Diary Entry 7 April 2021
I am currently sitting in my grandparents living room. We are still in their house.
I haven’t written in a long time, due to the reason that I never found the right moment. Now it’s also not the perfect time, but tomorrow we are going home again and before that happens, I would like to write an entry about what happened in the last few weeks.
Right now we’re on Easter holidays. I love it here in the countryside, on the private property. This is where I grew up and experienced so much. I don’t want to leave, I want to stay here forever. I am much happier in the last few weeks, I feel freer. I am not so depressed anymore and my world doesn’t seem as dark as it used to. I can laugh again and play games with my sisters. Every day I went for a walk and breathed in fresh air. I could go outside any time, – when my energy was too strong or when I couldn’t handle it inside anymore. I enjoyed it so much, – the nature, and waking up every morning in the living room on the sofa-bed. If someone were to ask me where my home is, I would say – without a doubt – this place. I feel more comfortable, freer, happier, less watched and much, much more at home here.
I fear what awaits me in my actual home. It makes me really sad to think about being back there again. I don’t want to go back. I want to be able to go outside whenever I want, I want to have a reason to get up in the mornings, I want to be able to smile, to feel good. I want to have a place I can escape to, where I like to go. I don’t want to leave, I don’t want to go home, I don’t want to go into my room, I don’t want to live in the city centre. I want to hear the birds, see the bushes and trees, I want to walk on the wet grass with wellies and see how Akela runs after the sticks. I want to stand at the lake with my woolly jacket and look across the water, as the fresh, cold breeze glides across my skin. I don’t want to be alone in my room, look at my furniture and think about the One Direction poster staring at me.
I want to sit here in the living room on the couch and watch The Vampire Diaries; one episode after the other – every day – and be ok with that, because I have the possibility and opportunity of going outside. I can watch the sun and see the wind rustle through the wilderness. I can totally concentrate on the series and still have a smile on my face, because I feel good, because I am where I want to be – where I feel good.
Every Friday I had an appointment with Viola, and it was so great to speak aloud everything I had to say and to have someone who listens to me. Today is Wednesday and I’ve got my next appointment, – because Friday is a bank holiday.
I haven’t argued with mom for a long time, until… over a week ago was in incident.
As you know, dad and I aren’t communicating for quite a while already. But on that day, he dared to talk to me. And it wasn’t a friendly question or a nice sentence, it were really unfriendly and demanding instructions to the topic of ‘how I should behave’! I became so angry – as fast as lightning – that I immediately left. Of course he had to have the last word – so he put one on top: “If there is one thing I can’t have, it’s bad manners!” How dare he! I texted mom over the phone, as she was working: ‘Starting from the top’. How am I ever supposed to forgive him when he doesn’t learn anything.
After work, mom came home – to granny and grandads place – and like always, she pretended like nothing had happened and as though it weren’t important how I felt. She didn’t speak to me about it and she behaved totally normal, until I got angry again and left. Then she came over to me and asked what was going on, – as if I wanted to say something now. Like always, she defended dad and she didn’t respect what I wanted – which is to always stay here, even if that meant I would be here alone. I knew it wouldn’t work, but I wanted her to understand how important it was to me and how serious I was about it. My anger overflowed in a way that I had to kick her out: “Get out right now or I’ll throw the phone at you!” I hated it! She always defended dad, didn’t respect what I wanted, told me what I was doing wrong and what needed to change.
Before bed, I had had enough. I went upstairs to mom. “I can’t see you as my mother. I was feeling way better these past few weeks and maybe I haven’t shown it or maybe you just can’t see it because I am not who you want me to be. You don’t accept me the way I am, you always want to change me. I am always the one who has to come to you when something is wrong. As long as you don’t accept me the way I am, I won’t come to you anymore. This time you have to come to me. I love my mother and I want you to come to me, but you have to be ready for that.” I heard how she was breathing heavily and didn’t look at me as I left the room. I thought she was sad and would realize I was right, but it came out she thought I was crazy, I was wrong and I had hurt her so much that she was really furious.
