Pillow of Strength

I try hiding my emotions including this picture that I always put underneath my pillow, but I guess it is part of who I am. All of my memories when I was a kid are still stuck in my head and when the night comes the only thing that I can remember were memories of me crying each night just to fall asleep. I was so desperate to do everything just to forget all of the bad thing happened, and I just wanted to dream about my happy place for awhile. Everyday all I could hear was fighting from my parents, so I decided to keep on running from that toxic environment in our house, but why? Maybe because I was afraid and I knew I did not want to deal with it anymore.

Since that day I have encountered a lot of challenges and difficulties at a very young age; therefore, I learned to fight for myself and those challenges which caused me to be in such a very dark time in my life. It was a time that I wish never happened and I hope that it will stop messing up every second of my existence. I never had the courage to tell them how much I love them. There are a lot of difficult choices that I needed to make and one of the choices was to choose which parent I would go with. I did not want to hurt one of them, but why did they keep on hurting me this way? Since the day they decided to break their vows in front of many people, and especially in front of God, they never stopped hurting me. I was so devastated when they decided to tell me about their agreement. I was traumatized and I also lost interest in my school and my life, because they did not try to fix their problems for the sake of their only daughter and I knew that I could not do anything to stop their decision because that is what they wanted, but they did not think of the effect of their choices.

All of my friends are always judging me for not having both of my parent in one house and I cannot think of anything to say about those question, but I now realize that I do not owe them any explanation on what is going on in my life . In the end I learned to forgive them because I have the hope that someday everything will be bright and full of happiness, just like the quote the I found on the internet: “ The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning.” That idea gives me motivation to keep my life going, as well as to change my own pattern to learn from their mistakes in life that we should not give up on something that we will regret after. If you surrender on something that defines who you are, what’s left?  

-Richelle Santiago

Here’s some article that will help you to understand the pain and negative effect on a kid from a broken family:https://www.babygaga.com/15-negative-ways-kids-from-broken-homes-get-affected/