From bad to worse

THe next few years were such a mess! My dad was drinking from morning till night, he'd have a beer under his bed so he could drink it as soon as he opened his eyes. He wanted to be numb and not feel the pain. My mom was had another man move in weeks after my dad being out. It was not the same man my dad had accused her of cheating with but a new man. A man I had never met before and he was living with us. Making demands and my baby sister was calling him dada. Words can not describe how much I hated the entire situation!
I was visiting with my dad and sometimes it was wonderful, we'd talk and laugh and sometimes it was awful, he'd cry the whole time about how my mom left him and then there were the times that I don't like to think about. He was so mean and would call me names and kick me out or chase me out. Sometimes he was so drunk he would just keep falling over.  I never knew what side I was going to get but ALWAYS took the chance for the wonderful times!
And then Id go back home and get in trouble for going to see my dad at all. My mom's new boyfriend hated that I went to see my dad. My mom told him that my dad beat her so he would tell me that I was betraying my mom for going to see my dad and that everytine I went to see my dad he found out where we lived and we had to move again. I was allowed to see my dad but in no way was I to bring the baby.
One night my mom's boyfriend was giving her a hard time about the way she raised me and how disrepectful I was to her and that it was time to start putting her foot down with me before it was too late. I overheard and told him that if he had a problem with me to tell me and stop talking about me like I wasnt there. My mom flipped out and started hitting me. I tried to push her back to stop and she just grabbed me and threw me into the wall. I was so scared! I curled into a ball and cried. Her and her boyfriend ended up leaving. Shortly after they left I took my sister and went to my dads house. I was going to ask him if I could live with him instead. I was sure he'd be happy about it. Well I got there and it was a bad day. He didn't even know who I was. I had to keep telling him it was me, his daughter. He was so out of it. He looked right at me and said you are not my daughter I have no children. It felt as if something stabbed me. I felt sharp pains throughout my body. I went back to my moms house and no one was back yet. It was nearing bedtime and still no sign of them. The entire weekend had passed. Part of me was relived that I did not have to deal with her but part of me felt I needed her to comfort me, from what she had done to me and from what my dad had said. But again, I was alone, with no one but my sister. I layed in bed and cried and she would rub my head and say "ok sasa, ok".
My mom came home and acted like nothing happened, no explanation for dissapearing for the weekend and no appology for hurtung me. I told her what happened with my dad and she very blaintly said "well that is because he is not your father", "your father lives in Winnipeg but was only 15 and wasnt ready to have a child, I met your dad when I was pregnant and he raised you until now". Wait... what? I don't understand! So my entire life has been a lie! Who I am has been a lie! My last name, a lie! My identity was fake! I was so mad, so hurt and so confused! I started to think everyone had a part in the lie and became even more distant. I  didnt trust or beleive anyone! I started to realise that if my dad wasn't my dad, then my grand-parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, not really familly at all. How could they all lie to me? I started to think everyone was behind it, everyone knew and I was just the punch line to some joke. Nothing was real!
I wasn't quite ready to deal with the situation and had very few answers. My mom asked if I wanted to talk to my real dad. I said no not yet, if he didnt want me then, he might not want me now and I wasnt ready to face even more rejection, not sure I would of been able to handle it. Wait, what? You had his info all of this time and just now decide to let me know, why? Why now? Because she was trying to place a wedge between me and my dad and I was not going to let that happen. He was the dad I knew, and the only dad I wanted. She didnt listen and when I had got hom from school put me on the phone with him. It was so awkward, I didn't know what to say. But he seemed to want to get to know me and had a familly, a wife and 3 sons. I had 3 brothers! I was even more confused, the more I wanted to get to know them the guiltier I felt about it. As if getting to know them would make me less a part of my dads family.