I wanted to break myself away from mom, because I thought it was the right thing. I thought it would be the best chance to start anew and to get to know one another newly. I didn’t want to hurt her. I wanted to do the right thing. I wanted to give us a new chance. It was so hard for me to let her go, because it meant I didn’t have any parents anymore, I was fully alone, but I thought it had to be.
As I laid down on my bed – with eyes full of tears – and I almost fell asleep, she came into my room. I panicked a little, as her energy wasn’t nice. She spoke with so much hatred towards me, with such a bitterness which I felt directly, when she told me that I had lost both my parents now. She talked and talked continuously about how everything is my fault. That the family has fallen apart because of me and that I am so depressed I can’t even see what my family is doing for me. She twisted the words around in my mouth. She didn’t understand at all what I meant. Even when I was lying on the matrass cramped up full of pain, bawling and screaming, she didn’t stop. She wanted me to be quiet, she claimed I am scaring my sisters. How dare she. She didn’t even see my pain at all, she didn’t hear it, she didn’t even care about me, just about the others. As I almost screamed for help, she must’ve realized I was tortured enough – because then she stopped. She stopped because I scared her. I scared her with my screams of pain and that’s why she leaned down to my stiff and shivering body and put a hand on it. It took me to say the words “just kill me. Give me a knife and I will die. I don’t want this anymore” for her to come to me, shut her mouth and put her hand on my back until the pain didn’t crush every ounce of my body anymore. Until my lungs were so dry from the screaming, that it hurt. Until my lips and eyes were bloodshot from the tears and blood in my body. Until I nearly died of the pain that scrunched up my body as well as my brain, as I laid there with no-one. As the pain continued and continued to consume me, and the screams didn’t get any quieter.
Mom took me into her arms until the pain decreased.
The next day I felt almost nothing. It was as if I had no emotions, just hatred. I hated my mother. I couldn’t look into her eyes. I didn’t understand how she could make the same mistake again. I thought she had learnt from my speech, I thought she would never do it again, I thought she would simply be there for me when I needed her – without her talking. There was no use, she didn’t learn. So I decided not to forgive her. For years I was so strong to be able to forgive her, and I know I could do it again, but it would be useless, she would hurt me again – it would happen again. ‘I am alone. Full on alone. I have no parents anymore. I don’t know if I could ever forgive them now. It would be easier to keep them away. Maybe I give up’.
So, guess what… Yes, on this day we fought again. Because mom came into my room, as she wanted to set some rules – for when we fight. I got really frustrated when she kept taking everything so personally what I said. Because I said the truth about how I felt, but it hurt her too much and she didn’t understand it – at least not in the way I meant it. The frustration transformed to anger, which is why I had to send her out of my room. When she was gone, I threw my sweet-packet across the room as hard as I could. I pulled open the living room door – which led outside – and disappeared into the rain… but only until moms screaming warned me to dare take another step. She was a monster, I hated her. Back inside, I sat on the armchair and bawled, I let the pain surface and I cried it out. I thought about the child version of myself who always had to be quiet, I thought of her and cried for her. I allowed her to cry as loud as she wanted, no-one could tell me to be quiet.
Mom came back in after a while and wanted to hug me. I pushed her away and screamed how much I hated her. “No! You try to get in my brain with your lovely words by trying to find the weakest spot in me, just to tear me apart! You never learn, so why would I let you in again?!” But she still came back and took my stiff, shivering and shock-overloaded body into her arms – without me wanting it. It took ages until I was able to calm down.
The next two days were dark. I felt depressed and cold. One of the reasons for this was that it was official we were going back to school. I couldn’t imagine it. I couldn’t imagine seeing my classmates or the teachers again. And I especially couldn’t imagine sitting in a classroom and writing the exams for my Junior Cert. I didn’t know if I would manage to go back there, having to pretend to be a certain way to protect myself. Having no friends, being unhappy, being scared of teachers and students, not being myself and simply having to go back into hell. This school gave me nothing but pain, and I didn’t know how I was supposed to manage making myself so strong again to be able to go through it.
