BROKEN
Being a product of a broken home can affect you so much more than you can imagine. It affects your thinking, emotions, and social life, and it gets more serious if you hide your feelings and pretend like all is well.
I was nine years old when my parents separated. On that cold morning, I knew something was about to change fundamentally. I clearly remember how my mother left the house. Before that day, I would hear and see my parents argue almost every day, always putting the blame on each other. Once, they had a heated argument in the presence of our neighbours who came to wait at our apartment until their parents arrived from an outing. It was so intense I had to leave the house with my neighbours. I couldn't bear the disgust I saw on their faces that evening.
At that time, I couldn't pinpoint the cause of their unceasing arguments. It was all blame, and, sometimes, I wondered if they were forced into their marriage. Most times, it looked like one of them was truly at fault and the other just had anger issues. There was a time in school, during our religious studies class, when we were taught forgiveness. I got home eager to tell my parents about forgiveness at dinner and how they could forgive each other whenever one wronged the other. They laughed, amused, and asked what I knew about forgiveness. It wasn't a sweet thing seeing your parents get separated at that age, and it felt like a seed of bitterness was planted then in my heart.
The first few years after their separation, I was with my father, and it was bliss. He was left to take care of my siblings and me. Being the older one, I learned to housekeep early, and I had to take the role of a mother at that age. I did so well at it even though I wanted my mother to have continued in her role. He allowed us to do things we enjoyed so we wouldn't feel neglected. It was a period of bliss because there was no argument and he only had us to take care of.
By the time I got to Senior School 2, my mother came to take my sister and me away from my dad. By then, my parents had definitively gone their separate ways and were both remarried to other people. Living with my mother after the separation was a period of brokenness. She never seemed to be happy at whatever I did. She would constantly remind me of my father and how similar we were. She stopped me from doing things that mattered to me, like singing. I loved singing, and my father had supported me. He allowed me to participate in the children's choir and even encouraged me to take part in musical activities in school.
My mother would compare me with my sister and call me names that hinted at how hurt or pained she was because of me. While at my father's, I had high self-esteem, and it was influenced by him. He had a way of making you see the good in yourself and in every situation. My mother, on the other hand, always blamed me for every mistake. She was never in support of whatever I wanted to do and always attributed everything I did to their separation. Most times, I felt she was just heartbroken and unwilling to heal, so she used me as a point of connection to her separation from my father.
I felt lonely and rejected. I felt far away from myself. I wasn’t accepted by my mother, and I couldn’t return to my father’s because I was in her custody. I started withdrawing from social activities because she always used it as an avenue to compare me with other people. Emotionally, I began to feel lonely and unloved. My parent’s separation and my mother’s frustration and anger towards me made me see love as something that was meant for only some, not all, of us. I was not part of those who deserved love because every situation around me preached everything love wasn’t.
For a long time, I felt I was cursed and was the cause of my parent's separation. I didn't realise how much of a toll their separation took on me. It drained me because it took away my self-esteem, and I couldn't accept myself for who I am. I began to see myself as someone who could not be accepted anywhere because my mother wouldn't accept me for who I am. I couldn't even appreciate the beautiful times I had with my father. I began to long for acceptance from my mother by trying to please her, but despite all I did to make her love me, I still felt empty. I felt worthless.
The seed of bitterness sown in me at such an early stage of my life began to bear fruit. I was depressed, I wasn’t doing well in school, and I couldn’t participate in activities without zoning out. I was bitter, and I began to hate my siblings and family. I would exhibit such negative energy and make jest of people in healthy relationships with their families. I started reading about how to end my life, cutting myself at some point, so I could let out the pain but it wouldn’t leave me. Once, my sister caught me trying to cut myself and burn the scar, and she reported me to our mother out of concern. The response my mother gave made me want to put the suicidal thoughts I had been nurturing into action even faster.
On one of those days of great loneliness, I met someone who wanted to know me. She brought the light to me. She reminded me how precious I was and how I had a spark of greatness in me. She made me see the other side of the world I didn’t get to enjoy early on.
I began to ignore every negative thought and every negative word my mother said to me. I began to live for myself, to love and appreciate the love of others. I might not be able to do things I enjoyed doing before, but I know I found a reason to live and not define myself by what others say about me or by the situations around me.
Though my parents are separated, they do not determine who I am.
This story was written by Dorcas Junaid, a 500-level nursing student and a complete health advocate who loves to play with colours and numbers because they inspire her.