Things were getting really ugly, the police were always at our house. My dad was calling and making threats, my mom was using the fact that my dad fathered a child with another woman as grounds for divorce which hurt my dad because he lied about it to get her a baby and she used it against him to leave him as if it had all been a big master plan.My mom brought a poem and letterd that I had wrote to my dad to use in court against him, private letters that I had wrote out of pain and confusion, letters no one was supposed to see. I had to sit in the courtroom looking at my dads face as the lawyer read out my private thoughts and I could actually see my dads heart braking. It was my turn on the tand. I said I didnt want to. My moms lawyer said Id go to jail if I didnt and if I lied. I got up, my eyes were locked on the pain in my dads eyes, how could I say anything about him while he is sitting right there? But my moms lawyers just drilled me, asking only awful things about my dad, yes he had done those things but I was not going to say it, what about all of the things my mom had done? THat side was never going to be told because only I knew about it but the lawyer would not let me get a word in, just drilling me and trying to make me talk against my dad. I was crying so hard the words comming out of my mouth were not understandable. The lawyer was getting aggitated with me and yelling. The judge stopped the entire thing and took me into the back room. Asked me a few things and I told her that I was not going to talk about the situation, that both of my parents did a lot of bad things and if I was going to talk it would be the entire truth not just half of the story but that I would not do it on a stand in fromt of them because I will have to go home with them. She said I shouldnt even have been in the court room listening to all of the garbage nevermind being made to be a part of it.
Things were just getting worse and worse, my mom was so mad at me for always being against her. She was rarely home. I brought my sister to daycare in the morning and picked her up after school and we were pretty much on our own. I potty trained her and got her from bottle to cup and muchy for to real food. I took her everywhere with me. If I went out I brought her along, whether my mom was home or not. My friends just got used to the fact that I came with a baby. Most people liked it and played with her and it was a lot of fun playing with a baby and teaching her bad words and dressing her the way we dressed (keep in mind we were teenagers).
My mom told me that there was a restraining order on my dad and if I went to see him he would go to jail. I found out later that it was not true. My dad would call and ask me to come visit and I would say no cuz I didnt want him to go to jail and he didnt understand and thought I hated him so things between me and him got really messed up. He thought I beleived the things my mom was saying about him and hated him for it and felt so betrayed and I thought I was protecting him from getting sent to jail. One night he called and begged me to come over. I said I couldnt and he said well I just wanted to say goodbye face to face but I guess over the phone will have to do. He went on to say how much he loved me and not to cry for him and that he was sorry and well it sounded like I was never going to see him again. I kept trying to reasure him that mom would calm down soon and Id be able to se ehm again. HE hung up, he was crying. I had to see him. SOmething didnt seem right. I got to his house and there was pieces of ceiling all over the floor. There was a belt and a rope and blood, lots of blood. My dad was laying there in the floor, not moving. He died thinking I didnt love him. Wait, he is still breathing. I called 911 and ran, I did not want the police to get there and see that I was there and arrest my dad for breaking the restraining order. I had no idea if he was ok or not. I tried calling his house but his number had been disconected. I needed to know he was ok. I went back to his house. He was sitting on his chair in the kitchen. I ran to him and tried to hug him, he grabbed a knife and chased me out of the house saying how I ruined everything and that because of me he had so much pain that he had to live with and he NEVER wanted to see me again.
A month had passed and I had no contact with my dad at all. I thought about him all of the time. THe image of him lying there was permenently sketched in my head.
I was so nervous all of the time. Every noise made me jump. For 1 because my mom had gotten quite violent with me and for 2 because of everything that had gone on with my dad. THe phone started to ring, I was just going to ket it go to voicemail because I didnt want to talk to anyone. I wondered if it was going to be my dad and I wasnt sure I wanted to hear from him although I did want to know he was ok. THe answering machine answered and sure enough it was my dad. THis was the message he left "hey you little bitch answer your phone". THe phone rang again, I did not answer, just waited for the machine to get it. Message after message, meaner and more vulgar than the last.  The last one is one I will never forget, the anger in his voice, the words will haunt me forever "Hey you little slut, you must be too busy sucking cock with your mother to answer your fucking phone, it's ok daughter dear, I know where you live, I know what school you go to, I will get you!". I called the police and they made a big joke of it, they said that it technically wasnt considered a threat because he could of meant anything, maybe he meant get you a bag of chips. It was the same policeman who came to our house a few times now. I asked him if I called the police station right now and said the same words that I would be arrested on the spot, he said ya of course you cant threaten police officers. A few months prior a man came in and killed his ex wife and kids, so I used that situation and said I wonder how many times they called you asking for help and you said the same things. He told me I was an unruly teeanager and probably the cause of my parents divorcing in the first place.  My mom played on it saying how much harder I have made it on her and how I keep egging my dad on telling him about her new boyfriend and giving him our address and phone number and that I just like all of the drama and attention it brings. So it was all my fault.