The picture of me in school and everything that happened to me there, overwhelmed me already and tears rolled down my cheek right away. Mom promised me they will try everything so I don’t have to go back there. In the evening, I felt how my world got darker. That’s how it started with my deep depression last time, so I was scared to be pulled back into such a dark world again…
When mom said good night to me, I had a small smile on my lips because something funny had happened. “It makes me happy to see how you smile. That’s what I wish for so much, that you are happy, but no-one is able to get to you and that is so alone”, she said with happy tears flowing out of her eyes.
One evening, I sat by the lake and wrote a diary entry onto a piece of paper. It was about my family and my brother, Bryson. I needed him, I wanted him. I wrote down how nice it would be to have a family that always sticks together. A family that doesn’t give up on each other, that supports one another and cheers you on, a family that doesn’t tell you what you’re doing wrong, but instead helps you to find yourself. A family that always wants to be around one another because they accept each other the way they are. A family that can forgive and doesn’t hold you back but always stands with you. A family that is like a tree and its roots; they are always together, but go their own way. If my family were like this, then my brother would currently be with me. I could hug him and tell him how much I love him. I could tell him that I know what loneliness feels like and that I want to be there for him. I could see him, touch him and talk to him… But sadly my reality isn’t so wonderful and nice. I miss him so much and especially lately I think of him a lot and feel as though he wants us, – he needs us.
A few days later, mom came straight into my room after work. She seemed to be happy and behaved differently… I thought of school right away – she knew something positive about it and she wanted to tell me now – I knew it – so I got up and automatically had a smile on my face. She took my hands in hers: “Leona… you NEVER have to go back to school!” I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, it was all jumbled up in me, I could only realize it properly after a few seconds: “Really? OH MY GOD.” We hugged each other as I started crying of joy. Happy sobs escaped my mouth. I saw the people pass by me in my thoughts, whom I never have to see again. I saw the horrible situations I was in, and I felt how the pain and the negative feeling from that time, fell off of me. In that moment, I felt so happy – it was foreign, this feeling, but I liked it, it was nice and I hoped it would stay forever.
I couldn’t even begin thinking about everything I wanted to do… finally I could decide freely, finally I could do the things I wanted to do – things I liked and were good for me. Finally I was given the start to a life I could design myself, – I can decide in what direction it goes. In that moment I didn’t care about how mom and dad managed to get me out of school, – in that moment, I didn’t care about anything. I only thought about the things I could do now… For over a year I am fully free now, and then it’s my choice whether I go back to do my Leaving Cert or if I start working right away. But for now, we’ll just stay in this moment – I was more than overjoyed. I immediately sent my granny a voicemail about the great news.
My WhatsApp Status might explain my feelings a little more: “I never ever have to go back. That part of my life is over. I am starting a new chapter. It is a new beginning, and I am so thankful, it is impossible to describe. I can´t say how happy I am, happy tears are falling down my cheek. I cannot believe what I have been granted. Faith and Courage got me through this. They will keep staying with me until the end of my days- and there are a lot more to come. I can finally smile, I can feel free and live the life I want to live. I am developing, and I alone decide in which direction I will go. The hardest time of my life, the most miserable, sad and so, so painful time is over. It is time to live, to breath in the air of happiness. I am a school-free fifteen-year-old, who´s life has only just begun!”
What will happen with my grades and how I will be graded is like this: Viola has to write a letter with my parents, for the school to know I won’t be returning due to my mental health. And because I am not going back, I also can’t write the last exams and therefore the teachers have to grade me on all my previous exams. I am so happy, – because I just now received this news from mom and before that we weren’t too sure about this, and it made me a little stressed.
Sasha hasn’t talked much about my incident with him, except that he was with me and that nothing spiritually will affect me and keep me from my life anymore. He did claim my hormones are totally out of balance though, and therefore mom will get me something to help with this. The only thing that could keep me from success is myself – my thoughts, feelings and habits, but other than that, I am ready.
I will continue to keep you updated. Thank you for always being there. Love, yours, Leona.
