On a bright warm day when I was about six years old, I met a drunken version of my mother that day. Which meant I had to behave or else she would curse at me and tell me that I was worthless. Though today my sister got her mad, to the point that it was going to be bad, and I knew I had to do something to get her to advert her attention to me. So I did something to get her even more mad at me though I do not remember what, and I told my sister to hide and not come out of her room. I ran away from my mother as long as I was able to avoid every lunge she made towards me. It wasn’t until I ran down the stairs that she was able to grab me. She sat on the daybed, confining me into her arms and squeezing me. I started to yell for help, but she puts her hand over my mouth. I am terrified of what is going to happen and crying as I try to get away. Though this is all, I have been able to remember after years of therapy. Part of me never wants to know how I got my scar on my wrist, and another part of me does. Though I may never know because my mother is a black-out drunk, she remembers nothing that happened that night or any of the other nights before and after this one. Remembering nothing of the days, she slammed on the bathroom door as I panicked to call my dad because she was drunk and angry. Though she was her usual self the day that I decided my sister and I would run away though we didn’t get far because she was her usual self. It was complex as a child and still today to separate the two versions of my mother that I grew up with. My dad could do little to nothing for women were caregivers and should take care of the children even if they did abuse their children mentally and emotionally, which wasn’t as known today as it was in the early 2000s. He was afraid that his fate would be the same as another man fighting for custody of his children with his ex-wife, who ended up taking full custody of their children even though the wife abused him. My father was different because he had support from my mother’s family to get my sister and me out of the situation as often as possible. He even gave me a phone to contact him and make sure I memorized his phone number in case my phone was dead, or I wasn’t able to grab my phone but a home phone. My dad, throughout my childhood, was the only parent I had. My mother was just that, a person that gave birth to me and abused me emotionally, verbally, and physically. 

-Tristian (they/them)