Me and my mom had gotten into a big fight, she told me to leave and not come home. She said she was starting a new life and I was in the way. I knew it was because her boyfriend didnt like me. BUt she picked him over me. So fine. I was leaving, not completely sure of where to go, I knealed down to kiss my sister and tell her I loved her and would come back for her as soon as I could my mom saw me knelt down and kicked me in the side of the head. SHe told me not to upset the baby. I ran to go out the door and she pushed me down the stairs. I went to the riverside, I was sitting there throwing rocks into the water trying to come up with a plan. I didn't want any of my friends to know how bad things really were so I couldnt go to their houses, I couldnt go to my dad's. I was alone! I just sat there feeling sorry for myself. I satrted to vision my sister crying for me and my mom or her boyfriend hurting her. My moms boyfriend had smacked her a few times already and without me there to protect her who knows what they would do. I went to the police. I told them that my mom hurts me and that her boyfriend hurts the baby. It was hard to do but I had to! The secretary lady seemed to care, I showed her my bruises and the bump on my head. She put me through to an officer, noooooo it was him. He pulled me asside by my arm real tight and told me to knock it off. He told me he could not take anything I said seriously because I was just a teenager. No report was ever filed and he shoved me into his cop car and dragged me home to my mom and told her what I had said. She put on this show of how she begged me not to leave and didnt know what to do with me anymore. And as soon as the door closed behind the officer I got it.
I learned to live in the lies, I learned that asking for help was a big risk of not being beleived and having it get back to my mom. I had to deal with her to protect my sister, it was the only way. No one was going to help us, it was up to me.

The day that changed everything

Jan. 15, 14 days before my 15th birthday~
As I walked in the door from school I could feel the tension in the house. Something was wrong, very wrong! As soon as I walked in the door my mom in a very stern voice said "Sarah sit". I said "I am just gonna" and she said "sit!". I did not know what she was going to say but I could feel that I didn't want to. I sat down and she started to explain that my dad was going to move out and that she didnt know if it was going to be for a week, a month or forever but that they needed a break. HA I knew that couldnt be it. She was definitly joking. I just sat there and kept telling her to tell me the truth what was really going on. She had such a straight face no emotions. Then I saw my dad walking up from the basement, tears pouring down his face. He had a suitcase in his hands. He looked devistated. He kept saying he wanted answers. After 14 years of being together how could she just stop loving him. He did not realise I was already home. He tried to wipe his tears but as soon as he saw the look on my face after seeing his face he just completely broke down. He kneeled to my feet and cried. Trying to tell me that things were going to be ok and that he loved me no matter what and that he was sorry. I ran to my room. I was there about an hour just listening to the fighting. My dad was begging my mom not to do it, my mom was so calm through it all. She just kept saying she was done with this life.
I was upset but I knew in my heart that this would pass over.
My mom just stayed at the kitchen table. She never talked to me aout it at all, never an explination, she never even told me what the plan was, so really it couldnt be true. I beleived that she was just doing all of this to scare my dad and hurt him. Thats usually how their fights went. Shed over react, hed appologige and itd all be fixed again until the next time. If she really was serious then shed of come to tell me what was going to happen next and she didnt so it was all a bog joke.
My dad came into my room and sat on my bed. He asked me how I was holding up. I told him that I was confused and not to worry because mom was just being crazy and trying to hurt him. HE told me not to talk bad about my mom and that he woudl do his best to make things right. He sang me the song my girl and we danced in my room and cried and he just kept telling me not to forget how much he loved me.
