they wanted to find out what was wrong with them. They both have difficulty concentrating on work and staying still and would always be reprimanded for the impulses that they couldn't control.

One of my brothers– we'll call him Dino– went up to my dad to ask him if he can tell the doctor about his and my other brother's short attention span and seemingly-unending extra energy (I'm paraphrasing). Dino tried getting dad's attention, but my father refused to pay attention to him. It wasn't until Dino tapped his arm that Father finally turned his attention away from his computer, but it was for a bad reason. Dad was mad at Dino for disturbing his work, so he hit him in the face.

Dino came to the living room, which was across the hall from my father's office, crying and saying that our dad hit him. My other brother– let's call him Lion– and I heard the hit, but we were foolishly hoping that what we heard wasn't what we thought. Lion was infuriated because he and Dino are very close, ever since they came out of the womb (they're twins). So, while I was looking over Dino's eye, Lion took the chair he was sitting on, stormed into my father's office, and hit Father with said chair before I could stop him.

Father obviously got really mad about it, so he picked up a pair of scissors and swiped them at Lion, cutting his cheek. It was small, but it was still enough to set me off. He already hurt Dino, but now he's hurt Lion as well.

One thing you need to know about me– you do not hurt my brothers without me getting involved.

I took Lion out of the office, pulled him and Dino into the kitchen, and put them in a corner. There was a meat cleaver drying in the sink because I had to tenderize meat for lunch, so I picked it up and threw it at father with all my might, and it ended up hitting him in the thigh. Dad got offended by the fact that I attacked him. He called me a bitch and started threatening me, saying that I would pay for it, so I started reprimanding him for being such a terrible dad.

My father ran towards my brothers, saying they were going to suffer for my actions, but I punched him. It soon turned into a big struggle. Mind you, I'm a small, 5ft 5.5 inch person (around 166.6 cm tall) who scrapes by with a passing grade in PE while my father is a 5ft 10in (around 177.8 cm) person who used to play rugby when my uncles from England and Ireland would visit.

I dunno how– it was probably due to adrenaline and desperation– but I managed to shove my dad away from my brothers, who were still in the corner of the kitchen I'd put them in. Father picked up a bottle of whiskey and threw it, but I barely caught it and hit him on the back with it when he turned around to look for something else to try and hit me with.

In hindsight, that was kinda stupid for me to do. There was broken glass everywhere, so when my dad went down because of the hit, he just picked up a piece of glass and shoved it as deep as he could into my right eye, even digging his fingers into my eye a little bit. I didn't scream because I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing it hurt, so instead, I just punched him in the nose. When he stumbled away, Dino handed me a wine bottle, and I hit Father over the head with it, knocking him out.

My ma came into the room and immediately demanded to know what happened. I didn't trust my mom and was therefore still scared for my brothers' safety, so I picked up a broom, stood in front of my brothers, and held it in front of me like a bat while I explained what happened. Mom told me to put down the broom and give her the first aid kit from under the kitchen sink.

I didn't put down the broom, but I got the first aid kit and handed it to Ma. I thought she was gonna help Father, but instead told me to sit down. I still didn't trust her, but I sat down anyways, holding the broom. Ma covered my eye, saying it shouldn't be exposed because the injury could get infected.

After she was done with me, she gave Dino ice for his eye and put a bandaid on Lion's cut. Mom told me and my brothers to help her clean up and put all the glass in a separate garbage bag so we can throw it out in a different trash can from our own. That way, if Father called the police to report us, there would be no evidence of a struggle, which means there's nothing he could use against us.

I was confused as heck because I knew my parents to be like Bonnie and Clyde. They had always worked together to make my siblings's lives and my life miserable. But now my mom was helping us? It didn't make any sense.

While we cleaned, Ma told us about the true nature of her relationship with Dad. She said that they did love each other at some point, back when Peggy was a young girl and I was a baby, but that all changed one day. Why? Mother didn't know. All she knew was that she had to do whatever she could to keep us from getting the brunt of Dad's anger.

As we drove to the hospital, Mum said that we needed a plan to get away from father. We both knew that we couldn't just report Father to the police. If we wanted to leave, we needed money, and he was the sole provider of money for the household. We moved to Arizona in February, and Ma couldn't find a job fast enough before quarantine hit. I was let go from my cashier job at a family-owned restaurant. Plus, there was no way in hell I was going to risk being separated from Dino and Lion. They needed me, and I needed them.

I suggested that we go to Peggy's home in southern California. She and her friend managed to save enough money to buy a small house in a small town. Mum got nervous because she knew Peggy would definitely let me and my brother stay, but wouldn't be too thrilled about the idea of Ma staying with her because of all those times ignored Peggy's fibromyalgia pains and made her work. I told her I would try to convince Peggy into letting her stay and explain everything to her.

We arrived at the hospital and had to get screened for COVID-19, and once we were cleared, we had to wait for a doctor. When the doctors asked me what caused it, I told them that I tripped while drinking water from a glass. I had tucked my hands in because I didn't want any cuts on them, but ended up falling onto a glass piece that was ricocheting off the floor. Dino and Lion had tripped over me, causing Dino to fall onto his own fist and Lion falling against the cabinets.

The doctors told me I needed surgery to see if my eye could be saved, and it turns out that no, it couldn't be saved. I had little hope that my eye would be saved, so I wasn't too shocked or upset. The glass shard Father had shoved into my eye wasn't too big, and his fingers had made contact with my eye. It would've been a miracle if my eye could be repaired.

And that's the story on how I lost my eye!

(If you couldn't read because of the warnings at the beginning of the chapter here's the gist of what happened: my dad hurt my younger brothers, so I physically fought my dad, but then got stabbed in the eye by glass)

If you've read Handling a Crisis, I guess you can call this karma for what I did to Russia lmao

Anyways, I'll see y'all another time! Bye!