He left that evening, and came back a few hours later and my mom wouldnt let him in. He was screaming outside that he wanted half of everything and Miranda was his not hers and he wanted her and the dog was his but she could keep the cat... What about me? Why werent they fighting over wo got me? That was the first day of many that I felt unloved, unwanted. Before that I knew I was their whole world! Now I wasnt even worth fighting over, but the big pots and pans and the nice dish sets, the baby, the dog, I tried to run out to see my dad but my mom blocked me and he turned his back. I was yelling at my mom to let him in and he yelled at me to stay out of it. What was going on? How could this be happening? I ran to my room.
The next week I was a mess. I barely spoke to anyone. Me and my mom barely said 2 words to each other. My dad was staying at his parents house. I tried to call but he wouldnt talk to me. I did not know what to think. My world was crashing down hard. My dad wouldnt even talk to me and my mom could barely stand to look at me.
I got up and was getting ready to go to school, I was in the bathroom, I heard a big crash and I didnt know what to do, stay in the bathroom, come out, i just crounched down and before I knew it my mom had opened the bathroom door, grabbed me by the hair, threw me in her room and we baracaded her bedroom door. Then
 another ig crash and yelling. My dad had come through our front door. He was yelling where is he I know hes here. My mom came out of the bedroom and they fought. Police were called and I just hid with the baby and out dog under my moms bed. It was a kind of fear I had not yet known. My dad was sure my mom was with someone else and that was why she kicked him out and my mom swears they were just friends. To this day I do not know the truth and probably never will, but I hated that guy!
Well Jan 29th, my birthday...  I was now 15 years old. A big day for me. I tried to call my dad, he actually came to the phone and said hi and asked how I was doing, but no happy birthday and he let me go fairly quickly. My mom didnt say a word to me. I tried to call my friends but none of them were home. I had plans to go to my cousins house but did not feel up to it but she didnt answer her phone either so I went anyways. When I got in my eyes were so swollen from crying, I could barely keep them open. My aunt answere the door and told me to go wash my face before going in to see my cousin. I walked downstairs and my cousin had this whole birthday suprise planned for me. All of the friends that were too busy to answer their phones were there. SUPRISE! I was so suprised! It meant so much to me. I asked if my dad was here as well and they said no, I asked if he knew about it or my mom and they said no. So it still didnt explain why they didnt care about my birthday. I spent the party really up and down. By the end of the party I just wanted to go home. As much as I appreciated what had been done I just wasnt feeling great. I called my mom and she told me to spend the night at my cousins. I said I just wanted to come home and she hung up. I spent the night and went home in the morning. I wasn't able to fully appreciate what I had because I was too focused on what I didn't. Instead of being grateful for the people who did care about my birthday I was foccused on the people who didn't until it felt like there was only people who didn't care, I secluded myself to feel so alone, as if I had no one left who cared, when in reality I had the best friends, teachers, aunts, uncles, cousins, so many people who really cared about me! In my head I just couldnt beleive that they really did because my own parents didn't. THe only 2 people who really knew me. How could anyone love me if my parents didnt. I beleived it was just a matter of time before they really got to know me and then wouldn't want anything to do with me. I lived in this fear of rejection. THe fear of letting anyone too close to be able to hurt me the way my parents were. I spent a lot of time and energy trying to get my parents love. I did everything and anything just to hear an I love you, to feel something from either one of them, but all I got was hurt. Mean words, hurtful actions, pushed asside. I felt so worthless! I started to distance myself from anyone and everyone, in fear of them getting fed up of me and because it reminded me so much of the life I had once known but lost. Seeing them with their happy parents was like a slap in the face that I had none! I didnt like feeling like that. I didnt wish that they were hurting like I was hurting but I did long for someone somewhere to know the pain I was feeling so I didnt feel so left out.
My mom was always going out and I had the baby with me all of the time! She was my whole life! Only person I could really trust, since she couldnt talk. Only person I could be myself around and she had to love me she had no choice. I took care of her. I fed her, I put her to bed, I played with her, I mothered her! She made me feel so happy inside! Just having me in her life made her smile. I was so important to her. I had to take care of myself cuz she needed me. SHe would hold onto my pinky so tight and not let go. She needed me. I started to really just make her my whole world, partly because I had to, my mom was never around and partly because I needed to. My marks started to really drop in school. I could not focus. I had to get home to take care of the baby. I didnt trust that anyone would care of her except for me.